Cafe 2025 . . . 60 mpg ??

It is good for the industry to have long term guidance and to get rid of carb rules. There are likely big mpg credit for plug ins and alt fuel vehicles. I'd rather have lower targets and loopoles closed. We should know the plan in september.

EPA, NHTSA Road Show Concludes; 2025 CAFE Proposal Due by September

 

So govt. standards and regulations are the worst way to raise fuel efficiency? What, pray tell, is? The free market and competition? Ahhhahahahah!

 

Since clean air and relatively stable energy prices are public goods, the invisible hand does not work well here without some government help. Given that the government ended up bailing out gm and Chrysler, any free market principles to let bad ideas die has been further corrupted. The difficulty of a small company competing also distorts the free market.

First customers can not buy fuel efficient cars without them being produced. Free market solutions would include cafe standards, but the combination of the epa, carb, and cafe rules have created an entire industry of lobbyists and burrecrats and politicians that has caused large distortions to the system. The easiest one to see is the SUV and heavy truck. Rules put truck and suv standards differently and if it was heavy enough no cafe rules applied. Ethanol lobbyist have gotten flex fuel vehicles to have a cafe standard to the least gasoline fuel. CARB tried to set a relative efficiency standard, and in its attempt granted a massive loopole to fuelcell vehicles, causing massive industry and government incentives. EPA and CARB under an extension of greenhouse gasses to the clean air act can cause more distortions, so it would be better if these massive agencies were trumped before they can cause more distortions. The new rules if set high will likely have these relative flex fuel, fuel cell, plug in, and ev subsidies. SUV subsidies will likely go away but until the law is written, we won't know where these distortions will occur.

Other free market solutions would be to remove gasoline subsidies, and corn ethanol subsidies and mandates. Place a legitimate tax on fuel to pay for roads and research but remove these costs from the general fund. Provide government help for small businesses to test cars to government standards and to convert vehicles, instead of setting up massive barriers that only the biggest companies or large venture capital can overcome.

Free market principles result in smaller government and less distortion. Moving cafe out of the nthsa would be a good first step, but there are so many special interests that want to keep it there. NTHSA should be about safety, not setting energy or pollution policy.

 

Why not 60mpg by 2015?

 

Because we need more than one model of one car to exist.

Sure there are theoretical cars (Volt, Leaf) which MAY exist by then, but both will be in VERY small production. Only one car currently exists, and even it has a 5/6 year production cycle 1997 to 2003, 2004 to 2009, 2010 to 2015? So the Gen III Prius may be the only car which can JUST barely meet a CAFE of 60 MPG. It is hard to average one model.

 

Does the current Prius even meet the 60mpg CAFE standard? I wouldn't think so?

Maybe a fair question to ask is how is the CAFE mpg for a vehicle calculated? For example, is it the average (Hwy/city) EPA rating?

As for meeting 60mpg earlier than 2025 (or by 2025), I suspect that the only economical way to do it would be a mandatory conversion to short range plug in hybrids for all new cars sold in the USA. Given current trends, it doesn't seem too far fetched.

 

The Gen II Prius was a 55 MPG car for the purposes of CAFE. Gen III has better numbers, but I am not sure by how much, it should be close.

My understanding is that CAFE still averages the old EPA mileage estimates, so the Gen II was 60/51 for 55.5.

 

What difference does it make ... you can put any elevated mpg number into a requirement you want ... and put any year into the formula too. The auto industy has its actuaries crunch the numbers. What will it cost the industry. If it kills too much of the auto industry's profit, the industry as a whole, gets together via a suit to enjoin the rule. History proves this out, time & time again, and history will repeat itself again. The politicians who write the rule look like good guys. Yet many of these same politicians receive election / reelection funds for their campaign war chests. And we all remain part of the game ... being the simple minded tools that we all are. I fear change will only come when fuel costs get too expensive via scarcity.

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CAFE numbers are approximately 1.3x the current combined numbers. The spreadsheet can be downloaded from fueleconomy.gov.