CAFE standards could rise as far as 75mpg by 2030. So sayeth the director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, speaking to (at?) the Society of Automotive Engineers. The Detroit News reports that Marge Oge told the assembled throngs that making a 50 percent (from 2000 levels) cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050– a widely-held goal amongst the green movement's chattering classes– would require steady improvements in vehicle efficiency. Ya think? She think. "The political, economic and regulatory landscape in the United States and globally has changed dramatically over the past year," said Oge. "The reality is the pace of change will not be letting up anytime soon." With one billion cars projected to be on the road globally by 2030, and oil demand by China and India set to double in the same period, Oge says the industry "needs to be thinking of those investments for the long term basis." Oge also revealed an internal EPA study which concludes that automakers will be able to meet the 2020 35mpg CAFE standard by 2018 with cost-effective measures, despite industry grousing. How's that then?
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
Ever go to, say, Nebraska, and look at the prairie? I have. There’s a crapload of it, it goes on for a thousand miles and then you come to the f*ing mountains. People walked through all that, pushing oxen and goats and pulling carts and burning cow chips to cook dinner, on their way to Oregon or California. No V-8 engines, no A/C, no iTunes, no DVD players, no fine Corinthian leather. None of that. I can only imagine how thrilled those sturdy pioneers would have been with an original air-cooled VW bug.
The commercial that *really* gets me going is… probably a Chrysler commercial. Mom drags her two brats into some minivan factory and asks what they can do for her to make an 8 hour trip in a minivan bearable for the whiny offspring.
“How about a couple of DVD players?” the factory workers suggest.
Dual? The little monsters can’t share a single DVD player for a mere 8 hour trip? And I ask this as a veteran of many multi-day runs to the coast from the Deepest Midwest. Without any DVD player for the 4 kids in the back to share.
As a nation, we’re so spoiled. We think we’re owed it all.
Hey, lady, here’s my suggestion for how they pass the time on their trip: have them read a book or write letters to their grandparents or go over the map and look up the places you’re seeing or sing songs or make rhymes up or write stories and share them or play tic-tac-toe or geography or the alphabet game or just look out the window and learn to appreciate the country and how to endure this slightest bit of hardship without whining.
No child ever died from having to be creative or at least quiet and well behaved while riding 3 across in the back of a sedan for 8 hours. Not even the one in the middle. Nobody ever died from having to drive a small, fuel-efficient car (although they might have died in one from striking something hard or being struck hard by someone else but if everybody else is forced out of the arms race, their chances improve).
People have died going overseas to countries we’d be better off ignoring but, unfortunately, they’ve got a bunch of oil to which we want uninterrupted access.
75mpg? Yeah. We can do it. And we ought to do it, for a variety of reasons, and people should suck it up and stop complaining about it.
By the way, if that is actually some sort of human-powered vehicle in the picture, I’d rather have it than a Chevy Volt or Tahoe two-mode hybrid.
I biked to work today. And gas jumped $.21/gal between breakfast and lunch.
I just dont think that this is too unrealistic of a goal. Hybrids have the potential to do this in a few short years. If the next Prius (mid-sized family car) can achieve a modest gain, to say 55-60 real world mpg, imagine what happens when the elctric engine gets bigger, the ICE gets smaller, and plug-ins become available. The F-350 King Ranch might bring down the average. But the next couple genreations of hybrids will easily exceed 75 mpg enough to counteract those vehicles (which it goes without saying should only be purchased when truly needed. And I dont consider towing a camper or boat the size of a small condo a need.)
Hybrids are the answer to this problem.
Way to go, KixStart! You said it all.
“Oge also revealed an internal EPA study which concludes that automakers will be able to meet the 2020 35mpg CAFE standard by 2018 with cost-effective measures, despite grousing from Detroit.”
I believe the Detroit Automakers weren’t the only ones grousing. Funny how certain facts are conveniently omitted.
AMEN KixStart
gamper:
I believe the Detroit Automakers weren’t the only ones grousing. Funny how certain facts are conveniently omitted.
Good point. Text amended.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, KixStart. Your suggestions are fine. All good…in theory. In practice, though, the kids would be fine for all of…I don’t know, 15 minutes…before they would start in on each other. Video games, iPod connectivity and DVD players are wanted for good reason: you get the illusion of spending time together without the burden of having to acknowledge each other’s existence. Everyone wins! The bigger kids keep their sanity, the smaller kids keep their eyes in their sockets, and mom and dad aren’t put to death for double infanticide. Wonderful!
Your statement makes me wonder if you’ve actually dealt with kids for that span of time. “Mere 8 hours” Wow. Have you? I have.
You’re preaching to the choir, KixStart, but you’re right on.
I just bought an interesting car book (are there any other kind?) about microcars and it was kind of interesting to read how they phased them out when the Europeans and Japanese managed to be able to afford “real” cars (which means, 1.3 litres instead of 1/2 or 1/3 that – something Americans haven’t even had available to buy for 15 years or more).
I also just read today that Russia is actually admitting that they, as a nation, have reached peak oil. The handwriting is on the wall, folks.
Daihatsu (in the Toyota planetary orbit) showed off a 3 seat 150-200 MPG kei car hybrid show car a couple of years ago.
http://carenthusiast.com/news.html?mode=article&id=980
I say, Toyota? Build it as a Prius Micro and price it at $12,000 and you’d better tool up at least half a dozen plants worldwide for it ‘coz you’ll need every oar in the water for this one. Please put two plants in the US? How about one in Western Michigan, say Grand Rapids, or near to Aisan’s facilities in Battle Creek? ‘coz this state is dying.
menno: this state is dying. You noticed that too huh? We (Michiganders) need to bring something truly revolutionary to the auto biz, not purport to be biofuel jerks. A group of ex-big 3 engineers should put together an on-demand hydrogen solution for retrofit and new build applications. This would need to be done in absolute secret, so they’re not all murdered during the R&D phase. Then one day, BAM! Release it globally with ultra high profile. Oh, and the kit should only be available for big 3 vehicles. We need to look out for our own!
The VW Lupo 3L (3 liters/100km = 78mpg)is about Yaris-sized, and was put on the European market some 7 years ago. It wasn’t that hard.
http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/uploads/rear.jpeg
The VW Lupo 3L (3 liters/100km = 78mpg)is about Yaris-sized, and was put on the European market some 7 years ago. It wasn’t that hard.
After it gets all of the American safety doodads added on, it’ll weigh 3 tons and get 25mpg.
@Paul Niedermeyer
The VW Lupo 3L (3 liters/100km = 78mpg)is about Yaris-sized, and was put on the European market some 7 years ago. It wasn’t that hard.
It was actually rated at 2.9 l/100km. (=80mpg US)
More impressive was the Audi A2 1.2 TDI, which had the same drivetrain as the Lupo, but in a larger package (Honda Fit size) with excellent aerodynamics and an expensive aluminum space frame.
It had a roomy back seat and enough space for luggage and still got 80 mpg.
Used car prices for the A2 1.2 TDI have been going up for the last few years.
No child ever died from having to be creative or at least quiet and well behaved while riding 3 across in the back of a sedan for 8 hours. Not even the one in the middle. Nobody ever died from having to drive a small, fuel-efficient car (although they might have died in one from striking something hard or being struck hard by someone else but if everybody else is forced out of the arms race, their chances improve).
I love it when folks gripe about giving kids iPods or PSPs to keep themselves entertained on a road trip.
Me? I remember being stacked four deep in the back of a Taurus for a road trip from New York to Florida. No iPods, no PSPs, no DVD players in the headrest, just that one Quincy Jones ‘Jook Joint’ tape. We were at each other’s throat before we even got out of New Jersey.
If ‘spoiling’ my kids helps keep me sane for long distance road trips, then spoiled they be.
As for 75 by 2030? This reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where Scotty tells Captain Kirk that he needs three days to get the warp engines fixed, so Kirk tells him he’s only got one.
I’M with kixstart on all counts.
re the xler commercial he describes: When I was a kid we took 3 trips x-country, one LA-Seattle and back, one Boston-Chicago and back, and one two month, 3000 mile trip around Europe–no DVDs, no VCRs, no records. And we got on pretty well, the two, and then three of us kids. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons I’m happy to get in the car and drive all day as an adult is because these childhood trips were very enjoyable.
As for 75mpg, its achievable, and we really have no choice if we want civilization to survive. I just wish the powers that be and the media would start talking about the need to stabilize both the US and the world population. The world pop is expected to grow nearly 50% by 2050. That’s crazy.
If it weren’t for the Catholic Church, which let Nixon and Ford know that their political careers would be cooked if they didn’t cease and desist, we would have had a population policy in the US back when there were only 200 million. And god knows how many fewer people there would be in the world.
And if it weren’t for the China one child policy, there’d be an additional 300 million Chinese–the population of the US.
Carshark, I assure you, I have four, our nearest relatives are 1300 miles away, we have visited nearly annually and they have always behaved themselves on the trips.
We also take relatively aimless Spring Break trips were we just go towards something and pick things along the way. On all trips, the kids get to help pick things to do and plan and there was always a good road atlas in the back for them.
The best vehicle for trips (in some ways) had a trip computer visible to the back rows. If I got asked ‘how long?’ I’d tell them what I thought the trip odometer should say when we arrived at our destination and then I’d flip the display to average speed and then back to trip odometer. They’d work the math problem out for themselves and check progress against the map. I would occasionally update them with my revised estimate for what the trip computer should say. They’d observe things like ‘1/5th there.’
David Holzman, I think it worked out for us like it did for you. Nowadays, the youngest is in college and when they’re together, they like to talk about the fun trips we had.
The world pop is expected to grow nearly 50% by 2050. That’s crazy.
This is a temporary problem. Global population will be back down to present levels within a hundred years after peaking around 2050. Wealth is the contraceptive that will push human population down, as it always has. If we don’t disrupt the wealth engines that keep humanity progressing. Don’t worry about population moderation; it’s already in the cards.
Just as certain, anthropogenic carbon release isn’t going to be halved from present levels by mid-century, either. And focusing on a 75mpg standard in the private automotive fleet in the US won’t contribute much to that unobtainable objective. It’s a single-digit percentage contribution. Cars aren’t where the leverage is. Putting aside the dubious claim that current climate change is anthropogenic, the believers / alarmists are prioritizing the wrong initiatives. We could have much more impact within several years instead of decades if we targeted fixed-location power generation infrastructure for carbon sequestering or arrest, massively subsidized rooftop solar power adoption, and jump-started large scale solar farming, for example.
CO2 release isn’t a good reason for a 75mpg efficiency standard, but economic reasons argue for some kind of sharp improvement as long as we’re importing a majority of our oil supplies. A 75mpg average? Certainly I’m skeptical of that being reached across all private vehicle types, but I am certain that 75mpg mainstream cars are achievable in the next 22 years. I had a 40mpg (highway) car running an old-school carburetted engine 30 years ago, and it was plenty entertaining. I’d particularly like to see immediate drives for mass reduction in all vehicle types, even if it drives up costs somewhat. We have an array of pretty efficient powerplants, even by GM and Ford, that are just saddled with too much mass to carry. If 75mpg is achieved via plug-in hybrids or electric cars, however, the net carbon release reduction isn’t directly proportional to the mileage improvement, if electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. So not all standards have the impact one hopes.
I agree with KixStart that even if we had no macroeconomic or environmental reasons to reduce fuel consumption, the social and individual benefits of jacking down our aggregate material and distraction cravings would have extended benefits.
Phil
Hey, Phil, I don’t favor singling out cars, in fact I think it’s nutty to do so. My preferred regulatory apparatus is a carbon (and other greenhouse gas) tax. But the notion that a 50% increase in the population isn’t a problem is as nutty as singling out cars. There simply aren’t enough resources.
But the notion that a 50% increase in the population isn’t a problem is as nutty as singling out cars. There simply aren’t enough resources.
That wolf alarm has been sounded too often before to be credible. Oh…there will be problems. What I said it that the 9+B population peak is temporary and will abate in the following hundred years or so.
However, that extra 50% is coming, like it or not. It won’t be meaningfully mitigated at this point. Your great-great grandkids will notice a little more elbow room, however. Further out, it’s going to be fine.
Phil
I seriously would like a Loremo, make mine the 2 cyl model.
http://evolution.loremo.com/content/view/13/47/lang,en/
I’d love a Mitsubishi i also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i
Japanese kei cars are amazing !
I know from experience there are people on this site who are rather emphatic about their monster-mobiles. My apologies to you guys, but the sooner the “safer” monsters vehicles are off the road, then the the smaller vehicles will automatically become less risky to drive.
The “larger is safer” argument is a self fulfilling prophecy,and has led to something of an arms war of who can out weigh your fellow motorists’ vehicles. The ideal I guess would be we all drive 10,000 lb tanks in order to quell our insecurities and fears, to get that sense of safety.
So, once again, I have my fireman’s suit and respirator on, ready to be flamed by those 200 lb humans who want to burn the fossil fuels to power 5000 lbs of vehicle to the store to buy 10 lbs of food.
That wolf alarm has been sounded too often before to be credible. Oh…there will be problems. What I said it that the 9+B population peak is temporary and will abate in the following hundred years or so.
I do’ t know why I bother to argue with you, I’m not going to change your mind. But if you think that just because people worried about population before, and it never became an overwhelming problem, it’s not ging to happen this time, well, I don’t see the logic in that. When I was born, there were about 2.5 billion people on the planet. Now, we’re adding a billion every 12 years–2.5 billion in 30 years. The number of failed states in the world is now increasing precipitously, according to the UN, and they tend to be states that have had excessive population growth, and not enough resources.
I love these threads. We will get a 75 mpg average — if we can get the water carburetor to work:-)
I am taking the under on 75 and on 35.
I don’t know why I bother to argue with you, I’m not going to change your mind. But if you think that just because people worried about population before, and it never became an overwhelming problem, it’s not ging to happen this time, well, I don’t see the logic in that. When I was born, there were about 2.5 billion people on the planet. Now, we’re adding a billion every 12 years–2.5 billion in 30 years. The number of failed states in the world is now increasing precipitously, according to the UN, and they tend to be states that have had excessive population growth, and not enough resources.
David,
If you’re buying gasoline near Alewife Station, you live in the Boston area. I spent 10 years there so we both know argument is lifeblood in your neighborhood, whether you’re changing someone’s mind or not.
I think you misunderstand me on this issue of population. Failed states, all true. My point is that the next 3 billion is fait accompli. They’re coming. Hand-wringing won’t help. But we’re not doomed. The stress will be temporary and with wealth distribution, human population will abate. So my long term view is calm. The problems you fear will mount over the next 40 – 50 years, linger for a few decades and then fade IF we keep wealth generation on track. Make people poorer, though, and population is going to bloom.
So, what do we do between now and, say, 2120? We must build continental water collection, distribution and storage systems. We must move energy away from oil where possible, to large scale solar, wind, wave, etc. Jack up clean coal (and pair that with carbon sequestering for you climate worriers). Put withheld arable land back into food production and pair that with improved food distribution. Dramatically scale micro-lending to spur local entrepreneurial activity in poor societies. Aggressively boost the efficiency of water desalination. Reduce meat intensity in diets and move more of what we eat back to grains. Develop more aggressive collaborative international response to precipitous regime failure in chaotic states.
We’re going to get through the temporary resource crunch if we focus on fielding an array of coping strategies rather than wishing away a train that’s already left the station. Isn’t it damned exciting to have such big problems to solve? It was only 15 years ago that we were being sold the myth of The End of History…
Phil
Phil, While I agree that wealth may be the key to population management, how do you propose to make some – any – of those failed states wealthy?
Phil, While I agree that wealth may be the key to population management, how do you propose to make some – any – of those failed states wealthy?
Unless the international response to failed states changes, there will have to be some failure — er, creative destruction — first. The real issue is getting the EU, Russia, China and eventually India to ante up, along with us. The Europeans want us out of Iraq, but who do they call when they want some military projection into Darfur or Rwanda? Yup, the 911 call goes to the USA and they piss on our shoes if we demur.
When we were contemplating the invasion of Iraq, we surveyed our allies for types of non-combat assistance they might have to offer. Among them, given distance between us and the the mayhem, was heavy air transport. We tallied up the EU’s count of C5x and similar cargo aircraft. We had well over 100 C5s alone. The entire EU had…wait for it….four. I guess they figure they’ll only fight the wars they can drive to. Oh wait: The EU *can* drive to Afghanistan, but getting a few thousand troops and their gear from the EU for Afghanistan is still a crowbar exercise. Well, everyone has health care, right? There’s that.
It would be comical if it weren’t so pathetic.
What would the Euro be worth if the EU were shouldering global order-keeping responsibilities commensurate with its (US-subsidized) wealth? We wanted and engineered a more prosperous world, and it was exactly the right thing to do. But the parts of the world that haven’t caught on, are going to be trouble. If we are to divert the path of failing states away from failed, and put them on a path for increasing wealth as mitigator of population pressure, a concerted response for rapid and contained intervention must be developed, but only if today’s freeloading states equip themselves to participate. Militarily and financially in follow-through policy. Otherwise, wealth will come late to failed states, and creative destruction on a slow clock is our default strategy.
Phil