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How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025
concealment writes "At the end of August this year, the US Department of Transport's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new standards to significantly improve the fuel economy of cars and light trucks by 2025. Last week, we took a look at a range of recent engine technologies that car companies have been deploying in aid of better fuel efficiency today. But what about the cars of tomorrow, or next week? What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings that will get to the Obama administration's target of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025?"
cars suitable for average daily use by more than half the people with that kind of fuel efficiency have been available for decades.
but if people would buy on fuel economy rather than power/torque we'd get a lot more bang for our oil buck.
__
ServersINseconds Australian web hosting.
Start importing cars made for the european market. We have loads of those cars here.
For produces the 3 cylinder turbo direct inject engine here in America. But due to tax regulations and big oil with their hand in every pot of the USA they are not allowed to sell them in the USA. Many German cars in there diesel versions in Europe can exceed the 60MPG mark due the necessity of their higher fuel prices than the US.
We'll use European cars that already get that sort of milage! Not sure if Americans know, but cars in the US are stupidly large for no good reason. Might help the fuel bills to get a smaller, more practical car. Oh yeah, some people in the US are stupidly large, for no good reason either. Might help food bills...
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Why was it apparently so easy back then?
A) Instead of building lots of new tollbooths (you know they will), replace each of 'em with a Taco Bell drive-through.
B) Build a methane-capture device into every driver's seat...
What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings that will get to the Obama administration's target of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025?
Campaign contributions to get that bad boy dropped to about 8 MPG.
Followed by Sierra Club campaign contributions to raise it to 700000 MPG.
Followed by auto industry contributions to drop it back to 8 MPG
You get the idea. Very profitable, for campaign advertising directors, the legacy media platforms who get most of the ad budget, etc. For everyone else, we get screwed but thats business as usual.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We all know that human creativity and the laws of physics can easily be harnessed and controlled through legislation. The only reason why we don't have Hummers and Semi's getting 150mpg is because we don't have the courage to pass a law demanding it.
What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings that will get to the Obama administration's target of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025?"
Lots and lots of lobbyists who will get this number reduced before it goes into effect.
I'm a Brit. I understand the tradition, and history of US cars, and that this holds a place for many American people. But your business and political angles don't work well for you here. Most of the US car makers already make fuel efficient engines and models for other parts of the world. I don't know if its parts of the US car industry and some political levels that are messing around - but they should stop.
At some stage the US will face a fuel hit. It would be much better to have the things lined up than be caught out. Your citizens should not face that having mistakenly bought high fuel consumption models after being decieved or lied to by car makers or political fools. The car is central to life in the US. The fuel munching car has no real future in this.
We`re all equal
Didn't Jeremy Clarkson get this in a Jag...
I'm sure the magic number was 50Miles per gallon or something equally crazy.
However the problem isn't that cars can't do it, its that OLD cars can't do it.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
There will be no next Obama administration. Didn't you see that last presidential debate?
Obama is too stupid and lazy to be president.
Mitt knows that it isn't possible to "heal the planet", (insert Romney smirk here), or begin to slow the rise of the oceans.
So when Mittens is elected all of these silly MPG ratings will be rolled back once we achieve North American energy independence.
Are the usual ways of complying with government-mandated "targets".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
54 MPG for real-world drivers is almost certainly an imaginary number. How a car maker gets there is something like a lot of 27MPG cars and an equal number of infinite MPG electric-only cars.
Now, the electric only cars are impractical for any real distance and that does effect the marketability of these cars. However, with enough government-supplied (taxpayer provided) subsidies for buying an EV, many people can justify one in their driveway, the price just has to be right. As Chevy is finding out, $40,000 is not the right price.
There might be some huge improvement in battery technology, but something that would increase the range of an EV to 400 miles (the effective range of nearly all gas powered vehicles today) is unlikely. Similarly, it is unlikely any sort of extremely rapid charge (flat to full in 10 minutes) is unlikely. So that means we are talking about a marketing problem, not a technical one.
Would a future Congress and President decide to throw billions at the "EV problem" to allow a carmaker to meet the new mileage standard? Maybe, especially if it meant otherwise backing down from the standard completely.
No, a fleet of gasoline-powered cars that actually achieve 54MPG is unlikely in the US. Bringing high-mileage diesel cars to the US is equally unlikely. I think trying to convert the US car buyers over to micro-cars (like the Smart car) would be a much tougher sell than getting people to buy 200-mile range EVs that needed to charge overnight. So I would bet heavily on a government subsidized program pushing EVs.
The real question is going to be what that does to the electric grid. No way we are ready for even 10% of the cars to be EV today - we simply do not have the generation capacity. Oh, and such cars are going to charge at home at night, so any solar PV system is useless. I do not see suburbs putting up wind turbines between houses, so we are going to have a real electric supply problem.
In 2024 Congress will redefine "gallon".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's possible that in the next few years, we'll have a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine, and in 10 years, all new cars being designed will use whatever it is we come up with.
This is the timeframe in which either nothing or everything will change.
While Obama will be re-elected, he will subsequently show himself again to be President Lawnchair and cave in on the requirement (even though it won't matter until long after he's out of office). It will become another thing that he said he would do, but ultimately caved on; just like closing Guantanamo, ending the wars, reforming health care, or ending Bush Administration economic policies.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Buy a scooter, 1 gallon will get you 70 miles. They're small, light, easy to park anywhere, I can edge between lanes of stationary traffic. You can carry the weekly shop easily, 2 people easily, big weekly shopping easy.
I pop to work on mine, I have a car, but finding parking is too difficult, and traffic is slow.
But 56mpg isn't much, modern diesel cars easily beat this. But for stop-start urban, a scooter will still beat this and get you through traffic quicker.
Build the highways with a down-ward slope.
Pulling hills uses more gas, duh.
We will get there by lowering the expectation. We expect that a Gallon will be equal to the set volume that it is currently at but in 13 years, a Gallon will represent nearly 2.5X the amount that it does today. This is still logically correct when discussing MPG's and there isn't a thing you can do about it. Now get off my math.
Get NIST to change the definition of the mile to 2228.25 ft.
The answer to better mpg, traffic shaping, less accidents is - as much as I hate to say it - is autonomous cars.
They can drive at the best measured MPG zone, they don't get distracted, they have faster response times than human drivers. They don't hit the gas pedal stopping you from merging onto the highway or changing lanes, they don't pass illegally or drive recklessly. Numerous studies have shown that traffic jams are simply caused by people following too closely.
I don't know for sure, but I really think the next evolution of vehicle transport will be autonomous.
My diesel VW Golf as 140HP, 240ft-lbs of torque, and gets 45MPG on the highway.
TODO: Something witty here...
54.5 Mpg is the target? Why is there such a fixation on gasoline, we should be more focused on alternative renewable fuels or electric cars.
Isn't that the dream of the Obamas of the world, people paying more and more taxes?
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-57506088-48/volkswagen-unveils-the-seventh-generation-golf-tsi-tdi/
140 horsepower and just under 50MPG, or 100~ horsepower and just over 60MPG. Yes, diesel, but really it is not as bad as people seem to think.
Palm trees and 8
The 2000 Honda Insight came out 12 years ago and drivers regularly beat this standard. Geo Metros, Suzuki Swifts, Honda CRX HFs, VW Diesel Rabits, VW TDIs.... the list goes on and on.
The issue isn't making a fuel efficient car, it's making a Ford F150 get 54.5MPG
55 miles per gallon = 0.0427662879 l / kilometer says google.
1 liter per 23,382903897 per kilometer is nothing special and is done with normal cars TODAY.
So the goal of doing that by 2025 is quite ridiculous.
See the modern Volkswagens, maybe the Prius (although the hybrid stuff is debatable), etc.
Also do think about diesel instead of 'gas': it is way more easy to have high MPG with diesel.
I run a 2.0 litre 4-cyl Volvo V40 compact estate (station wagon), which is now 11 years old. Over my last 10,000 miles I have had an average fuel economy (brim to brim method) of 37.5mpg - in imperial gallons. So you might say my technologically crude car is pretty close and a little improvement such as start-stop, higher final gearing ratios, low-rolling-resistance tyres, maybe a mild hybrid system, and use of aluminium instead of steel for structures might get it there
BUT: That's about 31.2mpg in US gallons. I wonder how many Brits are reading this, thinking 'My diesel car does better than that' - and not realising that actually the Americans have set themselves a bar thats 20% higher than it appears to us as their gallons are smaller - 65mpg in fact.
A handful of cars do manage that - VW's Bluemotion range for instance, and equivalents from other makers. But a Prius doesn't and my Volvo never will (I'm planning to convert it to LPG instead)....
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
What more do you need to know folks?
2006 2.0l diesel
a few months ago on jay lenos garage they showed these things:
http://www.viamotors.com/powertrain/
serial hybrids that get an epa rating of 100mpg, for huge suvs. but if you can charge them at your home outlets the number quickly becomes meaningless.
still to be overcome:
* gotta figure out a way to tax electrics fairly for the road wear that is normally covered by gas tax.
* used market will need expensive fresh batteries.
to achieve that fuel economy, is to strip out 99% of the metal, reduce the engine to 49cc, put a plastic or fiberglass shell around it, with 3 wheels, give it a 3 gallon tank of gas, and call that an automobile. Bunch of hippy types that run the EPA, and the administration will pass rules for the 99%, but, will exempt themselves from those rules.
Next time a Republican is in office, this no longer matters, as it'll be overturned. The end.
1. Realize safety is one goal among many and that we have to deal with tradeoffs. Over the past 30 years it's been "the engineer giveth and the safety inspector taketh away" as overblown concerns about collision readiness have turned into absurd safety regulations and a curb weight arms race.
2. Raise the gas tax to reflect the real costs of driving- the tremendous spending on road construction and maintenance, the externalities associated with road congestion and pollution, etc. Everyone who's willing to be honest about the impact of different policies, from Greg Mankiw (former chairman of the CEA and an adviser to Romney) to Steven Chu (Obama's energy secretary), knows that this is the only realistic way forward.
Higher gas taxes would be much much less distortionary and harmful to the economy than simply mandating higher fuel standards. The gas tax is also a better way to raise revenue than most other taxes; a revenue-neutral bill raising the gas tax while lowering the taxes on labor and productivity (payroll, corporate, income, etc) would be a huge boon to the economy.
Of course, I don't expect either of these two things to happen, since political bickering and accusations ("you want to see more Americans dying on the highways! you want to put the pain on us every time we go to the pump!") will probably trump any kind of attempt to bring our policies back in contact with reality.
I'm the same, but with a less extreme difference: I'm a single guy, no large family to lug around, but I love camping, mountain biking and going on road trips with my friends. So I drive a compact estate car (Volvo V40) and take the economy hit for the practicality of having it always there, never having to worry about having too much stuff with me for the trip, etc. I know I should buy a Ka or Micra and borrow or rent larger vehicles as needed.. but the convenience of permanent ownership means a lot even though I know its silly.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Everyone on 2 wheels crashes eventually and often its a bit of a mess. I'd sooner put up with worse mpg and being stuck in a jam than have a high risk of paralysis or even death to save 10 mins. You can be the best 2 wheeler in the world but if someone pulls out suddenly in front of you or opens their car door in your path or you don't spot the patch of oil before its too late then it won't make any difference - you're going down.
Sure, you can crash in a car too , but with a ton of steel surrounding you, a seatbelt and airbags its a LOT less serious for a given speed.
How will MPG be relevant for the electric and hybrid/electric in 2025?
We shouldn't be aiming to mitigate the consumption of oil by 2025 we should be looking to transition away from it.
My 1984 Honda CRX got that mileage. What a joke. They're just playing games with us.
As long as people need their cars to be more than just body-movers, they will never get 54.5mpg.
If it needs to be safe and useful, it will be too big and heavy to get that kind of mileage. However, it's entirely possible if you dispense with the need for the occupants of a vehicle to survive a minor crash.
You don't need a V6 to merge quickly. Hell, even a whimpy 80s econobox can merge quickly if you have a good driver and manual transmission.
Lighter material are as safe as heavier one, as long as they are formed and constructed to *absorb* energy. In fact an heavier old model which does not absorb energy/do not dis-form is more likely to kill you than one light material which easily deform.
As somebody who owns a car that gets decent mileage, I'd like to know what I will be able to do to make it better. The car companies may be motivated to push me towards a new purchase, but hopefully some after market manufacturer will create retrofit kits.
Smaller, lighter cars would be perfectly safe if they didn't have to share the road with freight. Put it back on trains, river barges or even delta dirigibles, and we could lower the safety standards for cars. Of course the next step is to get rid of the Canyonero-class (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Canyonero) SUVs, and how do mobile homes, boat trailers, etc. get around?
Design for Use, not Construction!
Except that the F150 will not have to get 54.5MPG by 2025. It will only need to hit 30MPG by then due to the cluster fuck of regulations that CAFE is. That 30MPG only translates to about 23MPG in real world driving. Part of the problem is that a lot of the CAFE standards are based around the footprint of the vehicle. This provides the car manufacturers with no incentive to give the US small cars since they have to meet much tougher efficiency standards. Go read the link for more information.
http://jalopnik.com/5948172/how-the-government-killed-fuel-efficient-cars-and-trucks
US cars ARE larger. But it's your built-in "Europeans are smarter than we are" bias that leads you to conclude that this is solely due to American stupidity. Here's one simple reason to buy larger--they're safer. Size counts. Now the political correctness cops (i.e. NHTSA) intentionally hide this fact, by performing all their crash testing into a static barrier--which is the equivalent of hitting another identical sized car. So, if you're in a Toyota Corolla, you get a NHTSA 4-star safety rating--because it's based on hitting another Corolla. But in the REAL world, odds are good you'll hit something bigger than you. A Suburban. A tree. Then, the small car loses, every time.
Want proof? The Highway Loss Data Institute publishes a rarely-mentioned study based on insurance claim rates for each vehicle. And it shows that four-star Toyota Corolla owners file claims for personal injury after an accident that are 49% higher than the overall average, claims for medical payments that are 41% higher, and claims for bodily injury that are 23% higher. Those folks are getting hurt.
And in contrast, claims for Chevy Suburban owners are 43%, 48%, and 22% LOWER respectively. Does that fully justify driving a Suburban? Probably not in a global ethical sense. But I know I'm happier with my kids in the middle row of a Suburban than the back seat of a Corolla. Sure, if cars get smaller overall, the problem abates to some degree. But there will still be 18-wheelers. And trees.
Been there done that..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CR-X#First_generation
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Then you just cheat. My sister-in-laws PT Cruiser is a "light truck" IIRC per CAFE
Then again our 2001 Nissan Xterra (an SUV that's body on frame) is listed as a Station Wagon on the registration card....
another relevant article
Ford's F150 has a footprint of 65-75sq feet, so it's in whole different league. Thanks for the correction
I have to wonder though, if they'll be as popular then as they are now
If lots of mid range cars get secondary electric/hybrid plug-in power systems (small battery under the rear seat, traction motors on the wheels that don't have direct mechanical drive from the engine) so they can do 15 to 30 miles on home electricity before the 'engine' kicks in, that would probably increase the average efficiency, although at different rates for different driving patterns (Does the MPGe standard have an averaged-out distance cars get run on a trip? as someone only ever commuting 10 miles might use no liquid fuel at all this way while someone in the same car doing 100 mile commutes would just see a reduction in their liquid fuel use.)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
The new Mazda 6 with the diesel engine does 60mpg, but guess what? It will not be available in the USA.
http://www.torquenews.com/1080/60-mpg-mazda6-diesel-sedan-wagon-unveiled-paris
Those galons are US gallons.
As easy as "use smaller engines".
Not one of the best Italian cars for sure, the latest Fiat Panda officially reaches 17.8 Km/l (or 67.4 MPG). Even when you disable the MLF (marketing lies field), actual users on forums report reaching easily over 16 Km/l ( ~62 MPG).
I don't buy the excuse that in US you need a V6 to get into the intersections: the highest speed limit I''ve see in in California is 75 MPH in some freeways. In Italy the highway limit is 80 MPH but nobody goes that slow.
The same European car is sold here in US with bigger engines (i.e VW Golf 1.6L vs 2.5L) just to keep up with competitor comparisons.
As far as people will like to go to buy grocery with a 4.8 liters engine, you're screwed.
Am I the only one who drives a car for more than a couple of years? The only one who has needed to "limp" a car to the mechanic's? On a typical day I my starter gets used about six to eight times. But with start/stop technology I would estimate it might get used ten times that much, or even more. Can starters really stand up to that kind of use? And what about battery wear?
Proverbs 21:19
>>What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings?
you surely mean, China.
plastics hybrid cars that get 50hp. Just like he wants to force us to buy Health Insurance. I see the pattern now. Sounds like communism to me.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I drive a pretty wimpy car around a really busy city (Austin, TX) and I've never had a problem getting up to a safe merging speed.
Maybe you have a different definition of "wimpy". For 10 years I commuted in an "82 hp" engined, 2000 lb, 4-speed manual Toyota Tercel on the highways around Washington, D.C. The "82 hp" was a marketing lie, but it was the first year the car's engine was designed to be capable of running both the wheels and an air conditioner at the same time.
Safe merging speed on a highway is a combined factor of the average vehicle speed on the highway, the average distance between vehicles already on the highway, the length of the on-ramp and the speed of the other vehicles on the on-ramp. Around here, too many on-ramps are less than 50 feet and the other vehicles on the on-ramp are often travelling at 25 mph or less until they reach the last 20 feet of the on-ramp. Accellerating from 25 mph to 60 mph within 20 feet while aiming at 12-foot wide gaps between the cars already on the highway and using a 80 hp engined econobox to do it can generate more adrenaline than bungy jumping (I should know, I've done both).
Of course, that car cost me $8k brand-new in 1991 dollars and I took it to the gas station about once a month for a fill-up ... even if the gas tank wasn't that close to empty.
...Texan, to be exact, and I'm 5 foot 10 inches tall and weigh 170 lbs.
I also drive a 4-door "crew cab", 4-wheel drive, dual axle Ford F450 Super Duty truck.
I need the interior room to haul my crew and pull a large trailer full of horses.
What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings that will get to the Obama administration's target of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025?
"Getting rid of the Obama administration politically and financially."
I say the same thing ... IT IS ALL ABOUT PREFERENCE AND COST.
Not all people can afford two cars, one as the daily commuter, and one for the weekends. Thus they have to combine them into one car. This means people have to prefer to put their utility to meet 100% of their needs with the most limited cost available.
A buddy of mine is a great example. He and his wife have 4 kids (2 each from previous marriage). Due to car seat regulations, seat belt laws, etc. you cannot put 4 kids in the same back seat even though they would fit. You MUST have 3 rows of seats. They have a Hyundai Sonata, and a Chevy Traverse. Now the guy drives the Traverse since his commute is shorter, but he would still love to buy a prius, but he cannot afford to have 3 cars just to make gas mileage better, when he HAS to take the family out places.
It is all about regulation, legislation (thus the preference that is applied to you), and limiting your own costs.
But for a few minor upgrades in the aspiration and ignition areas, the F150 is *really old* tech.
There's not a lot of excuse for Detroit et al for having failed to invest wisely in technology better than incrementally improvement.
Easily predicted: Detroit will buy off Congress to revert this rule.
Of course, it is already quite imaginative.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I get this on my 2012 Jetta TDI today.... and if I want to drop to 42 mpg, I can let the hammer fall and accelerate faster than most cars.
"What do Detroit, or Stuttgart, or Tokyo have waiting in the wings that will get to the Obama administration's target of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025?"
Detroit, Stuttgart and Tokyo already have the technology. What they lack, and to a great degree what the overwhelming majority of the population also lacks is the will. The "big secret" is to lessen the influence of big oil, both in Detrioit and Washington.
I own a car that is capable of 54.5 mpg - a 1999 VW Jetta TDI. 13 years and 305,000 miles on the odometer and it still gets me to work and back - around 600 miles a week, on 13 gallons of diesel. Yet I still hear the argument at least every other week that "diesel is more expensive than gas" and then the argument that their trusty old Chevy pickup burns (an order of magnitude more) good-n-cheap 87 octane gasoline / gasohol. This leads me to believe that we need to start making basic economics part of the educational system's core curriculum and not just an elective.
OTOH, don't confuse this for an endorsement of the Obama administration. If you want to pay more to waste more energy, the choice is yours. While Obama has been working hard to remove everyone's choices through higher energy prices, the cash for clunkers program, etc. the fact that they've given auto makers 13 years to meet a level we should already be at is evidence that big oil's influence has infiltrated both sides of the aisle to an equal degree.
This will never happen until we get serious about energy independence, and I fear it will take a global catastrophe to bring that about.
My car already gets 50mpg highway and it was built 12 years ago. 2000 VW Jetta TDI.
My 2012 Ford Fiesta 1.6L gasoline engine gets 55mpg... without the AC running. But this could be 60-70 range if it were a turbo diesel engine. You can improve everyone's gas mileage by at least 10% if we switched AC systems to peltier (thermal electric cooler) systems, not to mention having a maintenance free operation. We no longer live in the past where steel is the only option. We have carbon fiber, aluminum, and other strong & lite alloys. We just wont change our way of thinking over night, our society is based on "Bigger is Better". So we will be this way until forced to do something different.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e02-smug-alert
The better solution is to change traffic laws to make it prosecutable if a traveling auto does not allow the acceleration lane to merge. There have been some very interesting merge lanes in my neck of the woods where traffic signs say ALTERNATE MERGE. Find the driver of the car with the damage on the Passenger Side negligent, and responsible to pay for damages to the car damaged on the Driver Side. Simple test.
We'll do it by shortening the definition of a mile.
It's the (new) American Way.
in terms of mileage? Or perhaps as good as a Prius? Well, sounds like quite a stretch for the US auto industry. Do you think the regulations could have been *more* namby pamby?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Please don't use those stupid imperial units or at least give also the international unit that we used in the rest of the world
Have you looked at one lately? There isn't a thing in a BMW or Audi that you won't find under the hood of a new F-150.
You cannot legislate physics, chemistry, etc. Nor can you legislate the speed of invention and innovation. At some point, something will have to give. More than likely it'll be safety, convenience, performance (e.g. acceleration mentioned in a few previous threads), luxury, etc. For instance, say this:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/check-your-trunk-gm-and-others-canning-spare-tires-to-meet-govt-fuel-economy-targets/
The consequences are a step backward, not forward.
Blimey. Just had a look at the Ford F-150. To provide an overview for my fellow Britons:
That thing (F-150) is five and a half metres long, two metres wide and one point nine metres tall. Even if you're really, really tall, you still wouldn't be able to see over the roof, you'd still be able to lie down in it sideways, and it would take six paces to walk from the front bumper to the rear. It won't fit into a standard European parking space through the two horizontal dimensions, and won't fit vertically through most multi-storey car park "Max Headroom" barriers either. It weighs over two tonnes even before you put anyone or anything inside it.
For comparison, a massive gas-guzzling British car such as the Vauxhall Zafira 7-seater has a maximum engine size of 1.9 litres, produces only 148hp and weighs 1.5 tonnes.
The F-150's smallest engine is 3.5 litres and produces 350hp. That is roughly the same as a high-end BMW 5-series. Yup, their smallest engine is the same as a top-end BMW engine. That 3.5 litre, 350hp engine is branded the "eco" version.
I could understand this if Americans drove everywhere. But from my repeated and frequent trips to the USA, my experience is - they don't. They drive hardly anywhere - they generally just drive to the shops or to work, plus a few outings to nearby towns and parks within a couple of hundred miles. Sure, Americans make a lot of journies, but they don't tend to be very long ones. Anywhere much further, they FLY and get a hire car. They don't generally, for example, take their cars on long-distance holidays like Europeans do. They don't ever get in their car in, say, New York and drive all the way to Charleston; they fly. Whereas lots of Europeans would think nothing of getting in our cars in, say, Manchester, and driving all the way to Bordeaux, or starting a journey in Rome and driving to Zurich.
So I'm mystified by what Americans use an F-150 for.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Sounds good, American cars are too big anyways, maybe if they stop making them so damn huge I'll consider buying one.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Automatic shutoff at idle will be the main way they'll accomplish this - though I'd avoid the first-gen of these as they will try to cheap-out or repurpose existing starter systems that will not hold up, especially in summer start-stop urban traffic jams.
Additionally, all but the largest (read: truck-based, not car-based) SUVs will be a hybrid, given suburbia's enduring love affair with these gigantosaurs. Sidenote: most SUV tires are in the 18-19" size range now. Can you imagine a soccer-mom wrestling with a tire that huge? TPMS is a great and (now government-mandated) system, but what happens when that chunk of twisted metal takes out such a large tire in one fell swoop? Never understood the car industries' trend towards gigantic tires; I can't even get name-brand 14" tires anymore.
Buy a diesel VW rabbit from the 80s. Problem solved.
... I should hope that we've at least started to wean ourselves off of gasoline entirely. None of this mpg crap... we should be thinking more like miles per kwh.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The question that makes most of the others irrelevant is, what are they averaging? Miles per gallon, or gallons per mile? Let me explain.
Averaging mpg, if they sell five 10 mpg vehicles and five 100 mpg vehicles, then (10+100)/2=55 mpg and they can say they're ahead of the average. But driving each of those vehicles 100 miles will consume 55 gallons (for an average of 0.055 gpm that equates to about 18 mpg), whereas driving ten 55 mpg vehicles 100 miles will consume 1000/55=18.18... gallons. Biiiiiiiig difference.
Averaging gpm, well, 54.5 mpg is about 0.01835 gpm, and a company that sells just one vehicle getting 0.1 gpm will have to sell roughly ten vehicles at 0.01gpm to get an average of, hmm, 0.01818... gpm and beat the average. If you drove each of those cars 100 miles, you would get roughly the same total consumption as driving eleven cars that got 0.01835 gpm.
I'm fairly sure I know which averaging method the US is using.
and we will have cars that get 55 MPG within 1 year!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Hell if we got the politics and the oil company greed out of the way... as well as teh banks backing it all with fiat money.... there wouldn't be mpg with petro. We'dd all be using water (HHO) and/or magnetic instead. But if you insist on petro.... we should be getting well over 100 mpg already.
Just have the automakers buy a controlling interest in the bicycle manufacturers. Enough to include one bicycle in their numbers. The undefined miles per gallon of gasoline will throw the whole system into disarray. This was tried by including electric cars in the equation, but those figures can still be traced back to a gallon on gasoline, no matter how small the fraction of each burned gallon of gas used to generate electricity would be. Of course this is also ruined if the cyclist is huffing gasoline fumes.
I hope the US gets to adopt SI units before hitting 4.3L/100km in 2025.
to love piecemeal progress, instead of forward solutions as long as it makes a profit for those in control of the situation.
Oh yeah, anyone who thinks electrics or hybrids have no acceleration haven't sat in one for years it seems. Most have 0-30 times that eat 200k cars for breakfast, and one ugly one in particular eats any cars it comes against in the quarter mile. Long range trips are right out, of course, but it's an urban car...and has no place driving cross-country anyway.
Not that I would buy that one, it looks like a closet on wheels for two, but this whole American thing where we associate power with large engines is just dumb at this point. Even Detroit knows this, it's too bad their brainwashed customers don't.
Redefine the Mile as 2500 feet.. Problem solved
...from Pasadena?!
*laughter, applause*
Thank you, I'll be here all --, err, well, *forever*, really!
-- A.C.
But we aren't giving up airbags, antilock brakes and other safety and emissions control stuff to get to 54.5mpg. The Federal mileage standards were also changed a few years back meaning the 38mpg Metro (for example) would only get 33mpg under the current system.
The issue isn't for hypermilers to draft, coast and weasel their way into beating the number it's for vehicles to attain the mileage under standard conditions of the test. It means in practice many cars will have to be hybrid, electric variant or something new.
And let me expand on this a little more. I'm a rancher in Texas raising those cattle.
I *need* my crew-cab, 4WD, dual axle F450 Super Duty to haul my crew around and pull a trailer full of horses. A large pickup truck like that is essential to ranch work. We ride the horses to manage the cattle out in the wilderness areas of our ranch... yes even in the year 2012 cowboys still ride horses doing their daily work. We trailer the horses from our headquarters buildings to the remote areas since the ranch is too large to ride them everywhere
Whenever Ford jacks up the cost of these large pickup trucks to influence their CAFE numbers, guess what it does to the price we sell the cattle for?
I had a 1981 Nissan Sentra Diesel that got 55 mpg in the city. It had worse emissions per gallon than the '81 Ares K I had owned previously but if you do the math for the mileage the Diesel Sentra was MUCH better over all...
"...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
I recently got myself a rather old and battered VW T4 TDI, the 2.5L model. I'm comfortably getting 45mpg from it, low resistance tyres, better aerodynamics and a lower ratio in 5th and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I could get 50mpg+, and that's for a heffing big 1.8 ton van.
The one thing that could dramatically cut fuel usage would be computer controlled convoys slipstreaming each other a metre or so apart. Following cars could practically turn the engine off.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
After reading the whole article I am astonished to find that VW is using Urea (aka piss) to clean out NOx emissions from their diesel engines.
I think it's great. I wont have to stop at a restaurant to take a piss I can just hook up to my car and let it all go knowing full well it's for a good cause...
who sets a fractional goal for something like this? wtf? is it really that big of a difference between 54mpg and 55mpg?
because by 2020, crude will be $400/bbl or higher.
why worry? most people don't drive vehicles in the "pickup truck" or "van" form factor, it doesn't matter what gas mileage that form factor gets in the big picture
We just have to push our cars half the distance.
Telecommuting is a good idea, but "well-intentioned" half-baked policy measures which try to advance a good idea without any thought about the unintended real-world consequences are much of what got us into this mess in the first place.
Your proposed policy would have disastrous economic effects without having much in the way of positive environmental effects. Under your system, industries that need onsite labor are unfairly crippled, industries where nearly everyone could telecommute have no incentive to have more than 50% of their people telecommute, and those who aren't telecommuting have no incentive to shorten their commute or use more efficient transportation. In fact, with reduced congestion and no increase in their incentives to be efficient, those who were still commuting would spread out more and use more inefficient transportation, offsetting much of the gains of increased telecommuting.
Having employees onsite is not the problem; emissions and congestion are the problems. Telecommuting is just one possible helpful idea. Policy measures need to be directed at the problems and leave people free to find their own ideas and choices about how to adjust.
If you raise the gas taxes sufficiently, people will design communities and metropolitan areas around the idea that people should live close to where they work, go to school, shop, etc- within range of walking, cycling, or simple public transit. When the social costs of transit show up directly in individuals' transportation costs, people have incentives to be as efficient as they can be. Those who can telecommute will do so. Those who have sufficiently strong motivations to commute or even to have long commutes would not be prevented from doing so, they'd simply pay more of the social cost of their actions. This outcome is more equitable and just, better for the economy, and better for the environment than what you propose.
Because the standards thought that light trucks would only be used for working vehicles, trucks that haul stuff around, ranchers, etc. The times have changed and now many commuters and grocery shoppers use the F150 while griping about how the parking spaces are too small or that it won't fit into a condo's garage.
I've been driving a 2000 Honda Insight since late 2000.. at least until a couple weeks ago when the NiMH batteries went out for the second time. This time they were out of warranty, and the dealership says they're $3500 to replace. I'm now driving an SUV until I get the batteries reconditioned which might take a month or more. I was getting 50mpg for the life of the car before it died, and contrary to what I've heard elsewhere, the Insight isn't driveable without the IMA battery system working.
-metric
Don't SUVs all fit into that too? That's why they aren't having to raise their fuel efficiency standards too, right?
Hasn't stopped the auto industry in the past... remember the 150MPG Chevy Volt? Yeah, good job there Chevy...
It's not the horsepower, it's the torque.
Having 500HP under the hood and being able to do 200MPH isn't a requirement and by itself doesn't mean all that much, racing aside.
The ability to get form 0 to 60 in 7 seconds or less, is very important and beyond the reach of the 4 cylinder econo boxes that people are citing here. But, equally critical is the ability to get from 60 to 80MPH in 3 or 4 seconds. That's the merge issue.
You can proclaim the fuel efficency of your Prius or you can rice up your Honda civic all you want, those little 4 cylinders just haven't got what it takes. V6 or V8 with lots of torque? Now we're driving.
A buddy of mine has 3 kids and they often need to shuttle 5 people around. He had to get a SUV to haul the kids around, but he also drives to work a considerable distance. He can't buy an economy car because it doesn't make sense to license and insure a 2nd car to save a little gas. The amount saved on gas would be offset by the cost of licensing. So he has to go with the lowest common denominator... hauling 5 people.
What he needs is a break of licensing the 2nd car. If he could register a primary car and then, if his 2nd car was some econobox, allow him to register it for free, he'd have a small commuter car.
For me, I have a car that is for driving to work and thought about getting a golf cart to take to the store. Alas, the state's law says that I can operate my golf cart within 5 miles of my home, but not after dark, even if it has lights. So I didn't buy a golf cart because it wasn't practical in the winter when the sun is setting just as I get home from work.
In my case the state could modify it's existing NEV law and encourage the use of small neighborhood electrics and golf carts.
The problem here is that the laws provide a disincentive for people to get smaller cars. The government(s) could grease the skids if they wanted to. Face it, we are a long long way away from replacing our present expectation of a cars with electric. Why not offer people an intermediate step until battery tech catches up?
The neatest thing I've seen lately that actually has the range to get me to work is from www.litmotors.com
I'm chomping at the bit to get a Tesla Model S now. Nissan Leafs are improving with each generation, and nearly every other major car maker has hybrid models, if not EVs. Do you really think that ICEs are going to be around in 13 years?
I know and appreciate that the oil companies are pulling out all the stops with their FUD and astroturfing campaigns (sheesh, just judging by this ridiculous conversation on Slashdot!), but the broader tides are turning decisively against the Age of Oil.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Is a good start.
And stop saying SMARTcars are worth a damn thing because they barely get 35mpg today whereas my 2004 Camry with 2 people, 78mph on the highway with cruise control gets 31mpg. Just build reasonably sized cars with reasonably efficient sized power plants. If you want a giant sized nutsack trailer that's a 400hp station wagon, I mean Dodge Hemi feel free to pay a huge premium for that. If you really can't live w.o. a Ford F-350 than runs on the tears of unborn manatees, then fine. Pay for it.
It will be funny though when CARS get better mileage than those middle aged fat assed retards on their Honda Gold Wings etc with 1800cc engines that barely break 40mpg right now.
"Hey how'd you get that metal kneebrace??"
"Dropped my ride at a red light...."
Kill them all.
2025? With the rising oil prices, I hope I'll be driving an electric by then!
Stuttgart, Ingolstadt, Wolfsburg and Munich already have had it for YEARS and everybody outside the US and Canada can get a car
like that today at their dealerships!
54.5MPG = 4.32 L/100km and we had that now for a while:
I just picked one single car and it's not one you'd expect to be highly fuel efficient:
Check this, our Audi TT:
http://de.auto-data.info (search for AUDI TT on that site fucking slashdot assholes and their filters)
Fuel consumption in city stop and go:
7.0 l./100 Km. 33 MPG
Fuel consumption on highway and Autobahn:
4.3 l./100 Km 54.5 MPG
and that's a car that really belongs on the Autobahn. Now the 4 liters wont be there going at vehicle top speed (226Km/h) or in town,
but they will be there going 65-70MPG on the highway which is the speed you people drive most of the time.
US GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS FORCE AUTOMAKERS TO TUNE THEIR VEHICLES for higher fuel consumption
that's why, there is no real technological achievement here to get you this, cars like this exist everywhere outside the US
and you could have these vehicles from one day to the next if you didn't have all these treasonous parasites in office.
I remember the last time that Detroit was given mileage standards by the government. They waved dollars under the noses of corrupt politicians until those standards went away. Does anyone actually believe that it will be any different this time?
While it's true that you can store energy via compressed air (and carry that as one of several sources of potential energy on board-chemical/fuel, electrical/battery, kinetic/flywheel) it is not an efficient way to store much energy. Significant amounts of energy are lost as heat during the compression process, and the weight of a tank/compressor/etc on board (even just a tank, valves, etc if you pre-charge at home) would outweigh the benefits.
Wrong, at least in the U.S.. The Ford F-150 & GMC Sierra/Chevy Silverado are the #1 & #2 selling vehicles in the U.S.
I come here for the love
"Except that the F150 will not have to get 54.5MPG by 2025. It will only need to hit 30MPG by then"
It actually probably gets better mileage than that now. No, seriously! It's all in how you figure it ... if it uses E85, which is only 15% gasoline, and it only gets 10MPG when running on E85, its GAS mileage is actually close to 65 MPG, since one gallon of gas is in 6.7 gallons of E85, so at 10 MPG you burn 6.7 gallons of E85, and drive about 65 miles ... wait for it ... on ONE GALLON OF GAS!!!
Yes, the feds really DO figure it that way, or used to. I had read that the E85 certified Suburbans were rated at 40+MPG this way.
It's all just a fucking game.
[In Europe] We often have a car per family, not person.
Made possible by public transit. In the United States, on the other hand, public transit companies often shut down entirely for 59 days out of the year.
Seven years ago I acquired a Geo Metro for about $225 that gets 47 mpg every day. It has 230,000+ miles and runs like a top. The frame and sheet metal will rust out before the engine croaks. This car was less than $10,000 in 1991 (21 years ago!) and gets better mileage than a $25,000 Prius right out of the gates. Why cant this car be made again today? Show me any car that can do better both longevitously and financially and not be a hybrid or diesel and I'll buy it. Screw hybrids and EVs. Bring back the Metro.
With increased fuel efficiency people will travel more than they usually do because for the same amount of money they can travel more miles thus not really reducing the overall demand for gas. http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/17/the-paradox-of-energy-efficiency
> mpg
Could you please translate that for us Europeans to something easier to understand, say number of football fields or similar?
Iraq, Libya, "Demand that your puppet states sell you oil really cheaply"...Never happened. Proxy war vs. China, particularly in northern Africa sure, but the whole "cheap oil" thing is bogus. Where is the "cheap oil"?????
"Fear is the rootkit of democracy.." Blarkon
Why are we still talking gas engines when we have an abundance of natural gas? Bueller...Bueller..
Not so. We'll have to give up our current prejudices about looks.
It's amazing how aerodynamic improvements are routinely maligned and unused because they're "ugly". Skirts on the wheels, smaller grills, golf ball like dimples at the rear, a smooth underside, and a much more tapered rear is cheap to do and pays big dividends in economy. But we won't do it because we have these hangups about what a car should look like. Whenever I hear bragging about something like 0.28 being a good coefficient of drag, I laugh. That hobbyists can tape on some crudely cut and assembled pieces of plastic and massively improve the aerodynamics shows how poor the original design is. Under 0.2 is what we should go for. The X Prize winner was 0.16.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
CRX HF = 72 MPG
I guess they must be talking about getting traditional US gas guzzler sedans and MPV's to do 54MPG.
Here in the UK, with fuel prices at an all time high, I'm buying diesel at about £6.50 a gallon (£1.43/litre). That's about $10.40 a gallon ($2.29/litre), and most of the difference between UK and US is made up for by tax.
That and a higher population density is probably why we tend to buy smaller, more economical cars here in the UK. I have just switched cars from a 12 year old 1.4 litre petrol (i.e. gasoline) engine to a turbo diesel engine of the same size, and slashed my fuel bill by almost 50% - it was costing me about £300 ($480) per month on fuel, as I commute for 1 hour each way to and from work. So now it's down to about £155 per month. The only reason I didn't do it sooner is because I had to save up two and a half grand to buy a newer car. Over the next two years, I'll recoup the cost of this newer car in fuel savings alone!
So it seems to me that the most obvious way for the US to achieve this goal is to go the same route as we have - tax fuel at a similar rate. But we all know that's not going to happen...
epyT-R wrote:
>The F150 is used by just about every contractor/construction
>worker in the US. Pretty much anyone who's involved in
>building/making anything of significant mass ends up with one
>at some point.
I think this argument does have some merit. We Brits are comparing the F-150 with family cars, whereas your post indicates that it is used both as a family car AND a tradesman's vehicle.
In the UK, a tradesman with a family would typically own both a Ford Transit PLUS a small/medium family car.
In the UK a tradesman would not own one vehicle to perform both work and family tasks, since (and here's the clincher) the British tax system penalises tradesmen for using their work vehicles for family purposes; for example, there is a restriction on claiming tax back on "double cab" vehicles unless you can prove that you frequently move more than 3 workmen around in the same vehicle. Using tax-deductable expenses such as vehicles for domestic purposes is viewed, in the UK, as cheating the tax system.
Whereas, if a British tradesman buys a single-cab van or truck, the cost is much easier to claim against tax. So a tradesman's family will buy a gas-guzzling van for the tradesman, which he will essentially get for free if he pays enough tax, and a cheap-to-run medium-sized MPV for the homemaker (or maybe even a compact/hatchback).
If you start comparing an F-150 with a Ford Transit (the most popular trade vehicle in the UK), rather than a family MPV, then the F-150 starts looking like less of a monster.
Engine size (basic): F-150 3.5 litres, Transit 2.4 litres
HP: F-150 365, Transit 140
Torque (Nm): 570, Transit 285
Length: F-150 5.8 metres, Transit 5 metres
Width: F-150 2 metres, Transit 2 metres
Height: F-150 1.9 metres, Transit 2 metres
Kerb weight: F-150 2 tonnes, Transit 1.8 tonnes
What's interesting here is that, with the Ecoboost engine, the F-150 is a far, far more efficient work vehicle than the Transit, both in terms of horsepower (where you would expect the F-150 to win) and in terms of torque (where you would expect the Transit to win).
When you factor in dual use for both trades and family, the F-150 suddenly looks like a very sensible purchase even by European standards.
Now there's something you don't see every day; a discussion on Slashdot actually discovering an answer. What do Americans use the F-150 for? Answer: As a multi-purpose vehicle for both trades and domestic family use, a purpose which is almost entirely absent from the British market due to the way tax claims are made more difficult for mixed-use capital expenditure.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I have 60 mpg now in my Diesel (extra-urban of course) and around 35-40 mpg in the city.
Why is it so hard to get it done for US manufacturers?
GM owns Opel, and they have a lot of good engines.
Daimler Chrysler has mercedes also with tons of efficient engines.
Why is it so hard? I know that americans are very skeptical about diesels, and diesel is not so easy to find in US as in Europe, and not same quality (it's mainly used for trucks as far as I know, no?).
Is it a mentality thing, or a technical issue why US manufacturers won't even try with small turbo diesels?
not anymore, that ended four years ago. toyota corolla now
I wonder if people even know (without reading 622 comments) that around 70% of the unburnt fuel goes right out the tail pipe?
Pogue had it right when he thought of vaporizing the gasoline before it entered the combustion chamber. Liquids do not burn, atomized gasoline does not burn, it's the gasoline vapor that is coming off the droplets that burns. Introduce vaporized gasoline automobiles, and we'll have cars running beyond 100mpg. But... That will never happen, tech companies will always beat around the bush in search of a single % here and there instead of attacking the problem at the source.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
One car is often enough to take TWO people to work.
And haul how many people's groceries home?
The idea is to live conveniently, relative to work.
But in several cases, that isn't possible. For example, real estate close to work might be unaffordable, or a household may have two employed people who work far apart.
Cars are heavier not only to meet higher safety standards but because they hold too much crap under the hood. No one really needs power windows (4x), power steering, onboard rear view cameras, and mainly the crappy automatic transmission! The automatic transmission is the heaviest piece in a car. Driving correctly can save you a lot of gas, speacially if you have a standard transmission. Also, buy car with just two passenger doors, why one would need a car with 4 passenger doors if most of use is done by only one person. The device that closes the trunk door automaticaly is also another crap to be removed, no one needs that crap! This is just some of the technological things that should be removed, there are much more.
None of these cars would pass the stringent safety standards we have today.
What we have here is typical government wishful thinking:
1) They reduce the energy in gasoline, by adding Ethanol and complain about gas mileage
2) They layer on thousands of pages of safety regulations, making cars heavier, and complain about gas mileage
You can't legislate the laws of physics.
And then you have uninformed fools telling us if computers got so much better then why can't cars do this too? Pathetic.
.
The point, that you are ignoring, is that there are PLENTY of people who want to buy trucks, contrary to your original "most people don't drive vehicles in the "pickup truck" or "van" form factor" statement.
I come here for the love
How true.
Re-written:
Ecoboost engines are horrible. Also, as Ford says, "DO NOT TOW ANYTHING with Ecoboost."
Good for a person who wants [a] full size truck to check power meters or do little or no farm work. Don't believe me? Google ecoboost problems.
I see 20 of them a week, broken, mis-firing, and, well, trash. [That's] what they [Ford] gets for using old Mazda/Volvo engine [designs] and hooking turbos and such to them.
Keep buying them, I could use the extra cash. Just think, timing service will be soon 1200$-2k a pop. Weeee.
My 4x4 2011 Ford 150 with the Turbo charged 6cyl EcoBoost engine will hit routinely hit 23mpg (albeit only if driven like a little old lady). I need a truck this size for work and as of right now, this is the best fuel economy I could find. I am waiting for the Mahindra Diesel Trucks (From Indian owned DFW Mahindra) to make their way to the US through more traditional means. It would be nice to see a fuel-efficient diesel 'mid-sized' truck show up on the market.
Here is a list of cars that get 54.5 CAFE MPG or higher and their EPA combined MPG ratings:
Prius c: 70.74 CAFE, 50 EPA
Prius: 70.73 CAFE, 50 EPA
Fusion Hybrid: 66.13 CAFE, 47 EPA
C-Max Hybrid: 66.13 CAFE, 47 EPA
Civic Hybrid: 63.13 CAFE, 44 EPA
Insight: 58.93 CAFE, 42 EPA
Prius v: 58.70 CAFE, 42 EPA
CT 200h: 57.50 CAFE, 42 EPA
Camry hybrid LE: 57.44 CAFE, 41 EPA
ES 300h: 55.23 CAFE, 40 EPA
Camry Hybrid XLE: 54.83 CAFE, 40 EPA
This on-amp argument is quite pathetic; European cars with way higher efficiency cope just fine on motorways with fewer lanes and higher speed limits (e.g. 83mph in France), i.e. where on-ramp aceleration is far more critical.
Ford's EcoBoost engine is pretty impressive. They have a 3-cyl, 1.0 litre version pushing out 177BHP at sane revs in the works. The V6 version is used in the F150 too.
Why do vehicles have to remain on gasoline when there is ample natural gas or other ways to power cars? If we adopt new technologies, such as doing away with the mechanical transmission, to replace it using electric motors on the drive shafts, powered by a generator that receives its power from a gas motor. This exchange of transmission, differential and gearing etc., for electric motors on the axles, may be an efficiency improvement and a cost effective improvement at that. Going with public transportation is another way to gain efficiencies.
In many urban areas, people are moving into the city to Condos, in order to get away from the urban scrawl. Working from home makes for more efficiency.
(total # licensed car miles driven)/(total number of gallons of fuel sold)
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
that's what was sold in one month, no *what's on the road*
sure, "plenty" of people may drive them, but it's not what *most* people are driving. Look to Dept. of Transportation statistics for that. Toyota #1