White House Issues New Gas Mileage Standards 555
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that the Obama administration has signed off on the nation's first rules on greenhouse gas emissions and set new fuel standards to meet a fleet-wide average of 35.5 mpg that will raise current standards by nearly 10 mpg by the 2016 model year. Although the new requirements would add an estimated $434 per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016, drivers could save as much as $3,000 over the life of a vehicle through better gas mileage, according to a government statement. 'We will be helping American motorists save money at the pump, while putting less pollution in the air,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Dave McCurdy, leader of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, says the industry supports a single national standard for future vehicles. 'Today, the federal government has laid out a course of action through 2016, and now we need to work on 2017 and beyond.' As the auto industry seeks to emerge from ashes, many manufacturers already are trying for the right mix of approaches, experts say. Some will try to sell more hybrids. Others are introducing not-so-gas-guzzling SUVs. They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta."
No bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Keeping a car a longer time might use more fuel but less manufacturing carbon emissions result.
Personally I worry that the result of this will be leaden, electronics/batteries-loaded vehicles that lurch and rumble along on their hard suspension due to the extra weight of systems to reduce emissions...
I live in hope of someone designing a mid-sized car with ultralightweight materials and putting a slow-running non-turbo diesel in it with high gear ratios and the maximum possible low-rev torque setup - economy and long life without complications. And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony
Re:Laws (Score:2, Interesting)
...with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
And with the reality being that fuel efficient cars get sold with little to no profit which is a disincentive for manufacturers to build them. Face it, when people want a truck they buy American, when they want a fuel efficient car they buy Japanese, when consumers segment their purchases like this Cafe standards just bankrupt car manufacturers who consumers don't associate with fuel efficiency.
Averaging across a fleet is useless (Score:2, Interesting)
We need to make manufacturers calculate mileage averages from the total vehicles they sell, not the total vehicles in their lineup. This is just going to result in more abominations like the PT Cruiser, which was designed to lower the average mileage of Dodge's truck line rather than to be a useful (or even safe) passenger vehicle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pt_cruiser#Overview [wikipedia.org]
WTF is this? (Score:1, Interesting)
Pay more for better fuel economy? There's no need. Just put a smaller engine in the same car. Easy peasy.
Re:No bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you worry?
If you do a little controlling for available horsepower, vehicles have improved a huge amount since 1980, but people have spent a lot of the improvement on having more power available.
Re:No (or little) change to mpg (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, WTF? By the time this goes into effect, my ELEVEN YEAR OLD CAR will still beat the requirement for NEW cars!! I get 40mpg on the highway, and 35-36 or so around town.
We have the technology to do at least 5mpg more than this in 6 years. I wouldn't be surprised if we could do 10mpg more than this.
I wish we could actually enact a law with some value, instead of it being neutered by special interests. We have the technical expertise to do so much more. It's sad that we lack the political will to do so.
Re:Some things not noticed - electric and size (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the car manufacturer's problem. Maybe we need a limit on the average emission per kWh produced by utilities.
_AND_ it will get 50mpg on ICE (Score:3, Interesting)
I drive a large turbo-diesel saloon (sedan, for americans), a Ford Mondeo 1.8TD. I frequently get overall fuel economy in excess of 55mpg over an entire tank of fuel. and thats in an 11 year old car built using 1980s diesel technology.. but even after 180,000 miles it still does the distance, and can sprint to 3-figure speeds (yes, miles not kilometres/hour) given a lot of time for acceleration (and preferably a tailwind)
Show me one of your electro-gasoline abominations after 180K. Be lucky if it even moves let alone gets 40mpg
Re:Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been saying for years that there's no reason that American car companies can't sell the same cars they sell in Europe in the US - in the last couple of years, they've finally started listening (at least Ford has). Starting later this year, there will be one Focus for the entire world again!
Also, I'm pretty sure you're looking at imperial gallons, not US gallons - imperial gallons are bigger, so they skew mpg numbers when trying to compare cars.
Problems with this measure (Score:2, Interesting)
1.It gives exemptions for flex-fuel cars. This is WRONG. The correct step is to mandate flex-fuel in all cars (with limited exemptions for cars where flex-fuel is not possible). By changing this, car companies cant simply make their gas guzzling SUVs flex-fuel and avoid the need to make them more efficient. (or simply to make and sell less of them)
2.It does nothing to address the fuel efficiency of big rigs, garbage trucks, utility trucks, buses, construction equipment and other heavy vehicles.
3.It gives companies like Jeep that make large amounts of SUVs higher targets than companies that make more fuel efficient cars. Numbers need to be lower to force a shift of the aggregate fleet (i.e. all new cars available for sale and sold in the US) towards more fuel efficient cars (which would hopefully mean smaller cars too)
Also, the rules for what counts as a "truck" should be revised and properly enforced so that things like the PT Cruiser do not count as "trucks". To be counted as a "truck", a vehicle must either be able to take more than 10 passengers or it must have at least 50% of the floorspace of the vehicle permanently dedicated to cargo. Anything else would be considered a "car".
Re:High Mileage cars are easy to build... (Score:3, Interesting)
but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country
The IIHS crashed a 1959 Bel Air into a 2009 Malibu for its 50 year anniversary. The biggest takeaway I had from the analysis of the crash test was that the 2009 Malibu was only 100 pounds lighter than the Bel Air. Cars have gotten way heavier since the 90's. That's why we used to get 50mpg from econoboxes like the Chevy Sprint and Dodge Omni, but now we are impressed by 45 from a Prius.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg
I concur. Mine gets 40 and it is built for all out speed. It has 60 more horsepower than my Civic, gets ten more miles per gallon, and can go faster than 200 mph. However, I do spend more dollars per mile on tires than I do on gas.
Re:More deaths (Score:2, Interesting)
So long as we're just making up numbers, smaller, more maneuverable cars will lead to perhaps one trillion fewer deaths per year.
It's been argued [gladwell.com] that the ability of small, maneuverable small vehicles to avoid accidents outweighs the increased risk of dying upon a major collision. Gladwell provides numbers to back up his claim--deaths per driver are much more relevant than deaths per accident. Per driver hour or driver mile would be better, of course, and he doesn't normalize against different populations of drivers* (Do bad drivers simply prefer SUVs?), but so long as you note the caveats, actual data beats the mental random number generator any day.
*Disclaimer: I haven't read the article in years.
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're partially correct. Yes, it has gotten ridiculous that people think they "need" a 300hp mid-size sedan just to go to work and the store. However, an even more important issue in why mpg hasn't improved more is WEIGHT. We have so many bullshit "safety" regulations that add unnecessary weight that it's not even funny (those 25 airbags in your new car that you never use because most people aren't in a major accident) -then there's the fact that car sizes have ballooned over the last decade to where a BMW 5 series is now the same size as a 7 series used to be and a Nissan Altima is now the size that the Maxima used to be, and you completely murder mpg. It's ridiculous that it's normal now for a mid-size car to weight 4,000 lbs - it shouldn't weigh more than about 3,300 lb, tops.
We need to cut weight first, which will increase mpg / acceleration right there, then we can cut engine size too and have the same power / weight ratio, yet MUCH better mpg. Mazda has already stated that they're planning on cutting weight on their vehicles - I believe their first target was 10% reduction in weight by 2012 (maybe 2014) and then shave 10% off that within 4-6 years later.
Re:No bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
non-turbo diesel
There is zero reason to have a non-turbo diesel in a car. The turbo significantly improves the engine output while having no adverse effects on mileage at cruising speed. Turbochargers in diesels are much less stressed than in gasoline engines, so they are just as durable as the engine itself.
Non-turbo diesels have disappeared from cars because turbocharged diesels are better in every way.
Re:Laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Tell that to VW, who use the same engines in their US models - the Euro engines exceed the US emission requirements and have for some time.
The other safety differences tend to be about things like the screen issue I mentioned - a US requirement being to assume the passengers are not wearing a seatbelt, affecting the angle of the windscreen.
Re:No bad thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, I give..why would anyone want a car with less performance. I mean, if you're looking at a performance car (ok, so a mustang is on the tail end of the spectrum, but still) why on earth would you want a car with less? If you want a car that doesn't have horsepower, braking and handling...get a yugo or something.
I have enough money to pay for my gas, and I prefer a care that is FUN to drive. Every time I get in my car to go anywhere, it is not a task or a drudge, but an adventure. Even if only going to the grocery store for food.
This isn't a one car fits all society...why try to make it one?
Re:Social engineering is evil (Score:4, Interesting)
When 16 ships can emit as much pollution as every car on the planet
The story you're pointed to is about SULFUR.
Sulfur is is component of pollution, and talking about it in reference to gasoline makes about as much sense as talking about it in reference to urine. (Gasoline generally has very little sulfur in it).
Your statement about the 16 ships producing more "pollution" than all cars has to be about the most misleading statement I've ever seen modded up on slashdot.
Re:Social engineering is evil (Score:1, Interesting)
Garbage trucks make great hybrids: http://green.autoblog.com/2008/04/08/volvo-introduces-first-hybrid-garbage-truck-works-on-dme-fuel/
Long haul trucks do not make great hybrids. With current infrastructure, the main advantages of hybrids are constant engine rpm and regenerative braking. Long haul trucks don't brake or change speed much so, aside from a perhaps a small regenerative kicker to help get them rolling or a switch from road to rails, there isn't a lot of room for improvement.
A large container ship can transport a full container (30,000kg, basically one truckload) 6,500 mi on about 150 gal of oil). Your car transports about 90kg 4,500 mi on about the same amount of refined fuel. This doesn't sound bad until you consider that about 250,000 cars per day cross the GWB: 22,500,000 kg * 60 mi or 500,000 gal of gas every day.
Re:US is one of the worlds largest exporters (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't change the fact that we remain a nation of wasteful asses, who prefer disposable trash over quality goods. As long as the net value of imports exceeds the net value of exports, we are doing it wrong.
I've just purchased two new T-shirts. I could have gone to Walmart, and paid something like ten bucks for them, imported from almost anywhere in the world. Instead, I bought Carhartt T-shirts, which cost me 30 bucks, or 15 dollars each.
From long experience, I know that those cheap T-shirts would wear out in a year, give or take a little bit. My Carhartt T's last between 6 and 8 years. Not only have I purchased better quality, but someone in America was paid for making those T's. Each person involved in the production of those T's paid some tax, and whatever they profited after taxes will almost certainly be spent in America, to better an American's life.
A couple shirts doesn't mean much, in the grand scheme of things - but if 350 million American made a similar decision each and every day, our economy would begin to turn around.
"Just Say NO" to disposable worthless trash. Shop around, and get value for your dollar. Sometimes, that might mean purchasing an imported product - but not all the time. Not even most of the time!
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't always so. Ben Franklin and Henry David Thoreau very eloquently expressed a thriftiness that was uniquely American. It went hand in hand with self-reliance. When I see the over-fed, demanding, soft, food-stamp using Americans of 2010 who are claiming to champion a return to "every man for himself", I wonder how long they would last if any one of them were to actually be expected to pull their own not inconsiderable weight.
It's become obvious to me lately that advertising is a big culprit here. For the last sixty years, Madison Avenue and friends have been refining ways to convince us to do things that aren't in our best interests: buy more than we can afford, buy things that we don't need, buy, buy, BUY!
Advertising is corrosive. It sells an idea of a world where everything has a simple solution. Buy our product, and life will be BETTER! Even if you're smart and assume that advertising is always lying to you, being exposed to lies for years on end will start to make you believe them, or at least believe the normative view they come from.
My friends' kids, and my older son's friends are frequently obsessed with this cartoon character or that. Ours aren't. Why? We don't have TV. We haven't for about three years now, and so our son isn't getting exposed to constant advertising that exhorts him to eat shitty fake food at shitty fast-food chains, or to harass us to buy character-branded toys. All the video we watch, we watch on our computers after he's in bed. (And it's all ad-free; I don't really want to see ads any more than I want him to. In fact, I'd happily pay $2-3 per episode for the few shows we watch, if it meant no ads.)
A huge problem with "free" TV (that is, ad-supported TV) is that there's a cost associated with watching ads. As I said, it promotes a false worldview; even if the ad is relatively accurate, its sole purpose is to get you to spend money on something that you may not actually have any real need for. And the advertisers don't care if you spend money you don't have, or spend money on a product you don't need instead of saving for retirement, or your kids' education.
Okay, okay, I could go on for hours. Rant over.
Re:and? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now that the top 1% have 2/3 of the income and 42.7% of the wealth (2007), I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that helping the top 1% is helping the rest of the country any more.
And the top 20% have 93% of the wealth. That's right-- 80% of the country shares 7% of the wealth.
At what point does the 80% (or the 99%) say screw the 20% (or the 1%)?
When they start voting. And/or when they stop cutting their own throats and destroying their own jobs over abortion. Hell- Legalize or Ban ABORTION. At least for 10 or 20 years. But OPEN your DAMN eyes and stop letting the corporations and the wealthy starve you and crap down your throats (and I"m talking BOTH republicans AND democrats. Both major parties have been hijacked by 1% of the country!!!)
If you don't open your damn eyes, the wealthy will get control of the military as well and then we are fucked.
And HELL YES I'm pissed off at this point.
The top 1% have gone from 52x the income in 1978 to 354x the income in 2006 while shipping tens of THOUSANDS of jobs overseas.
How many TV's does a top 1% wealthy person buy? 8? 10?
How many cars? 10? 20?
How many houses? 5? 12?
How many TV's, cars, houses, did those 6,000 people the bastard laid off buy before he took a 100,000,000 salary & stock and shipped their jobs to india and china (Microsoft! IBM! Etc.!)
Wake up and vote before things start turning violent.
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn. I just spent my last mod points a few minutes ago.
I've become kind of allergic to ads, to the point that I analyze the psychological tricks used when I have to watch any. There's hardly any advertising left that just says, "Hey, I'm selling this great product at a great price." Everything drips with emotions, NLP and other tricks. Like the latest ads where Exxon is trying to sell itself as a high tech company that will fuel clean energy. Jeez.
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, a stock Honda Odyssey can post comparable times to a Porsche 356 on the track:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/soccer-moms-revenge/ [grassroots...sports.com]
Is there really any reason why a family car needs that kind of power?
Height Discrimination (Score:3, Interesting)
That's pretty friggin heartless (Score:2, Interesting)
"Hi, I heard you got cancer. Here, have a car that doesn't work."
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether it's oil, food, bling or large-screen TVs, we are taught from childhood to buy, to use, to waste.
A strongly related summary on your subject can be found on The Story Of Stuff with Annie Leonard [storyofstuff.com]
Re:Impact Absorption of Carbon Fiber Structures (Score:3, Interesting)
I was going to say that your argument was fallacious, but then I realized that you weren't even making an argument, merely an assertion of your opinion. Here is my argument for why your opinion is likely wrong.
While it is true that F1 race cars are obscenely expensive, this does not mean that it is impossible to build an inexpensive carbon fiber car. To build such an inexpensive car, we will need to bring automation to carbon fiber construction. Currently, much of carbon fiber fabrication methods involve hand laying of carbon fibers in specific directions in specific layers in order to obtain an engineered strength pattern. This is hugely labor intensive, and is the main reason why carbon fiber parts are so expensive. I have seen automated carbon fiber production, where robots lay out the fibers in specific directions on a flat sheet, and then thermo-resin is placed over the fiber matrix. After the flat sheet is formed, heat and pressure are used to press the sheet into whatever shape is needed. The pressing of sheets into shapes is how many steel auto parts are formed. If this technology could be improved and refined, I see little reason why we cannot mass produce carbon fiber vehicles. It is simply a matter of investing in new technology. For an example of what can be done, google "Aptera". These cars are largely made of carbon fiber, and will likely cost between $25000 and $40000. Because they are so light and aerodynamic, they get the equivalent of 200mpg! This doesn't sound like $200000 to me.