As president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen, I can speak firsthand about the radical transformation that has been taking place within this global industry. For starters, let me be especially clear on this particular item: automakers support increasing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. In fact, today’s auto industry is currently advocating for the largest CAFE increase in U.S. history.
The Alliance supports an unprecedented 30 percent to 40 percent CAFE increase over the next 15 years. We believe it’s time to end the debate. We urge Congress to act now, so we can continue with the hard work needed to further our efforts to improve fuel economy. To find the basis for an argument that the auto industry feels otherwise, one would have to dig pretty deep into the archives.
You’d have to go back further than July 3 of this year. That’s the date the Associated Press first reported that we supported the Hill-Terry Bill (H.R. 2927), which calls for that historic CAFE average increase to 32mpg to 35mpg. This aggressive, but responsible bill currently has more than 120 cosponsors just two weeks after its introduction.
You’d have to go back further than March – that’s when the CEOs of four of our member companies testified before a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee and pledged to support tough laws to combat global warming. True to our word, we have openly and aggressively supported CAFE legislation that serves both the environment and consumers.
You’d have to go back further than the late 1990s, when we were hard at work designing and engineering the 60 models of Alternative Fuel Automobiles (AFAs) on sale today – a 500 percent increase over the number of models available in 2000. AFAs run on power other than petroleum, and just a few years ago many consumers didn’t know what hybrids, biodiesels and E85 vehicles were. Today they’re buying them in record numbers.
In fact, to find the basis of Mr. Webber’s arguments [see; below], you would have to stretch all the way back to archives of the 1970s – when many of today’s auto industry leaders were still in college. The fact of the matter is that many of the people featured in those old black and white television clips and the now-yellowed newspaper clippings detailing the debates of the 1970s are no longer even in the auto manufacturing business.
Today’s auto industry is a new industry. Today’s automakers are committed to producing vehicles that use less fuel and meet our consumers’ diverse needs; whether our consumers run a small business and need a pick-up truck, have a large family and want, say, a minivan, or whether they want a small two-door coupe for themselves. Our job is to serve them all.
Transforming an entire industry and adapting to dramatic new CAFE standards takes planning. That’s why lead time is so important. Keep in mind that the cars and light trucks our engineers are working on today won’t be on sales floors until 2014 or later.
That’s how long it takes to coordinate the 3,000 different parts that go into a single vehicle. Or to enhance and refine the approximately 50 prototypes that lead to the production of just a single model. It’s hard to anticipate consumer trends that far out.
But anticipating consumer trends is essential to CAFE because one of the program’s least-understood aspects is that it’s based on vehicles sold, not vehicles produced. And American consumers for five straight years have chosen light trucks over passenger cars.
To remain viable for our employees, communities and customers, auto companies have to make decisions years in advance based on cold, hard business facts. We cannot turn a blind eye to the laws of economy that apply to virtually every free-market industry in the world: customers rule.
The cost of new technology cannot exceed what consumers are willing to pay. Sometimes cars that are designed well, built well, test well, marketed well and priced well, still – despite our best efforts – do not sell well. And when that happens, it’s the auto manufacturers alone that have to absorb the losses and make tough decisions.
For now, the decision we as an industry have made is this: we are transforming automobiles and the fuels that power them. We want consumers, including Mr. Webber, to be are aware of is this. Our companies have evolved as much as our products have. This industry has suppliers in every single state, and our products draw upon technology developed around the world.
Mr. Webber’s column asks why opposition to higher fuel economy makes sense. On behalf of this industry, let me say that it doesn’t make sense. That’s why we’re not doing it. We support increased CAFE standards and stand ready to continue the hard work of getting the job done.
[This article was written in response to a USA Today editorial "What are the Dinosaurs of Detroit thinking?" by Alan M. Webber. USA Today declined to run this rebuttal.]
Isn’t this the same industry that is indulging in the biggest increase in average horsepower per vehicle ever seen?
1000 horsepower is obscene and yet VW, via its Bugatti subsidiary is producing just that.
This sanctimonious tirade is just as lacking in credibility as Toyotas’ green jeans mantra while the Texas Tundra takes over the market.
300 horsepower in a family sedan is totally and completely unnecessary.
Until these manufacturers turn their technology around and produce more fuel economy instead of horsepower, “methinks they do protest too much”.
The whole idea of CAFE makes no sense. It puts the burden of selling high mileage cars and trucks solely on the manufacturers, yet does nothing to encourage customer demand for the vehicles produced. The manufacturers are understandably concerned about having to porduce a fleet with an AVERAGE of 35 mpg, when even at $3 a gallon, customers are still buying big SUVs, large crossovers (which really don’t get very good mileage), large sedans with big V6s etc.
Suppose tomorrow every manufacturer met the 35 mpg standard, what would the consumer find on the dealer lots? A lot of much smaller, 4 cylinder cars, and expensive hybrid or diesel larger cars. Where did all the trucks go? Where did all the SUVs go?
Can larger vehicles be made to meet the CAFE standards? Yes, but at what cost?
A far better way to change the fuel economy of the national fleet would be to tax engine displacement (GASP – a tax!). People would be able to buy what they want, assuming they wanted to pay for the larger engine.
Flex Fuel powered vehicle burn ethanol produced by farmers who has been subsidized by taxpayers. They give less miles per gallon to boot.
Wow – I don’t know where to start.
“we were hard at work designing and engineering the 60 models of Alternative Fuel Automobiles (AFAs) on sale today” Uhhhhh – Hard at work on E85 vehicles. Hard at work as in upgrading the fuel system rubber and adding a sensor to determine fuel mix, plus a little bit of programming in the ECC. About $300 a vehicle cost then and much less now. And the effort was not to increase CAFE, but get CAFE credits even though these vehicles get fewer MPG while burning alcohol.
Mr. McCurdy, you make it sound as if the last time your constituents opposed higher CAFE was the 1970’s. We all know that’s BS. I’m not going to bother digging up the links.
I’m so tired of the whining. To the automakers represented by AAM – Shut the hell up, quit whining and get to work. It CAN be done, and Honda or someone else is going to show you how. I’m personally willing, able and ready to pay the higher price for high efficiency.
GET TO WORK.
PhilBailey, unless I’m completely mistaken, MORE horsepower equals BETTER gas mileage (if driven conservatively).
According to the Pirates of the DC, the Toyota Yaris gets 31 MPG and both the Civic and Corolla get 29 MPG. With mandates for lower NOx, these MPG figures will only decrease (Lower NOx blows diesel’s advantage out of the water).
The only way to even come close to 35 MPG average would be to use HCCI engines. Mercedes claims to have a working prototype they call the DiesOtto. What is the cost?
Ok, here’s an idea. Let’s just get the Feds out of the fuel mileage business. Admittedly it employs lots of high middle management types in both the gov. and the auto makers to do all the busy work required. Fire them all. Burn down their buildings and let the market decide what the hell it wants to buy. This is not 1968 when there were no safety or emissions standards to speak of. At this point we are pushing a string, just stop. Quit wasting my money. Ok, so I’m a libertarian on this stuff, buy criminy, does government have to do everything for us? Gaaaah. End rant. Thank you.
What a bunch of double talk. Well, the press will eat it up, but any consumer will know this is all garbage. All this organization cares about is the perception of car companies doing something about fuel standards. There is no real commitment at this time, because consumers aren’t paying $4/gallon yet. When that happens, we’ll be in a different reality.
I appreciate Mr. McCurdy for writing his editorial and accepting judgement from the fray at TTAC.
That said, I think his rhetoric is appropriate to a more gullible audience, perhaps the Congressmen he is more accustomed to lobbying.
If the automakers he represents truly want to improve fuel economy and CO2 emissions, then they should do exactly that. Not pay a bunch of lawyers and lobbyists.
Honda – the one major automaker which does not pay Mr. McCurty — has decided to spend its time improving mileage, rather than pay someone to talk about it.
It is Honda which brought the first modern hybrid to the US. It is Honda which sells a mix of vehicles that feature great mileage, like the Fit and Civic. And it is Honda which only greenlights for production vehicles expected to have best in class mileage.
If Mr. McCurdy were serious about wanting to reduce oil consumption, he’d go back to school for an engineering degree and go to work actually improving auto efficiency.
Soon we will have 4 and 5/gal gasoline (and diesel), the market will take care of the fuel mileage. No rules or gaming needed.
35 to 40 mpg is easy today with existing cars like Civic’s, Corolla’s and Sentra’s. The problem is that with a manual gearbox all of America will need to learn to drive, and that isn’t going to happen.
The whole thought pattern (if any) underpinning CAFE, is flawed enough to be almost insulting. The only thing CAFE accomplishes is making it more difficult for specialized new entrants to compete with the dinosaurs in their most profitable segments, at the high fuel use ends of the different CAFE classifications. Any law treating a ‘Corporation’ as a fixed entity, is simply favoring big, integrated current ones over smaller, specialized future ones.
With big truck margins where they are, relative to those on smaller cars and crossovers, it is not impossible to imagine a nimble, in touch with the market, competitor, profitably serving the big truck niche alone. This is made much more difficult by forcing potential entrants to simultaneously develop and sell a line of smaller cars (where margins are tight and competition stiff), or face CAFE fines. I guess all the more job protection for McCurdy’s chieftain sponsors, who will have less fear of their inefficient fiefdoms being bought up, chopped up, sold off and/or reorganized, by people with access to financing just as cheap as the automakers themselves. And all the more deterrent for potential new market entrants, both foreign and domestic.
And does anyone, anywhere, seriously concerned with fuel use and/or co2 emissions really think bizarre laws and classifications on (way out in the future to boot) newly manufactured vehicles, is the most efficient way of achieving conservation goals? What determines vehicular fuel usage is the mileage a vehicle gets and the number of miles it is driven. To reduce it efficiently, vehicle operators, actual and potential, must be presented with incentives to up the former and lower the latter. Whether they respond to these by trading the truck for a Yaris, moving closer to work, working more from home or getting a different job, is rather irrelevant.
Some, different for each individual, part of that response will filter through to automakers as demand for smaller cars, and some as demand for more efficiency from same sized ones. Automakers, at least the competent ones, would then adjust their product mix and development efforts according to this, not some Mickey Mouse, politico-legal insult of a legislation that makes Soviet style five year plans seem positively enlightened.
As a side note, and totally unrelated, there is a, (one would hope) very small, demand for Hummers and such, from some of the most rabid eco nuts out there. The trucks are sitting in (sub)urban garages, loaded to the gills with survival gear, diesel, guns (lots of those), and (pre-1933, non-reportable, non- confiscatable???(Don’t ask me)) gold, while the owner bicycles, rideshares, or takes the bus to work. When the ‘inevitable’ day of reckoning arrives, pollution reaches a ‘tipping point’, and earth turns into a sweltering, uninhabitable inferno, the truck will allow the owner to fight his way to his ‘I could tell you where, but I’d have to kill you’ holdout, somewhere in the mountains. Don’t know why, but Dick Cheney seems to come up as one that will need fighting past. Ted Kaczynski does not.
“35 to 40 mpg is easy today with existing cars like Civic’s, Corolla’s and Sentra’s.”
Civic – 29 MPG
Corolla – 29 MPG
Sentra – 28 MPG
It is NOT easy due mainly to crash safety and emissions laws.
Luther, the Yaris easily passes 35 MPG by the EPA rating system. The Civic and Corolla just about squeak by as well. When you mention 31, 29, and 29 MPG for those vehicles, you are using the wrong metric, which is understandable considering the government’s reporting complexity.
For 2008 model years, the government requires a different test be used when reporting mileage figures. That is why 2008 model year vehicles have lower reported mileage across the board. The CAFE, however, will continue to use the older (2007) tests. Also, in 2007 the city score was reduced by 10% and the highway score was reduced by 22% when reported to consumers.
What does all this mean? For CAFE computation, you need to use the 2007 or older values, not the 2008 values. Further, you need to account for the 10% and 22% reduction. Finally, the CAFE score uses 55% city figure and 45% highway figure. So… CAFE = 0.55 * city / (1-0.1) + 0.45 * highway / (1-0.22). Simplified, CAFE = 0.611*city + 0.577*highway.
Looking at autos.yahoo.com, the 2007 Yaris scores 34/40 MPG. Plugging into the formula above yields 0.611*34 + 0.577*40 = 43.854 MPG!!!!
The 2007 Corola (32/41) scores 43.2.
The 2007 Camry 4 cylinder automatic (24/33) scores 33.7
The 2007 Civic (30/40) scores 41.4
The 2007 Accord (24/34) scores 34.2
The 2007 Mercedes 320 Bluetec (27/37) scores 37.85, except it can run on biofule, so I think that might (should?) give it a score of about 70 MPG.
Ha! Silly CAFE.
Luther,
We have half a dozen of them in the family to run errands every day, basically as throw away cars.
They all are manual gearbox, but they all get over 35 mpg. The one I drive most is a 04 Sentra and I keep track of the mileage for shits and giggles, it hardly ever is under 38 mpg around town. I don’t take it on trips but when driven on the highway the mileage stays the same at 10 over. I’m 100% sure on the numbers on this one.
Mr. McCurdy deserves some respect for taking on his industry’s toughest critics (also its most ardent enthusiasts) here in their own forum. For all his courage in bearding the lion in its own den, however, he plays fast and loose with the facts.
On every critical regulatory issue, the industry has fought tooth and nail against safety standards, consumer protection laws, and mandated fuel economy standards for decades. Airbags and ABS are 1970s technology, and we can thank Mr. McCurdy and his ilk for the fact that few cars had them until the mid 1990s. The industry’s contemporary canard is the tired refrain “Efficient cars must be smaller, which leaves them more vulnerable in collisions.” If effecient cars are so unsafe, why are American roads (and the gashogs that roll on them) not appreciably safer than those of France, England, or Germany? They always would have been a lot safer if they’d had airbags and ABS.
Mr. McCurdy’s courage may be saluted; the illogic and half-truths of his argument cannot. Spin-doctoring and revisionist history cannot win the losing rearguard action he’s fighting here.
Or in the marketplace.
Mr. McCurdy is telling us here that auto makers truly enjoy it when the US government enforces ill-motivated types of regulation on them. This suggests that auto makers and Mr. McCurdy either lack intelligence or veracity.
I agree with SherbornSean that this spin should probably have been addressed to a different audience.
This discussion is very confused, because it is unclear what it means to be in favor or against this misguided government initiative. Conservation is a laudable goal, yet CAFE is silly. The only sensible action for automakers to take is therefore to take no visible position on CAFE.
GAS TAX. It solves many problems. An engine displacement tax is not fair to people that use their autos less but still need them for their utility. A gas tax would give Washington the money instead of the Middle East. Prices are going up one way or the other. It also lets the people actually doing the polluting pay for the environmental costs directly. I know lots of people that drive small cars that use them to commute 100 miles to work. Is that better than someone that drives and SUV but had the sense to live close to work?
If we get a gas tax, they better use the money on roads. Somehow, it seems all the new roads are toll roads. Where is the gas tax going?
What I’d like to know is this – if govt. can solve all problems through legislation, why not mandate 70mpg fleet average? :-)
gsp “I know lots of people that drive small cars that use them to commute 100 miles to work. Is that better than someone that drives and SUV but had the sense to live close to work?”
Yes it is. We all drive more than just the daily commute to work.
You imply by your argument that that an individual deliberately and by your implication without sense planned their home location not to be close to their home. Many people in Florida might double, triple or quadruple their property tax if they move. Maybe they work in a bad neighborhood. Maybe the only job in their field or the best paying job just happens to be in another city. Maybe they don’t want to or can’t move because of children or aged parents
Re cdjumm:
Airbags and ABS are 1970s technology, and we can thank Mr. McCurdy and his ilk for the fact that few cars had them until the mid 1990s.
While I find Mr. McCurdy’s CAFE defense insulting, taking him to task regarding airbags and ABS is weak. ABS and airbags are minor tools in the overall safety equation. The cost (especially for airbags in small vehicles) is significant.
Economist Steve Landsburg has argued that some safety advances encourage reckless driving and has (jokingly) suggested replacing airbags with sharpened spikes. He has a point – just look at all the degenerate parents who popped their kid’s head off by thinking seatbelts weren’t a necessary compliment to airbags. And where’s the huge dropoff in auto accidents now that ABS and airbags are everywhere???
The industry’s contemporary canard is the tired refrain “Efficient cars must be smaller, which leaves them more vulnerable in collisions.”
Driving culture and attitude is the answer. For significant portion of the overweight, latte-sipping, attention-deficit-cell-phone-talking crowd, large vehicles ARE more comfortable and safer to drive FOR THEMSELVES. Yes, they ARE more likely to kill and maim OTHERS, but that’s not relevant. They (themselves) ARE safer – basic laws of physics.
If forced to drive smaller cars, more of them would die.
I drive a MT small sedan in a snowbelt zone. I KNOW it’s more dangerous in a wreck, but more able to avoid a wreck. For ME, it’s a rational choice.
If effecient cars are so unsafe, why are American roads (and the gashogs that roll on them) not appreciably safer than those of France, England, or Germany? They always would have been a lot safer if they’d had airbags and ABS.
No. Driving culture trumps the physics of large vehicles and safety stuff. In Germany, tailgating is an enforced four-figure (west of the decimal point) fine. In the US, it’s ignored if not encouraged…
“Luther, the Yaris easily passes 35 MPG by the EPA rating system.”
I was just going with the new EPA numbers SunnyvaleCA…I don’t doubt the numbers are bogus though (Like everything else the maggot-class do/say). Thanks for clearing up the CAFE Computations! I did not know the Pirates of the DC could perform such complex yet clear and precise math… And here I was thinking they just pulled MPG ratings out of their, um, eye-patches.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/calculatorCompareSideBySide.jsp?column=1&id=22749
The AAM is just caving to the PC climate. They do not want to be demonized in the press for being anti-”green”. They are caving to tyranny. Go along to get along.
The costs of CAFE will be passed on to the consumer (As always) so they really don’t care too much about government coercion as long as people still buy their products.
The pragmatic stupidity of CAFE is detailed by editor Csabe Csere in the June issue of Car & Driver.
I can see why USA Today didn’t publish Mr. McCurdy’s “rebuttal.” It didn’t really rebut anything, which is what rebuttals are supposed to do.
Mr. Webber points out rightly that during the 1990’s, while Detroit was lobbying to keep standards weak and gun for short term profits, Toyota was working on advanced R&D projects such as hybrid systems with the goal of building a long-term market advantage. Sure enough, the Toyota strategy was successful (again) while the Big Two Point Whatever lobbied themselves into defending a product mix that could not compete in today’s market.
Mr. McCurdy wants us to believe that the automakers are forward thinking, and just need time to comply with new regulations. Their past failures illustrate that the Detroit automakers are not forward thinking, and only respond to legislative threats before they act upon anything.
If Detroit built small cars worth driving, they’d have no problems complying with CAFE. But since they have never made a decent effort to be competitive in the small car arena, they naturally are nervous by any proposed legislative changes that might force them to adapt.
Likewise, Toyota wouldn’t care to see increases in CAFE, either, because their competitors might actually be forced once and for all to improve their smaller cars, which would give Toyota more competition. The last thing that Toyota needs is for their failing rivals to get a new shot in the arm by being forced to build products that consumers actually want.
@Sherman Lin:
While someone driving 100 miles to work, to save on property taxes or whatnot, might not be ‘at fault’ in any direct way, it’s surely more appropriate that the costs of his commute is borne by him, rather than someone else, right?
There are all kinds of reasons to tax large SUV’s higher than small cars, which are not captured by a gas tax, but for the purpose of conserving gas, a gas tax is as fair and equitable as it gets. After all, it’s not like some people are born with greater claims on a limited resource than others. It’s all about the choices he has made, and continues to make.
Hi Luther, again! That side-by-side page is pretty interesting… but unfortunately also bogus. I looked up a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 500E and got new and old figures. Funny, though, that the new figures are supposed to be from a brand-new type of test; I wonder who managed to grab one of the few hundred 1992 500E cars out there and administer the new test. Clearly bogus numbers from the EPA website. Sad.
1) It’s a real pleasure to see such a wide variety of viewpoints on TTAC. Seriously.
2) McCurdy’s viewpoint, however, would be a lot easier to accept if the member organizations weren’t pushing advertisements bragging about highway fuel economy in the low ’30’s. That’s nothing to brag about. One member of the organization brings out a fuel economy supercar concept every few years – and then, somehow, never brings it or anything like it to market.
CAFE only makes sense when coupled with competitive reduction legislation (aka, tariffs on imports). Has the US every had tariff’s on Japanese cars in order to give Detroit a “break” (like they did for Harley-Davidson). And if so, did it happen when CAFE was created? Outside of that specific condition, I think CAFE creates more problems than it solves.
If the goal of CAFE is to reduce the import of foreign oil, then it is better to raises fuel taxes. Or to slap a tariff on foreign oil (if the international trade laws allow it).
Market demand and competitive pressure and the best tools for getting oil guzzling autos off the roads. Therefore, expensive oil fuel and cheaper domestic alternative fuels are the best long term solution.
Thus, the only solution is to tax oil fuel to subsidize domestic alternative fuels so that the consumers demand the non-import-oil vehicles.
Has the US every had tariff’s on Japanese cars in order to give Detroit a “break” (like they did for Harley-Davidson).
The US currently has a 2.5% tariff on cars and a 25% “chicken tax” on trucks imported from outside of the NAFTA zone. During the 1980’s, there was also a system of “voluntary quotas” that capped imports from each manufacturer. The short term of effect of the not-quite-so-voluntary quotas was to raise prices; the long term effect was to encourage the importers to become the “transplants” that they are today.
From a purely economic standpoint, raising the fuel tax would make the most sense if the goal is to reduce consumption. But to raise gas taxes would be political suicide, which is one reason why we have CAFE. Americans always want a painless you-can-have-it-all solution to everything, and when you have a society like that, CAFE is what you get.
I wouldn’t worry. Despite the handwringing, the law will ultimately be diluted into a symbolic gesture that does nothing, and Detroit will rejoice their “victory” as they lose more market share. As usual, the real winners will be the transplants, which have figured out how to please the American consumer and have enough business talent to stay one or two steps ahead of the curve.
Landcrusher: “If we get a gas tax, they better use the money on roads. Somehow, it seems all the new roads are toll roads. Where is the gas tax going?”
It doesn’t matter what you do with it. Burn the money. Just don’t give it to the Middle East. Wait until the average family in China or India starts to use oil. We need to curb the use of oil now for many reasons, the additional money for the government to waste is just a side effect. Although on second thought, perhaps bridge restoration is a first step.
Sherman Lin: “You imply by your argument that that an individual deliberately and by your implication without sense planned their home location not to be close to their home. ”
People buy cars for good reasons and bad reasons. People do a lot of things for good and bad reasons, including where they decide to live. My point is that the merits of a given vehicle depend on many personal factors. My wife drives a minvan because a car won’t work for my disabled daughter. Perhaps we could find a way to make a car work, but that would be hard. My next vehicle may be an SUV, while I can really get by with a car (which is what I have now.) However, I only drive 8000 miles per year. In order to burn the same amount of fuel as the average motorist, I would need to drive more than twice as much as I do now.
As far as living locations are concerned, people as just as irrational about them as the cars they buy. I live in Toronto and know many people that choose to live 90 mins. outside the city so that they can have a house that is 20% bigger. Talking to my relatives in the US, things aren’t much different down your way.
There are many societal costs to burning more oil. CAFE standards and the sort all try to get around the fact that people don’t like gas taxes in the US (or here in Canada!). But the fact remains that it is the single most effective way to begin to solve our problems.
CAFE is a tax, albeit a tax who’s cost is not very clear. A gas tax would be a more efficient and clear method to regulate consumer behavior. Then it becomes a choice of what car we want to drive, and how far we want to drive it. But gas mileage needs to be consumer driven…. or not.
Everyone needs to see the interesting little film called “Thank You For Smoking”. Nick Naylor is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry and is a genius at word play. Congressman (you keep the title for life even after leaving office) McCurdy is a real-life Naylor.
McCurdy is a lawyer, politican, former head lobbyist for the electronics association and now lead lobbyist for the car company association.
The car companys have no credibility since for decades their M.O. has been to fight any attempt to force cleaner vehicles and improved fuel economy. The new spin is that some increased fuel economy requirements are inevitable, so McCurdy’s plan is to try and jump onto the front of the train and declare leadership. Neither he nor his arguments have credibility. Consider the source.
As a final note, look at which large car makers isn’t in the association: Honda. Remember when all the car companys said that hitting the emissions reductions targets was impossible? Honda said we can do it and got the job (CVCC) done which in turn forced the rest of the industry to shut up and get to work. History contains many lessons for those who know it.
If you get diesels sorted over here you hit the milestones pretty quickly, buy you a bit of time to further engineer your technology to be even more efficient until your fuelcells battery operated vehicles can come into play. Yes it does cost alot to implement but sometimes you need tough love.
I wouldn’t hold Toyota up as an example of what a company should be doing.
Toyota is on the side of the Big Three in the current CAFE battle.
If government regulation could actually force manufacturers to build better vehicles, then American cars would have improved dramatically through the 1970s, as emissions, safety and CAFE standards all got progressively tougher as the decade progress. American cars did not get better during the 1970s – they got considerably WORSE.
Regulations cannot change corporate culture. If a company makes lousy vehicles now, and the government passes new regulations, said corporation will make lousy cars that meet the new regulations, and continue to lose market share.
And the reason Honda is not opposing a CAFE increase is because it does not make large, body-on-frame pickups and SUVS, and does not have a V-8 for either its passenger cars or trucks.
I’m still waiting for someone to suggest a return to the stupid 55 mph speed limit…
Sunnyvale…these are estimates and conversions, not full tests of all the cars. They didn’t test any of the old vehicles with the 2008 procedures. They’ve converted the old results based on new standards. Not bogus.
EPA has changed the way it estimates MPG.
Starting in model year 2008, estimates will reflect the effects of
Faster Speeds & Acceleration
Air Conditioner Use
Colder Outside Temperatures
What else do I need to know about the new ratings?
The tests lower MPG estimates for most vehicles.
View old/new MPG ratings for a specific vehicle
Convert old MPG estimates to new estimate
The actual mileage you get will still vary based on your driving habits, traffic conditions, and other factors.
All MPG estimates in Find-a-Car have been converted to the to the new ratings system to help consumers compare the MPG of older and newer cars.
This whole conversation is great. I just wish it could get to more people than us car nuts.
-I think a gas tax would be stupid. the government already makes more money on gas than the oil companies do. What do they do with the money?? Ask the people who died in Minneapolis-surely it’s not fix the roads and highway infrastructure.
-I think the free market should dictate the way we move forward. That way no one is making sure the oil companies are in line to decide or monopolize the country’s new energy source.
Frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who poses in front of an american flag for their publicity face shot. Its like I’m about to be lied to (thank you, Bushes).