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White House Finalizes 54.5 MPG Fuel Efficiency Standard
The Obama Administration announced today it has finalized new fuel efficiency standards that will require new cars and light-duty trucks to have an average efficiency of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This adds to the requirement that 2016's new cars must average 35.5 miles per gallon. "The final standards were developed by DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and EPA following extensive engagement with automakers, the United Auto Workers, consumer groups, environmental and energy experts, states, and the public. Last year, 13 major automakers, which together account for more than 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States, announced their support for the new standards." According to the administration, the standards will reduce dependence on foreign oil, save money at the pump, protect the environment, and everything else that sounds good in an election year.
US traffic injuries and fatalities will increase sharply in 2016, and again in 2025.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
At some point you just have to account for the laws of physics.
Pushing a vehicle at 80MPH down the highway is going to be hard to do and get 54.5 MPG. No matter how "hybrid" the car is, no matter how good your regenerative breaking.. once you're at highway speeds, air resistance becomes insurmountable.
Will increase in 2016 and then again in 2025 as it costs less to travel farther and traveling farther will seem more appealing.
If you want to decrease the dependency on foreign oil, decrease efficiency of the cars.
It doesn't matter, what ever might be on the books now will certainly change before they get enacted.
Of course, it'll be 13 years from now.
I, for one, am glad to have overlords confident enough to legislate physics.
This adds to the requirement that 2016's new cars must average 35.5 miles per gallon.
I hope they mean AT LEAST 35.5 miles per gallon, or my 60 miles per gallon super-car is doomed..
Force all new cars to use some alternatve fuel, one that doesnt just move the pollution and I will be happier.
Silence is a state of mime.
We should just stop subsidizing the oil and car industries. Stop subsidizing refineries. Stop giving tax brakes to oil companies. Stop subsidizing road development out of regular taxes. Gas will hit $10/gal and the problem will take care of itself.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
That someone has the balls and foresight to come up with something more like "As of 2015, vehicles of all types sold, operated and licensed in the US may not be powered directly or indirectly by a non-renewable energy resource.". Engineers..... GO!
Karma: Neutered
This time by about $2500-$3000. What a shame, really.
we don't have enough engineers to pull it off, better lower expectations instead.
Too bad the vehicles will cost $16,000 more (unadjusted for inflation).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It doesn't matter that these stricter fuel consumption standards will be in place in 13 years, because by then there will be so many more cars on the road than there are now, that we will *STILL* be consuming and polluting far more than we are today.
These standards need to be made to keep *AHEAD* of the curve, and account for the fact that the number of vehicles being used daily is continually rising. Instead of coming up with these standards for 13 years in the future, they should be making them for 3. If automobile manufacturers can't pull it off with all new cars by then, then it means less automobiles on the road anyways.... so it's win-win!
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
we could have those deaths in the middle east instead, where we send our young people to die, so we can fill our gas guzzling behemoths back home
personally, i'd rather just kill the gas guzzling behemoths. status conscious assholes should not drive our energy policy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
soccer mom texting in her gas guzzling behemoth, when wrecking with a subcompact, tends to survive better than the poor guy in the subcompact
so the real solution is to just get rid of the gas guzzling behemoths
but i guess some people want status conscious assholes driving our energy policy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He's got the wrong target. The most efficient vehicles are the ones that aren't on the road at all. Further proof that "if you can measure it, you can mismanage it".
The most efficient "car" I ever drove was a condo in the city. I even went without a car for a while. Driving was OPTIONAL there.
I have a car now, but still live close to commuter rail and within walking distance of many shops.
Policy makers should focus on making development more walkable. It wouldn't be bad for the economy either. You would get construction stimulus from building residences in commercial areas, and commercial buildings in areas such as the vast residential tract that I grew up in. With these spaces encouraging people to walk, ride bicycles, and drive less there would be knock-on benefits in health.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I got rid of my car about 1 year ago, and have never looked back.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
What about if you want to drive a sports car? I want as much MPG as I can get for a commuting vehicle. But If I'm using a sports car for leisure on the weekends, I don't want it's power restricted by MPG standards.
Suppose there are two cars that irreparably die at exactly 100,000 miles, and that gas stays at its artificially and temporarily low $4 a gallon. If Car A gets 28MPG, and Car B gets 35.5MPG but costs $3000 more, then you'll end up paying the same ($purchase_price + $fuel_price) for each.
If you exactly that to a perfectly reasonable 150,000 miles, then Car A would have to get at least 30.2MPG to make it a better deal. If gas goes to $10 a gallon like it is in UK, then Car A would have to get 33.1MPG to make it cheaper than Car B.
Basically, your math only holds for cars that aren't driven. If you actually use the multi-thousand-dollar vehicle you purchase, better gas mileage directly converts to cheaper per mile to operate.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The cost of gas and the amount consumed are two different issues. If you need gas to travel to and from work, you have no choice but to spend the money. This is where subsidization comes into play, an amount which is probably enough to maintain a stable economy. Then you have the issue of actual consumption per mile, which is affected by how much oil the US is able to secure and for how long it is able to secure it. There is a finite amount of oil and if the government knows exactly how much oil it has in its reserves, how much oil it consumes and how much oil it can import based on projected geo-political situations in oil producing countries, one factor in reducing dependance is to force car companies to increase fuel efficiency.
It will save nothing because of the exotic lightweight materials and processes required to make an 80mpg car (CAFE is an average!) that meets current safety standards. This will drive the cost of the car up so far that it will more than balance any savings in fuel/energy. Not to mention that road use taxes of various sorts will have to be invented and implemented to compensate for the "loss" of fuel tax revenues by the government. The net change in cost of driving is very unlikely to favor the consumer in this setup.
by 2025. Hybrids are a hot commodity now, and gas extended electrics are just beginning. Soon there will be a point where a gas engine will cost a lot more to build then electric... (In an engineering standpoint, the drivetrain of a petrol car is way more complex then electric. We're just waiting for battery packaging/recharge/swap technology to catch up, and once that's done they'll be no turning back to petrol except for edge cases.
Force all new cars to use some alternatve fuel, one that doesnt just move the pollution and I will be happier.
To be fair, they might as well say 'all cars will run on magic moonbeams by 2025', because it's about as likely to happen.
Huh, that's odd ... from the summary:
Last year, 13 major automakers, which together account for more than 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States, announced their support for the new standards.
So it's not going to happen but 90% of the auto industry are on board with it? Somebody's not telling me something ...
Just got back from a trip to GenCon on my motorcycle (Hayabusa). According to the bike (likely off by a little due to the stupid bike things), I averaged at least 50mpg for the entire 2,500 mile trip. Since the mpg indicator doesn't go higher than 50mpg, it could be even higher.
My wife had a smaller 250cc bike (Ninja) and was getting upwards of 100mpg and 75ish on her 650cc bike (Ninja).
I'd love to see more folks on bikes. Have motorcycle only lanes just like there are bike only lanes; split a current full sized lane into two dedicated motorcycle lanes :)
[John]
Shit better not happen!
This is just an effort to get the greenies to reelect the big O. It's also an unconstitutional mandate of private individuals in what they can purchase, and businesses in what they can produce.
We're nothing but peasants and serfs, here to serve the government, who apparently can take care of us better than we can ourselves.
it has finalized new fuel efficiency standards that will require new cars and light-duty trucks to have an average efficiency of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
Its a politician's job to tell lies. But tell a better one, like we're going back to the moon in a decade, or we're getting out of the middle east, or we're closing the concentration camp in Cuba, or going to mars in two decades or whatever BS. Its not even a good lie, its darn near believable, they should have made it 250 mpg. As far as lies go, this one was no good.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The all electric automobile company Tesla is way ahead of this bill and other car companies should be looking and learning from them.
The Tesla Roadster (Coup) reaches 0-60 in 3.7 seconds.
The Tesla Model S (Sedan) reaches 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.
The Tesla Model X (Crossover SUV) reaches 0-60 in 4.4 seconds.
The battery packs last 300 miles, the charge up time is only getting faster by the years, and the price to fully recharge is astronomically small compared to gasoline.
In a few years they will have more models, cheaper, other car companies will jump on the bandwagon, and we'll be set.
Also, I'm not going to sit here and listen to people talk about pollution, or how we are just transferring it to the coal plants.
Despite the fact that it is off-topic, I'm assuming people will bring it up and I'm dismissing it before they even do.
Electricity can come from many sources, and having one of the countries most in demand AND demanding products run on electricity is the first step to moving from coal to something like solar and wind power which is more profitable in the long term financially, and environmentally.
....when the only tool you have is a sledgehammer....
Forcing these standards onto an industry that is ill-equipped to provide them (American automakers have shown time and again that they are very bad at efficiency and reliability) will only drive up prices on used vehicles that the restrictions do not apply to. Who thinks up such short-sighted crap? Don't they see that this will just drive people away from buying new cars when we just barely coddled the American auto industry back to life again?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
There are many better ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption than mandating people drive go-karts to work. Plus a couple of hundred nuclear power plants would help.
Back in the late 90's and early 2000's vehicles I could fit into most cars without any problem (headroom)... Now I had to upgrade to a light truck so I didn't have to crunch my head into the car... classic example is the Fiat 500, where I would have to buy the convertible version, a leather helmet and motor goggles since my chin lines up square with the roof line of the car (I'm not a huge guy either, 6'2" with a longer torso)... Also unless there is a breakthrough with engine performance, auto companies will be forced to put smaller engines in there vehicles, which could lead to higher maintenance costs since the small 1.8 Liter i4 wasn't designed to toe your boat, trailer, or you and all of your friends.
The government needs to get there hands out of meddling with things that are important, since they have such a good track record. If they want to help, redirect the funds going to profit hungry domestic companies like GM and gear it to Mechanical engineering schools to design better engines, alternative fuel sources, or synthetic fuels.
According to the administration, the standards will reduce dependence on foreign oil, save money at the pump, protect the environment, and everything else that sounds good in an election year.
Then again, I'm in a bit of a pissy mood today (despite my sig), so I'm probably just looking for the negative (sorry).
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Keith Hennesey is an economic policy expert who worked for President George W. Bush. He wrote a very informative blog post about President Obama's CAFE announcement in 2009.
http://keithhennessey.com/2009/05/19/understanding-the-presidents-cafe-announcement/
If you accept that President Obama is a true believer in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, then it makes perfect sense that he would require the highest efficiency numbers he possibly could. (President Bush, not so much a CAGW believer, chose the "maximum net societal benefits" baseline.)
I am wondering how this new announcement compares with the "technology exhaustion" baseline.
I'm also wondering how a 54.5 MPG standard will impact prices and what the result will be. When new cars are more expensive, people try harder to keep old junker cars going, so if you make new cars more expensive you may keep people from upgrading to newer and more fuel-efficient cars. Making new cars as expensive as possible may reduce overall fuel efficiency of the cars actually in use.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The real reasons corporations support this is because is prevents their competition from moving in.
Plenty of Americans would drive a somewhat less fuel efficient car if they could buy it for under $5k. But then we'd start to see all the "other" brands much of the rest of the world enjoys come over here, and just imagine how much skoda/citroen/tata/chery/lada/etc will cut into profits!
Unlike the EPA, the CAFE MPG calculation hasn't changed in decades.
CAFE 54.5 MPG is more like EPA 35 MPG.
This 54.5 MPG is an average for an automaker's fleet of cars not for each individual model
GM to idle Michigan Volt plant for four weeks
That is despite $15,000 in dealership subsidies as well as local governments getting grants to buy them as well.
I do 6000 miles a year in my car, which at today's prices is about $1000 a year in gas. I don't think you understand the time value of money.
While they're at it, they can stop cities being drowned by global warming by ordering back the waves.
We're pretty much at peak point now. Actually, the most oil pumped was 2005 iirc. So the price will just continue to climb and the supply will continue to dwindle down. More and and more consumers will demand better mpg anyway. There are even reports that car sales are declining everywhere but China:
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/79493/demise-car
Will they ever learn that congress cannot legislate scientific discovery or innovation by merely passing more laws? The physical laws of the universe will trump congressional law every time.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
just admit that you want energy companies deciding US policy rather than the actual american people
stop with the bullshit nods to the miraculous marketplace, which has no meaning in this conversation. we are just talking about a choice between two different monopolistic modes: energy companies, or the US government. i don't understand people who see so much menace in their own democratic government, and less menace in oligopolistic multinational energy corporations (that corrupt your democratic government). personally, as a resident of a democracy, i'll go with the organization that is entrusted with our willpower, however flawed, than the organization entrusted with making profit by any means necessary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The last time the gov't raised CAFE standards in such a way, manufacturers just cheated their way into compliance by stretching the roofs on their subcompact sedans, and labeling them as light trucks, thus increasing the average mileage of their lines just enough to meet the new standard.
What gives anyone the idea that they won't use the exact same workaround this time?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Unfortunately, you will also end up driving more if you have a more fuel efficient car. It won't be a 1 to 1 increase but generally when things get cheaper people don't pocket the savings and live with what they had before, they use the savings to get more of the stuff. That doesn't invalidate your point, just another thing to add to the equation.
Is this the "EPA Estimated" MPG, or an actual road-test measured MPG? Big difference there.
On Slashdot everyone is above average.
while driving a Fiat 500.
In a collision you're generally better off if both parties are driving a small vehicle than if both are driving a large vehicle. The overall energy is less.
Fortunately the US will not exist in 2025. Possibly politicians like this will have been turned into biodiesel too.
now some other dude is putting his kids in a larger behemoth to survive a wreck with you, at your expense. the larger and more ridiculous gas guzzlers only affordable to those richer than you. which is the whole point of this nonsense: it is not about survival of the fittest, but about survival of the richest
at some point the american people will give up this ridiculous social darwinist religion and understand that you need to curtail the excess abuses of a social system where those with money win more money and everyone else scrapes by with less and less every year
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Care to show evidence that vehicle prices are increasing due to regulatory compliance? And if they are, then I see it as a way of "internalizing the externalities"--that is, making car owners pay for the costs of reducing their effects on everyone else.
We have one compact car in the family, I bike when I can. I think gas should be double the current cost like it is in Europe. Carbon-base fuels are currently way too cheap, there's no incentive to conserve.
To which problem, specifically, are you alluding?
The greatest difficulties encountered in politics are no longer approachable from a single, simple (minded) perspective. Especially when you are talking about changing western industrial lifestyles by requiring people to act in accordance with reasonable parameters defined by an ecological assessment of man's global impact on the natural world.
CAFE standards are part of a package of changes that no God Fearing, Tea Potty politician on 'the right' can argue without running afoul of the brimstone slinging bible thumpers or the politicos who want to drag them around by their good books.
Just look at all the so-called controversy surrounding the question of federal funding for low-income women who want to control their own reproductive system. It relates directly to the question of population control, which the 'Media' leads us all to consider to be one of the many third rails of politics.
The world needs many such stepping stones along the way to bringing human society into a condition where we might survive our own collective behavior.
I, for one, am happy that the House has the guts to start down the road toward reasonable change, though it's the tip of the iceberg. It'll take a decade of auto attrition before this has any real impact, and in the mean time, gas prices will have to go up to incentivise people to buy newer, more efficient cars and drive them fewer miles and less often, collectively.
And that's just gasoline consumption. What about happens when we're burning more methane without addressing population growth directly.
Pushing a vehicle at 80MPH down the highway is going to be hard to do and get 54.5 MPG.
The EPA test which is used to determine the official mileage of vehicles sold in the US does not include any driving at 80mph.
Additionally there are only a handful of places in the US where driving 80mph is legal.
-- QED
We can achieve these standards easily. The shift from steel to carbon fiber will allow us smaller engines/generators, lighter batteries, lighter motors, and start a feedback effect that should allow cars with 2x that range, with increased safety and lower costs of manufacture.
This is just way to shift the valuable oil resources from the masses to corporations and governments. The largest users of petroleum products are power plants, mass transportation of goods (i.e. shipping, trains, trucks, etc.) and the military. If all us peasants are using up all the oil to get to and from work or to get groceries or using it to move unmonitored about the country or world then the military won't have enough to go out and kill people.
Americans will have hit eco-fatigue and we'll be fighting some other doomsday scenario concocted by the politicians.
Recharging 10 gallons worth of electric is always going to take a lot longer than filling my car up with gas. Not something anyone will stop and do while they are out grabbing lunch. Swap aint going to work logistically. Gas works because you can pump it in a hose. Do you think cars would have caught on as much if you had to lift 20 gallons of gas in the form of a brick into your car? The first internal combustion engine design concepts were with gunpowder, they didn't work so well, then someone thought of using a liquid based fuel.
A battery concept with a refillable liquid would work well. (again my point, liquid can be pumped)
The car industry will delay and then claim it will cost too much and at some point they will have a favorable government or a recession they can throw at it to say that it would hurt the economy and make the US cars uncompetitive, blah blah. Never going to happen. Alternative powered vehicles will take market share before the average gas powered car hits this standard would be my guess. The average car might get more than 54.5mpg but not by increasing gas powered tech.
Too bad Tony Stark isn't real. I want a resilient repulsor powered car. http://images.wikia.com/marveldatabase/images/c/c6/Stark_Resilient's_Repulsor_Car.JPG
genetic survival is being determined by memetics
that is, the social policy of a society is determined by the beliefs of a society. well, if those beliefs create enough unhappiness, as you allude to, this becomes a pressure to change the beliefs of the society, which in turns changes the selective genetic pressures again
memetics: the competition of ideas, is becoming more important than genetics in homo sapiens
genetics is now second fiddle to the real story of evolution within homo sapiens. we are now vessels for ideas in our heads, rather than vessels for genes in our cells, and the competition merely moves to a new battlefield
take french society before the french revolution: if a rich aristocrat runs over poor boy, oh well. you are implying the unhappiness resulting from that has no meaning. but it does: the french revolution happens
likewise, with the russian revolution, the arab spring, etc.
the usa is entering a cycle. we had the labor unrests of a century ago resulting in a society with more concern for social welfare. now the venal types who say how much money you have in your bank should determine all, and screw everyone else, their beliefs are gaining traction. either that, or the idealistic naive types who think the marketplace is clean and perfect, and not prone to abuse, believe in what they believe, when their deluded beliefs actualyl result in those with money getting more money and those without getting less, regardless of hard work or merit or intelligence
classism rises. eventually, after some years, those who are poor not because of their inferior intellect, but just because of how they were born, they gain the upper hand again and we have a second american revolution of the undeserving poor taking over society from the undeserving rich
communism is of course stupid. but i wish society could stay committed to social safety nets and not have to have this endless pointless cycle between haves and havenots. that the haves admit they have to give more back to society because the fact they have more cash is not divine right, but just luck of the draw and because they were born in a society that gives them so much to start with. and those who havenot remain eternally vigilant about the encroachment of bad ideas that ensure they get even more poor
an ideal society is 90% middle class. but as we see in the USA the sea of poor grow in number, and a few with money make even more money, american society is headed along a cycle which result in revolt in the future. it will take time, but history speaks of this story time and time again. i just wish some of the idiots out there who believe in the perfect marketplace and don't trust their own democratic govt, see how the power of the rich and corporations is pointed in the USA right now against the health of the middle class
the choice is not between the perfect market and authoritarian govt. the choice is between the monopoly of YOUR democratic govt, and the oligopoly of corporations that corrupts your government and removes your livelihood and your rights. wake up, stop believing in fairy tales about some mythic pure marketplace that never existed and never will
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I ask because the increase in CAFE standards has been mirrored by an increase in truck sales vs. car sales (light trucks fall under a lower CAFE requirement, so can be built bigger, or rather, be built as big as cars of yesteryear). If you do a few calcs on the spreadsheet, you see the percentage of truck sales holds fairly steady from 1930-1970 at 15%-20%.
Then right around the time when CAFE was implemented (1975) truck sales start picking up, to where they now comprise about half or more of all personal vehicle sales. It's possible this shift in vehicle buying habits (I'm guessing due to CAFE causing cars to become smaller/lighter, though it's certainly debatable) could completely offset any benefit to CAFE. All the historical stats I find seem to list average MPG for cars, not average MPG for cars + trucks.
Year - trucks as % of all vehicle sales
2010 - 52.13%
2009 - 49.05%
2008 - 49.83%
2007 - 54.06%
2006 - 54.47%
2005 - 56.09%
2004 - 56.74%
2003 - 55.47%
2002 - 53.08%
2001 - 52.20%
2000 - 50.72%
1999 - 50.40%
1998 - 49.37%
1997 - 46.98%
1996 - 45.14%
1995 - 42.97%
1994 - 41.66%
1993 - 40.01%
1992 - 37.39%
1991 - 34.78%
1981 - 21.24%
1971 - 16.99%
1961 - 13.64%
1951 - 17.71%
1941 - 19.34%
1931 - 14.70%
I didnt go through all the comments, but do most posters realize its an AVERAGE of 54MPG across the automakers entire fleet?
As in, they can still have under 54MPG for certain cars, and others will be over, and they have to average out to 54.
Just some helpful info.
I think this is a job for Diesel's. MY VW passat does better than 54.5US gallons when in the hwy. My friend has a ford fiesta diesel that gets even better mileage around 70mpg (US gallons). And I am sure a diesel hybrid should be even better. I can't go back to driving gasoline autos. The torque in a diesel vehicle is just awesome. Trident is coming out with a diesel sports car that will do 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds and a fuel economy of 57.4mpg and that car's engine is built by GM.
What really needs to be done is to cut the tax breaks and subsidies for energy production in this country. The government gives massive handouts to the oil industry making the gas at the pump unrealistically cheap. What you pay is incredibly low because the companies are getting government handouts (in form of subsidies and tax breaks). If we paid the true price of gas at the pump, driving a giant SUV would show its true impact on our wallets. With the government handouts, the true price of fuel is shared among all Americans, so even if you're driving a Chevy volt and you're not spending any money at the pump, you are paying through the nose for the gas that your neighbor puts into his Chevy Suburban. The subsidies and tax breaks are in the billions, and we're all sharing in that burden. If people want to drive giant cars, let them drive giant cars, just don't make me pay for their damn fuel.
No need to go that far.
Just switch to diesel.
For an additional cost of around $1500-2000, a 20% or more increase in MPG isn't at all unrealistic. I can get 43mpg in my Golf TDI doing 75 on the interstate with A/C on all day long. Slow down to 65 and turn the AC off and it's closer to 50.
And what happens when inconvenient organic material, like, say a deer, comes in front of the lead car?
Instead of a 2s buffer between cars, you've got 5 feet. So you've got 2 miles of cars crashing into each other.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
There will always be pathological cases such as yours that skew the findings. The average American drives 13,500 miles per year. Lets assume a worst-case scenario where one person drives a different car and you don't have multiple people sharing a single car (and thereby putting more than the average number of miles on it). Your numbers would indicate that you get about 24MPG. Into 13,500 miles, that gives $2,250 per year in fuel costs per person. At 35.5MPG, that would be $1,520. I appreciate the time value of money, and enjoy spend $730 a year less of it.
That all assumes that gas prices never go European. At the UK average price of $10/gallon, your car would cost the average drive $5,625 a year in fuel. A car meeting the proposed standard would cost $3,802, or $1823 a year less.
In your perfect world, your clunker is cheaper to drive (even though it's dumping 27% more pollutants into the air per mile and making the air suckier for everyone). In the real world, 35.5MPG cars are cheaper for the average driver.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
So in the worst case, you get more use and enjoyment out of the exact same capital investment. I'm not really seeing a downside to this. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Given the new average fuel efficiency goals, how far away are the auto manufacturers are from meeting those goals? Seems to me we're currently not close to those goals right now...
What happened to my news for nerds site? A degenerate political argument devoid of data? The ignorance of about half these posts is frightening.
First, we clearly can build a car that averages 54 mpg. Because, you know, we've done it. Might not be easy or cheap for a fleet, but there's no physical impossibility.
Next, decreasing the weight of a small car = more fatalities. Decreasing the weight of a big car = fewer fatalities.
Here's a cite: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/808569.pdf
Please take your free-market an shove it. The roads are a public space, balancing the rights of many. Eg those that want primarily to spend less on transportation AND those that are worried primarily about their personal safety or, to capture the rest of this kind of post: those that don't want a texting idiot killing them and those that just have to send a text right away. The right decision on use of public space lies through the democratic process (you know, we elected the president), and there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer.
Finally, this is slashdot. Aren't we supposed to be technological optimists and engineers that believe we can solve problems and make the world a better place?
Or have I just crossed a generational divide, and need to get a "get off my lawn" sign?
I thought all car makers pretty much just lied through their teeth when stating what the MPG was for one of their cars...
They could make the 2025 target tomorrow.
You may notice just prior to the target the EPA takes a big layoff hit in an effort save money or something. "Well we would go test all those cars, but we have no money, so we just take them at face value"
So they'll just re-introduce the 55 MPH speed limit, which was done to save energy.
It depends entirely on the design of the car and engine. I get 4 additional miles per gallon (mpg) when cruising at 65 rather than 55. I was surprised and repeated the measurements several times. Verified the onboard computer's reported mpg against the odometer and actually gas consumed (top off at same fuel pump before and after).
Perhaps 55 was some sort of average efficiency point for vehicles of the 1970s but I expect a higher efficiency point with today's designs.
My motorcycle gets 44MPG and will smoke every Prius or other zero emissions vehicle available to the general public (maybe not a Tesla, but I'd still take one on).
I'll bet they're a lot happier than you when the weather is rainy, snowy or hot as hell, though. Most of us have to drive out of necessity every day and only on the iPhone is it always 73 and Sunny.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Recharging 10 gallons worth of electric is always going to take a lot longer than filling my car up with gas
There is a world market for at most five computers.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Care to show evidence that vehicle prices are increasing due to regulatory compliance?
Go try to buy an airbag and get back with me...
Karma: Bad
The CAFE standard for small cars in 2012 is 36 MPG. That translates to an EPA window sticker of .... 27 MPG. ... 21 MPG
The CAFE standard for large cars in 2012 is 28 MPG, which translates to an EPA window sticker of
The CAFE standard for small cars in 2025 is 61 MPG, which translates to an EPA window sticker of .... 42 MPG. .... 34 MPG.
The CAFE standard for large cars in 2025 is 46 MPG, which translates to an EPA window sticker of
So we're talking less than today's PRIUS by 2025. Big whoop.
As a LEAF driver, and a TDI jetta before that... i had actually lost touch with how horrible most cars remain. This goal is well within the reach of technology now. Most people just like to push a 2.5ton cube through the atmosphere at 90mph, and that doesn't end up being very efficient.
Why would it mean that? There's more than two variables (engine and fuel type) that go into how much MPG a vehicle gets.
And right now, the coolest American muscle cars ever made are being produced. Camaro ZR1, Boss Mustang, Challenger, etc... I drive V-8 cars because I enjoy them. I don't drive a lot, maybe 5,000 miles a year in V-8s (rest of the time in on a motorcycle getting 50MPG) but I love those 5,000 miles and I love cruising in a large comfortable vehicle with plenty of power. Does that make me a bad person? Is the government really going to take my cars/SUVs away?
I'm being serious...
By that time we'll all be using Dr. Fusion engines!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Because I get better than 76mpg over here in the UK (admittedly Imperial gallons, but that still works up to more than 54 US) and on a large modern car five-seating saloon that goes over 121 mph on the flat (though it takes some time to get there) with all the mod cons that you insist are making the 20 year old designs you in the USA ***used*** to have that did better than 55mpg.
So, not only the people, but the air itself must be much thicker than the rest of the world....
The "downside" is that it doesn't end up reducing environmental impact, gasoline consumption, or the net cost of owning the vehicle by as much as it otherwise would. It is still a good thing but it doesn't do as much towards reaching the intended goals of setting MPG requirements in the first place.
Is that President Romney will quash this bullshit requirement in 2013.
As someone who likes performance cars, this fucking sucks.
I'm all for raising taxes (a LOT) on fuel to 1.) boost revenues for schools and shit (likely, politicians' boats, of course) and 2.) encourage people to drive a more sane car.
But don't you fucking tell me I can't have a weekend fun car.
Not used to arcane measurement units.
Unfortunately Americans are incapable of:
a) Realising that you don't drive a diesel like petrol
b) Driving anything with a manual transmission
Americans can do both just fine.
But there are hardly any diesel cars to buy (just trucks) and hardly any manuals sold to us either - things like the Juke for example, only come with an automatic when you want AWD.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
there is this technology called high speed trains. In real countries like China they go more than 200 mph.
Is that fast enough for you, or do you want to stick your head out of the window?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I dont see how they'll achieve this by 2025 unless they average in alot of this 99-mpg electrics. A Republican administrationin the meantime will moderate this regulation.
My cousin, who also lives in Seattle, pays about 1/20th what it costs in gasoline to go the same distance with a plug-in electric car with a gas assist.
Maybe you should stop using coal or oil to make electricity with, and switch to something better?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The reason was this: all company leasning cars should fulfill the standards to be eligible for large tax breaks. All government/state/county/authority/etc. vehicles and so on, should all fulfill the emission standards.
So while it would seem ridiculous that the manufacturers could just take a standard, and "bend" physics to cut consumption in half, it looks like it did. BMW, Audi, VW, Volvo and all the rest are now making full size cars that are making 50-55mpg. Because of regulations. And everyone is pleased to pay less at the pump.
It could be either that I'm too pessimistic, or you're too optimistic.
In my opinion, Hell will suddenly exist, and then freeze over before most cars... or even 25% of them are non gas powered. We've had the technology to have gas-free cars built for decades. We could have been doing research to make them far more efficient and better for those decades. But the oil companies won't allow that to happen... they have too much riding on gas-powered cars. Eventually, we'll reach peak oil, but that won't matter one bit because with us currently spiraling faster and faster into the caste system, only the upper caste will own cars anyway, while the rest of us fight for their scraps.
You can also split variable energy - wind, solar, tidal, etc - into Hydrogen by splitting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Or storing it in fuel cells. They have even run entire trains in Canada that have fuel cells for power plants - on that scale it's cheaper than many fuel sources.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Average efficiency? Is this some thing where the manufacturers have to sell x efficient vehicles in order to sell y inefficient but profitable models?
If I follow that correctly, no wonder "Thirteen major automakers, including General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, have endorsed the new standards." 13 major automakers basically have the low and middle market all sown up - the efficient vehicle market. It's implausible to begin competing in that market, where scale economics is so strong. Any niche or boutique auto maker, they're stuffed.
The UK approach is to vary the annual road tax based on emissions. I had figured it would be a net tax hike, but it's actually pretty easy to be paying quite a lot less even with a midrange car with fairly basic eco credentials. There's a couple of reasons it works even more effectively than you would think, given that the road tax is actually a pretty small part of an annual car costs.
So consumers want high mpg cars anyway, the road tax is just another small reason. But in business, it's more significant. The road tax savings maybe do not add up to a lot in the context of the entire business, maybe not a lot to each car operator, maybe not a lot to the shareholders, but typically there's one guy who manages all the cars, and to him all those savings really do add up. This is the guy who makes the fleet purchasing decision. That in itself is significant, but the auto makers love the guy who makes the fleet purchasing decision more than all their other customers and they tailor any fleet-compatible type of car to what the fleet buyer wants.
Oh and the co2 approach flows through for tax aswell. If you are given a company car in UK you are taxed on it's value as if it were cash (roughly). But they changed it to co2, so now those getting more efficient vehicles are making a tax saving. Everybody agrees with the fleet buyer what a great job he's done this year.
If you're going to manipulate the market, use economics and apply it to the demand side.
This mileage goal sounds more drastic than it really is. According to Edmonds:
If you go by the official literature, window stickers, real-world experience, and so forth, it's easy to think "they'll never be able to hit an average of 54.5 MPG, that's asking too much." But those aren't the numbers that CAFE relies upon. In 2016, the CAFE standard will nominally require a 35.5 MPG average, but that corresponds to an EPA window-sticker rating of just 27 MPG.
the morons are alive, well and injecting trolls into Slashdot.
Just explain to me what makes this unconstitutional, Mr. Scalia.
look at poor T.Rex...
Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses known, but its TOO deadly. It kills to efficiency and quickly and therefore has little chance to propagate far and wide.
When a strong organism dominates too effectively, it may have no one or thing left to support its dominance.
I never liked that video. Try putting the weighty engine and transmission back into that 1959 before the test, then crash them head-on and square (not quarter panel to quarter panel).
Either you're going 80, or you're going 20*.
* Ok, really 70-75 and 25-30, but typically either traffic is blazing along or else it's jammed up and slow. I don't usually see traffic going at the speed limit unless there's construction or there are cops around. I'm mostly on 101, 680, or 280; 237 does tend to go 40-50 at rush hour in the reverse-commute directions, though sometimes the sheep are going faster than the cars.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
One problem with the light-weight high-mileage cars is that while they're fairly safe if they're only going to collide with other light-weight cars, they're not made to survive collisions with SUVs. So until a lot of the low-mileage cars age off of US highways, we won't be seeing a lot of the smaller cars around. Sure, Priuses will do ok, but things like the Smart Car just don't offer enough protection. (The Smart Car's also a lot lamer and less cost-effective than you'd expect. I priced them last year, gas mileage was only about 35-40, and you had to spend about $17K to get an automatic transmission and air conditioning, vs. the bare-bones model. If I lived in San Francisco I'd have considered it anyway, because of parking convenience, but just downsizing from a full-sized van to a smaller car makes a huge difference.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, but the time it takes the earn enough money to buy those 10 gallons worth of gas might change the equation a bit.
And when you start looking at the external costs involved in "filling my car up with gas", it changes yet again.
There really isn't any reasonable argument left for why we need 6000 lb personal vehicles that run on gasoline. And truly, the world will go on after this 19th century technology is finally supplanted.
You are welcome on my lawn.
by 2025? what will gas cost by then, $10/gal? so with inflation thats basically saying we will be where we are now? math wizards please feel free to correct.
For starters, you talk about making grille openings smaller? On many vehicles, the grille openings are functional. The radiator (or even the air intake piping) may be placed behind it, so it needs to have good airflow. I'm not sure your idea provides a net benefit in many situations, and that's why you aren't seeing it done.
As for weight savings, I agree to a point. Some of this is the result of "old school" thinking and preferences of a generation who believed a big, heavy car had a better feel on the road and was safer. But you're seeing a shift away from those ideas, even with companies like Cadillac with their new ATS sport sedan. It's far lighter weight than the CTS sedan that came before it. But suggestions like using carbon fiber in place of sheet metal for more weight savings are probably largely ignored by the auto industry because it lacks durability. Anyone who "mods" their sports car with aftermarket parts for looks/styling can tell you, carbon fiber side-skirts or "ground f/x" tend to break off in pieces and develop nasty stress cracks with time. The material works a bit better for a component like a hood, where it won't take as much abuse from flying pebbles/rocks while driving, or accidentally scraping it on a curb. But still, saying carbon fiber is "stronger" than aluminum doesn't tell the whole story. Metal body parts absorb impacts by denting or creasing. That can be popped back out (such as you see with paintless dent removal places) pretty inexpensively. Carbon fiber just chips, cracks or snaps. A sheet of glass has a lot of strength too. (Try pulling it apart to "tear' it in two.) Doesn't mean it's not liable to shatter when stressed in a different way.
As for the auto transmission torque converters, what alternatives are you suggesting? I used to drive a Jeep Patriot with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Pretty slick in concept, but not at all durable in reality. Most Patriot owners I knew had a CVT die of an internal bearing failure after 70K miles or so on the road. Plus, it was WAY more expensive to have fixed than a standard automatic transmission. Even the fluid it took was a special, very costly type since it had to have certain friction properties that changed with temperature.
I had a 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon, which got about 27mpg when new. Toyota didn't really make an equivalent car last year, and I wanted a wagon or at least a hatchback. Ended up with a Kia Soul.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Don't try to handwavium away the FACT that the OP was COMPLETELY BATSHIT INSANE WRONG.
Just don't.
That said, if they're being made in the USA, what makes you say they're using british gallons rather than US?
for anyone who says "bigger cars are safer" ... 50 years of automotive engineering
You conflated 'bigger' with 'newer.' All else being equal new designs are safer than old designs. All else being equal a heavier fleet of vehicles is safer than a lighter fleet. Both are true.
I guess you would prefer not to have to hear the latter despite the fact that incident statistics prove it. Too bad. Policies that lead to lighter vehicles also produce more injuries, injuries of greater severity and more deaths. An honest advocate would acknowledge this and explain why this is the correct trade off.
Hard choices are hard. The honest argument is that a higher rate of crippled and dead commuters is preferable to the current level of fuel consumption and pollution. A lower standard of living due to higher costs of vehicles, vehicle maintenance, fuel and other incidentals created by efficiency and environmental regulation is preferable to the current level of fuel consumption and pollution.
That's how you make an honest argument. It's not easy, but you can't convince people with bullshit. All you can do when your argument is bullshit is accumulate enough other bullshitters and force a policy through. While that tactic works, as it has here, it also gives license to your opponents to use bullshit to further their agenda as well.
So don't complain when you find yourself buried in bullshit; you we're shoveling it at least as hard as anyone else.
My Prius in Canada was spec'd at 4.2L/100km which is 56mpg. Our actual consumption is closer to 5.5L/100km, though.
... dynamics, in particular. None of those will pass US safety standards, and are unlikely to pass the new quartering impact standards likely to be imposed between now and 2020.
That's exactly my point.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It is ridiculous to measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon. That totally ignores payload moved. My 2004 Ford E-350 Extended Body van is far more efficient than a Prisus or any of those new fangled pseudo-green cars because I transport full loads including back hauling rather than running around with one person in the car for errands or commuting.
The real measure should be pounds moved miles per gallon. PMPG. Except it should be metric.
Does the fleet average include electric vehicles with their mpg-equivalent rating? Cars like the new Tesla sedan (89 MPGe) could bring up the average quite a bit.
A little Hagar for the day...
I took my new car in bragging how it was getting 41mpg. My first service they upgraded the EPROM. Guess what my mileage is now?
31.8 mpg after the software upgrade. Auto mfgr's have this under control and big oil is playing the supply side just right. Notice how the gas prices are high for summer?
In addition to what people are saying about how CAFE standards are measured, and how japan and europe have cars with that economy right now, I thought I should point out that fuel economy is not a linear scale. The difference between 20 to 21 miles per gallon is more than the difference between 21 to 22 miles per gallon.
Here's the third link I found in a google, don't skip it just because it says "green" in the url - it has good numbers and charts.
http://green.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/more-thoughts-on-all-that-gallons-per-mile-stuff-with-pretty-ch/
Actually, thanks to new battery technologies such as dry-electrode lithium-ion batteries and carbon nanotube ultracapacitors, we may see by 2020 electric automobiles about the size of a Volkswagen Golf--with the battery pack the same volume size as the current Golf's gas tank!--go possibly 800 km (497 miles) on a single full charge cycle. If that becomes reality, the age of the gasoline and diesel fueled automobile will come to an end--and everyone in urban areas can breathe a lot easier since we will start seeing lower and lower air pollution as long-range electric cars take over.
The only way this will work, is if all "vehicles" look like a moped. After they get everyone driving those, then the "required" uniform will then look like a chairman Mao suit, and then we'll all be happy little "comrades". Waving a magic wand and mandating an entire industry to achieve a certain fuel standard is a good way to kill off an entire industry. Another notch in Obama's belt to bring down the American way of life a peg or two. Why he hates America can be found by watching the 2016 movie.
I'm pretty surprised that no one mentioned public transportations...
In my opinion the best way to save energy is to bet on public trains, buses, tramways, metros, etc. at least in cities.
Cars could be rental only, for weekends and/or small holidays.
More unrealistic demands by the government to drive consumer prices up on what is for most the 2nd most expensive purchase of their lives, even more if you consider the lifespan of the average car compared to a home and that in theory a home actually appreciates in value.
But then again, by then there may not be an economy at all, so car prices will be the least of our worries.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How is public transit more time-efficient when someone has to make three connections to get across town? Or when it doesn't run at all for 36 to 60 hours at a time (Saturday night to Monday or Tuesday morning)? Or when it doesn't go within reasonable walking distance of certain places anytime?
Truthfully, one of the most fuel-saving things the government could do would be to encourage work-from-home and telecommuting. That doesn't sound as impressive though.
Especially because several companies (such as Nintendo) would claim that work-from-home poses an unacceptable trade secret disclosure risk.
They'll still be able to get to work or retailers, only they'll take less trips to do it and learn to conserve gas. They'll use the small sedan to go get groceries instead of the giant SUV.
How will that help them take fewer trips? They still need a vehicle big enough to fit all the people and groceries, and they still need to make a trip at least every other week because that's how long milk lasts.
Europeans drive a lot less -- by living closer to where we work and using public transport more.
Is that why stores in the Netherlands are closed on Sundays, to give public transit drivers a day off?
eventually shees gunna devorce you stupid whyte nyte respektable mang
and I haven't read the article linked, but I have read the NHTSA press release.
First of all, the 2025 MPG is augural -- the NHTSA is statutorily prohibited from setting standards more than five model years in the future. Secondly, the numbers of 49mpg is based on their estimate of the maximum achievable fleet-wide technology. The 2025 number is a *projection* of the requirement the NHTSA estimates that they will propose sometime around 2020.
A better link is:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/08/nhtsaepa-20120828.html
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Ok, so you don't like big cars because you got a little car? Well, let's say you go into a bar and you got an average face and average body. The people in the bar are "better and bigger" than you. So guess what? Life sucks and you go home by yourself. The bigger/better people get laid, have kids and you don't! And then, you get taxed unfairly and have to pay for the birth and the education of their kids which you didn't have because you "got a little car".
So what do you do? You tell your friendly government officials to even things out. They come up with a great plan, SAFE. Simple Average Fornication Experience. So now you, average and small, get to play with the "big" boys and girls. But what really happens is that while you still don't get laid you are no longer a loser, just average. Yippe, yeah big govenrment!
You'd be surprised how many European Assholes drive the same behemoth cars the American Assholes drive.
[Dark Helmet] How many assholes we got on this road anyway?
[many drivers]YO!
[Dark Helmet]I knew it. I'm surrounded by assholes! [puts helmet down] Keep driving, assholes!
The cost of the 2nd vehicle plus the environmental costs of the production of that vehicle can not be covered by the improved fuel efficiency of that mythical vehicle.
Unless a few dozen people share that second vehicle through a car rental company.
you have effective government, effective regulation
it does begin "we the people" you know. it is supposed to represent you. so make sure it does, remove the corruption
i don't understand people who think government is the source of the problem. the government is corrupted, and ceases to be an effective force against corporate power. it is an EFFECT, not a CAUSE
yet some fools want to weaken government. thereby what? allow the corporations unfettered rapacious profitmaking? do you think they respect your rights and freedoms? so support the ONLY effective means at your disposal to fight the force: your own government
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and everything else that sounds good in an election year
this isn't just something that sounds good in an election year. this is just common sense.
on the other hand, voting against common sense is not necessarily the best thing to do in an election year. hence the timing.
there's no reason for the US driver to buy so much gas. except, maybe, that that's just how the oil guys like it.
There will almost certainly be a waiver for vehicles over a certain GVW. If a vehicle has a capacity over a certain point it will be exempted and can (and will) be made with fuel consumption around 10-15mpg just as they are today...and people will buy them and claim all the same bullshit reasons (big family, safety, etc). Look...the cars are not the problem. It's the attitude that creates the market for the gas guzzlers that is the problem. People across the pond have been happy to drive smaller and more efficient cars for years. What's our hangup?
Even if the 54.5 m.p.g. goal is reached, most cars and trucks will get lower mileage in real-life driving. Credits for air-conditioning units in vehicles will reduce the average mileage to about 49 m.p.g., and actual driving conditions could reduce it further.
When there's just one of you in the vehicle why pay fuel costs and emissions to lug large amounts of steel around. Especially in cities.
Something like this is an awesome commuter vehicle. And when I have spare funds I will be getting one!
http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/
Why is everyone using future tense in this discussion. Here in Europe we have many cars that do 54mp(US)g [About 65mp(UK)g]. Firstly move from petrol to diesel. Even my mid 2000s SUV gets 45mp(UK)g with its 2.0l BMW diesel. Modern cars such as VWs Blue Motion Polo are getting around 85mp(UK)g.
On thing I didn't see on your list was 'Medical Reasons'. My grandfather is disabled; he can still walk, but not well. Getting out of a seat is difficult for him. Cars are built too low for him - he buys trucks because he can step into them, and drop out. He can't climb out of a seated position. Mom has a different issue but the same difficulty - can't get out of low seats. She drives a small SUV because of this.
I can't imagine that with our, on average, aging population that these issues are all that rare.
I own a truck for towing/hauling. I do so about twice a week. 90% of the time though, you'd count me as 'has truck, isn't doing anything needing a truck'. Fact is that my truck is fuel efficient enough that I can't justify buying a car to leave the truck home - the extra insurance would cost more than the saved gas.
On being surprised at the short people wanting a taller vehicle to see better - It doesn't surprise me. Shorter body = shorter in the seat, losing critical inches out on the road.
On NYC - one can argue that the construction workers, most of them, don't 'need' trucks either. Their employer needs the trucks.
I don't read AC A human right
This isn't exactly good news for the American consumer and our economy. This will add $3,000 dollars to the price of most cars. People won't buy new more fuel-efficient cars, they'll hang on to their old gas guzzlers instead. (I drive a 17 year old Buick that I won't get rid of because new cars aren't as safe.)
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
"And there are even more things that you can't do without some kind of truck."
Cowgirls?
Gasoline in the US is currently far cheaper than in the UK
US Fuel Price: 0.98 per litre
UK Fuel Price: 2.23 per litre
Most of that is tax. Whilst it's certainly not going to help the economy in the short term, I'm really glad the UK is pushing in this direction. Fuel prices are only going to rise. The sooner we are weaned off gasoline, the better we're going to be to handle changes in the world economy, including both Asia's increased demand and Peak Oil.
Every time I go to visit my parents in the US I am astounded that they are still continuing to build suburban sprawl. Could you imagine what would happen to those areas if the gas price hits the UK levels?
this is so lame I'm driving an 89 Mercury Tracer getting 35mpg now to this day....Almost twentyfive years old..... and we can't even double that in almost 50 years....
The issue is that these higher standards will force car makers to build cars lighter and lighter thus making them unsafe.
Make the cars with smaller engines. Next make the cars smaller. etc...
The point being they want to do away with cars/trucks entirely and force reliance on public transportation.
Putting diesel engines in these cars will give you the mileage without having to do that much re-engineering. There are lists of cars all over the internets which will do this 55mpg now, given another 10 years of engine development and regenerative battery technology, then even the most "brick-like" truck or SUV will be diesel/electric and capable of 70mpg.
55 mpg by 2025?
My new Toyota Yaris (straight diesel, not a hybrid) has now done 5500 miles - at an average 62.6 mpg. Includes maybe 2000 miles on the motorway at about 65-70 mph, the rest tootling about. How come Toyota can do it, and US manufacturers can't get near? Perhaps the will is not there...
*I had a Toyota Corolla, a very small car then, now have a Prius. It consistenly gets 45 mpg or better and is a mid size car.
Coincidentally, is a mid size vagina as well.
As a (presumably) hetero male, isn't that exactly what you'd want to get inside of?
:-P
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Personally I would prefer to be driving the Fiat 500 in any case, but it really has nothing to do with potential accidents :D
Especially the Fiat 500 Abarth. :)
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Automatic transmissions also tend to add about $1000 to the price of a mid-range car, are more likely to have problems and are considerably more expensive to fix when things do go wrong. They also tend to be in the wrong gear when you need them (CVTs may reduce that issue somewhat. I don't know.).
We've got a Prius with a CVT (continuously variable transmission), and another car with a regular automatic transmission. I've been driving both this week. The CVT doesn't have gears, really, so there simply is no wrong gear to be in. CVTs also have smoother acceleration curves, as there is no shifting between gears, so no sudden drop in acceleration as the transmission up-shifts.
There's also the coolness factor -- the first CVT was sketched out by Da Vinci way back in 1490. :)
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
And how long have we been waiting on the battery packaging/recharge/swap technology to catch up? Oh right...
The average gasoline internal combustion engine is only 20% efficient. That is to say, only 20% of the energy present in the fuel-air mix at ignition is reclaimed as mechanical energy by the engine; the rest is lost as heat. A further 90% of the energy harnessed by the engine is used to keep the engine itself running; pumps, belts, fans, and transmissions all take energy to run. That means only 2% of the energy present in the gas tank makes it to spinning the wheels. And that's with the air off! So you can see, there's a lot of room for improvement. Turbo Diesel engines are half again as efficient than a gasoline engine of the same weight. If every gas engine were swapped for a Deisel engine, the US could stop oil imports from all other countries except Canada. And that's just going from 2% efficiency to ~3%. If you were to add gas turbines in the exhaust system to capture some of the waste heat, essentially making a multiple-expansion engine, you could easily tripple or quadruple current mileages. Combine such an engine system with and electric powertrain, like the Chevy Volt, and regenerative braking and you could have a 100MPG car within the decade. All using existant technology. So don't tell me a 54MPG fleet average is unattainable. If it was, the car makers themselves wouldn't have agreed to it.
Oversized grill openings are a styling cue nowadays. Supposedly it makes the car look more aggressive or something like that. I think it's ugly myself, but whatever. However, all you have to do is go back to the early-mid 90's when small grill openings was the in thing to see that you can shrink them down quite a bit with no adverse effects.
1) this is the AVERAGE FLEET MILEAGE for domestic car manufacturers.
2) Yes, you can still buy a puppy-killing SUV. Most of the OTHER cars will need to be all electric to make up for it.
3) You can't make a 55 MPG car. This is an effort to get serious about dropping our fuel dependency. At least someone is presenting a real answer.
4) You are all morons
Hey Obama, how about just mandating all cars will have to be "perpetual motion" by year 2030. It is amazing how clueless our government is.
I would be twice as effective, I would just set the MPG mandate to 109 mpg. Such a simple job!
Most people are Zombie Breeders who double, triple, or quadruple the environmental damage they do by making babies. So, what difference will it make if cars get 54 mpg. In 35 years, there will be twice as many drivers. Last week, in Texas, there was a red tide that killed tens of thousands of fish. Don't you get what's happening? Our oceans which make 75% of Earth's oxygen are dying. Google: red tides, ocean dead zones, and mass fish kills to monitor how long you have to live. Perhaps, only 20 years. The worst Ocean pollution is agricultural runoff, all those nitrates and insecticides kill the photo synthesizing plankton. Incredible that the Democrats pay women to breed with Welfare, and then claim to be environmentalists, or that people have 6 kids and then claim to be environmentalists because they drive a hybrid. That people can be so stupid and egotistical is a death sentence for our Earth. A Mass Extinction is coming, it's just a question of when. So, live it up while you can. For more wisdom, read the ebook, "The Healthcare Guide for Republicans, ebook at Amazon or Apple. I explain in the first 2 pages how to get free Healthcare at our nation's Hospitals so it's well worth the money. mensunion org
I'll believe it when I see it. 54.5 mpg? We have a LONG way to go.
I'm stuck with a long and miserable commute, and I'm highly motivated to maximize my fuel economy. I couldn't afford a hybrid, even with all the incentives, so I got the most fuel efficient conventional car I could lay my hands on at the time. I get 38.0 mpg, which isn't bad, but the difference between this and my last car makes 54.5 mpg look impossibly far away.
This thing weighs 1/3 what my old car did, has fewer cylinders, more than a liter less displacement, it's miserably cramped with no room to haul anything larger than a couple of small duffle bags. For all this sacrifice, I gained about 10 mpg. I don't think I could get the other ~20 in anything that could actually survive driving 100 miles a day through the mountains surrounded by 18-wheelers. This miserable little econobox is plenty torture enough, thanks.