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."
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
and? (Score:2, Insightful)
> Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
and this is a bad thing... how?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>> Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
> and this is a bad thing... how?
Considering that cars are one of the few products that are still manufactured in the US, I'd say it could be a bad thing. A country that thinks that it can survive on imports without making anything itself is going to get exactly what it deserves: bankrupcy.
US is one of the worlds largest exporters (Score:3, Informative)
The rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
The United States still makes many things, and is still one of the worlds largest exporters, with over $1 Trillion in exports in 2009.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports [wikipedia.org]
http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres10_e/pr598_e.htm [wto.org]
It appears that cars accounted for 11% of those exports:
http://www.trademap.org/tradestaz/Country_SelProductCountry_TS.aspx [trademap.org]
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!
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Finding ways to push more cars out, as a way to fight hypothetical downfall of the industry caused by people restraining from buying new cars, is pretty close to broken window fallacy...
I'm driving an 11 year old car. It's in great condition, comfortable, reliable, safe, gets good gas mileage...why should I replace it?
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What, and you think failing to keep up with the rest of the world in MPG standards would help American cars' competitiveness?! We already can't sell half the shit the Formerly-Big Three make in (for example) China, because we fail to meet Chinese standards!
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No, we're in the shitter because our constitution grants a minority party [prospect.org] veto power over the majority of people who want government to work and actually accomplish things. Raise taxes on the very wealthy, lower taxes for average people, reduce sales tax, give more funding to K-12 and higher education, improve the health care system's quality and availability, fix our crumbling infrastructure; these are all things that the majority of Californians want, but our nearsighted attempts at expanding democracy (b
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Could you possibly get any more things wrong in on
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
The income gap is frightening, and it's getting worse. The most disturbing trend is that most of those people made their fortunes by simply manipulating money in creative and novel ways, finding new schemes and techniques to move funds around in different ways for a profit. They produce nothing of value, contribute nothing to society, and are actually actively working to make the world a worse place for the majority of the population. The perpetuate debt-slavery, kick people out of their homes, and ship jobs overseas all in the name of short term profits. The free market breaks down when there is no regulation because people cannot and will not consider long term stability and sustainability over short term pleasure and gains. It's a flaw of humanity, but it IS one that we can overcome--and we must to survive.
The majority of what happens on Wall Street should be illegal. It's not only unproductive, it's harmful, it's toxic, it kills and drives millions into poverty and wage-slavery to perpetuate a system that benefits 1% of the population at the expense of everyone else. When the 99% wake up and realize they are getting a raw deal, then we'll see real change but right now too many people are convinced of the lie that if they work hard enough and sacrifice more and more that some day they will be part of that 1%.
When they realize the American Dream they've been sold is a lie, that the top 1% have created a system that ensures they'll never get ahead, then we'll see real change.
And not soon enough will it come.
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>>and this is a bad thing... how?
Well, now that we (the American People) are majority shareholders in General Motors, I was kind of hoping to get our investment back.
But then again, I'm not sure anything can save GM.
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
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I'd like a pony
You missed that April Fools by a few years.
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 bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod This up! I have a hard time looking at the stats on new cars and see nothing but HP improvements, not MPG improvements. For example, I had a '89 Mustang GT with 225 HP, and it was fast enough to be dangerous. I could shift out of 2nd gear at 75 mpg, and spin the tires in 3 gears. It got (for the time) decent mileage, namely 18 in the city, close to 25 on the highway. Fast forward 20 years, and the new mustangs get THE SAME MILEAGE, but have 300+ horsepower. The government can mandate all they want, but until people's attitudes change, horsepower sells more cars than MPG.
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Read the recent review of electronics-laden electric GM Volt:
http://gm-volt.com/2010/04/02/gm-volt-reader-test-drives-the-nasaman-report/ [gm-volt.com]
THE VOLT IS BY FAR THE EASIEST TO DRIVE, THE MOST RESPONSIVE & THE MOST EXCITING CAR I’VE EVER DRIVEN!!! It’s impressive from the getgo! Just a touch of the accelerator starts the car rolling without even the slightest hesitation or jerkiness like I’ve come to expect from any ICE-powered car. From a replay of the video I shot, I blurted out, “Oh man! .talk about torque!!!“ at the first nudge of the Volt’s ‘go pedal’. We turned the first short-radius corner so sharply that my new HD video camera, on its normally very-secure dash mounting rig went careening across the dash —and as I grabbed for it the Volt ignored my ‘panic antics’ and continued smoothly around the sharp turn on the wet, slick pavement with no detectable leaning or sliding —it felt like it was on rails!
_AND_ it will get 50mpg on ICE.
_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 abominat
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.
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Re:No bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultra-Lightweight cars were attempted before.
You crash, you die.
No, not at all. Indy cars, for example, are vastly lighter than any standard American cars, and they crash at extremely high speeds with very few fatalities, and often without even injuries to the driver. Lightweight cars can be made quite safe. If I were designing cars from a safety point of view alone, I'd go with styrofoam as the main structural element. You crash it-- well, go and spend the ten bucks and buy a new shell to replace the one you broke.
The problem is that vastly overweight cars are dangerous to other cars on the road. To the extent that fuel economy makes all the cars on the road lighter, it doesn't hurt safety, and likely improves it.
Impact Absorption of Carbon Fiber Structures (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree strongly with the parent. Light weight carbon fiber cars can have extremely high crash safety if they are engineered intelligently. Indeed, my suspicion is that they can be more safe than steel cars. It is all a matter of engineering structures that will efficiently absorb shocks. I can imagine structures that would have carbon fiber parts that would come under tension in impact situations, and would fail in a cascading fashion throughout an impact event, thus absorbing and perhaps isolating the shock from a crash. I suspect that the crash behavior of carbon fiber cars could be "fine tuned" far more than steel structures. We can see the potential safety of carbon fiber structures carried out in Formula 1 race cars, that absorb crash impacts that are at least an order of magnitude more severe than anything a regular driver would ever experience.
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It costs more to design Honda Accord than anything F1.
The difference is, hundreds of thousands of units are produced of every designed model, so millions spent on design end up as few dollars per vehicle.
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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
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Possibly, but they can always do another Cash for Clunkers.
That's assuming of course that they don't just up the standard again later. And why not?
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Broken Window Fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window [wikipedia.org]
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I see your "why" and raise you a "huh?" What's your connection between having a higher-mileage car and not wanting to buy a new one?
No (or little) change to mpg (Score:3, Informative)
CAFE was already set to go to 35 in 2020, the only major thing (ignoring .5mpg) is that it was moved forward 4 years.
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.
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Re:No (or little) change to mpg (Score:5, Funny)
>>I guess everyone should just buy a 2005 Toyota Corolla and be done with it all. Oh wait...
Didn't we try that last summer with the Cash for Clunkers program?
And, as an added benefit, it turns out that Toyotas go even faster than expected.
Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:4, Insightful)
They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta.
I've been to America several times and there are a few things that prevent this happening. First of all the Fiesta is far too small for your average American consumeer. These cars sell massively here in Ireland but they just won't work in America because you'll hear all of the horror stories about how they're not safe because they're small. Realistically the average weight and size of your average American citizen is a lot more too.
The problem is that I saw the VW Golf (you call it Rabbit now) all over the place in San Francisco, LA and Vegas. That sounds great except I only saw them in two sizes: 1.8l and 2.5l engines. You look at that same car in Europe and they sell better at the 1.4-1.8l range. What's the point in going to a smaller car if the engine is still big? I can only imagine if the Fiesta was to be pushed it'd have a 1.6l engine anyway.
Much in the same way that I think the Hybrid market was mostly lip service I think this isn't enough either. If you need a powerful car get one, if you don't then just get an economical one. Even with hybrids, it'd have made just as much sense for your averager American to switch to a 1.5l car to begin with because all of the cars out there are already overpowered or desperately inefficient - they're all automatic for a start! Just imagine the savings if every American switched down 30% in their engine size, more if your average Joe forget about his oversized petrol powered SUV and drove a modest saloon.
Let me put this another way; I look forward to electric or decent hybrid cars at a minimum. In the meantime I drive a SEAT Leon which is a badge-engineered VW Golf. I drive the 1.9TDI variant and on one 55l tank of diesel I drive 900-1050Km (550-650 miles roughly). I know that's diesel rather than petrol but the point is efficiency and it puts out the same horsepower as a 1.6l engine which would get you a good 450 miles plus per tank.
Forget the massive forced changes which will be rejected by the public - just start by reducing engine displacement and increasing efficiency. And hey, would it kill you to write the engine size on the back of your car like we do in Europe...awareness is half the battle!
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The Ford Focus over there only seems to be sold with one engine choice - a 2 litre petrol. Similarly, the Mondeo equivalent's smallest engine is a 2.4 litre. There isn't even an option of accepting less power in exchange for efficiency. While I can see that maybe some people will want the more powerful car, surely there are some who'd like higher fuel efficiency but aren't currently given the option.
Actually, just looking at Volkswagen's UK page, they do a 1.6 litre model that gets 47 miles per (imperial) g
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In paragraph two you espouse a fallacy; specifically that large engines mean low fuel economy. It's true that a large engine _may_ get less fuel economy but it's less than you think.
As proof I submit the latest generation of Corvette's. 6.0L, or larger, V8 engines that will get 20+ MPG knocking around town when properly driven. By properly driven I mean that the driver doesn't ram the accelerator down at every opportunity and observes good start / stop procedure.
Why? Weight. They're light. Aluminum engine b
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're exactly correct. A huge reason why Americans aren't seeing much better gas mileage now versus 30 years ago isn't due to a lack of progress in engine technology. It's due to ever-increasing horsepower. If our parents and grandparents could get by with less engine displacement but even heavier cars why can't we?
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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
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The 2008 Honda Accord coupe has more horsepower than a early 90s Porsche 911.
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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?
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I've been to America several times and there are a few things that prevent this happening. First of all the Fiesta is far too small for your average American consumeer. These cars sell massively here in Ireland but they just won't work in America because you'll hear all of the horror stories about how they're not safe because they're small. Realistically the average weight and size of your average American citizen is a lot more too.
The current Ford Fiesta is exactly the same size as the mkI Ford Focus, which if I remember correctly was a big sales success for Ford in the USA. In fact the likelihood is that due to improved packaging, the chance is that the interior could be even bigger and have better crash protection.
True some Americans like big cars, but if the price of oil goes Northwards again (which appears likely, without even considering the impact of the AGW lobby), surely they will need to consider the fact that fuel consump
Re:Smaller engines would be a good start. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we come to the heart of the matter.
America is about consumption. Whether it's oil, food, bling or large-screen TVs, we are taught from childhood to buy, to use, to waste. Everything has to be supersized and extra sauce on the side and there is no such thing as "enough". In fact, continuous and endless consumption is institutionalized here to the point where our very economic existence depends on it. When people stop buying for a few months, things start to fall apart and our economy is like a cancer patient, sucking smoke through their tracheotomy hole. It's just not in our social vocabulary to economical or for that matter, rational.
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.
No. Americans aren't going to like the new fuel-efficiency standards, because they believe the world owes them whatever amount of fuel it will take to power their personal locomotives down the federally-funded highway, so they can waddle into the all-you-can-eat buffet. Like one of the porcine princesses we see on television, telling Maury Povich how she's going to "do what I want!" we're not going to even consider being more efficient with fuel until we suffer a shock to the system. They're not going to slow down slurping down the Colonel's Special Gravy until they get that massive cardiac arrest and they need a pair of high-voltage paddles to the chest.
And maybe not even then.
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.
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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.
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I remember several years ago seeing an ad for an oil company, where the whole ad was talking about clean energy and the environment and all that. At first I thought, "Cool, I'm glad they're doing something positive." Then a while later I read an article which pointed out that such ad campaigns were of course feel-good nonsense, and the oil companies were acting just the same as before. I felt like an idiot, and that was a big wake-up call to me. I'm not dumb by any means, but I had just been accustomed
Re: (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]
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]
Some things not noticed - electric and size (Score:4, Insightful)
If you read through it, you'll notice they allow all-electric cars to count as zero-emission vehicles, when in actual practice, the emissions depend on where you get the energy from.
So, each manufacturer gets an allotment with a cap for any electric cars they churn out.
But someone in a state which makes electricity from coal - like Wisconsin - creates more emissions pollution using the same all-electric Chevy Volt car than someone in a state using hydroelectric, nuclear fission, solar, wind, and tidal like Washington State.
In Seattle, our utility is carbon-neutral - no emissions. In Madison it's carbon-heavy - coal.
Another thing to notice is that the mpg requirements vary based on the footprint of the vehicle.
So if you made a very thin batmobile you could get sucky mileage and be "better" than a car with twice the mpg that has a small footprint like a Smart Car.
Of course, none of this will prevent somebody installing an industrial electric turbine in their batmobile to go 0 to 60 in 0.9 seconds - cause all-electric dragsters outrace even the best gasoline or diesel vehicle. Unless you use jet fuel.
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That's not the car manufacturer's problem. Maybe we need a limit on the average emission per kWh produced by utilities.
No one cares (Score:2)
Great. Just Great. (Score:2, Flamebait)
As raising the CAFE has proven time and again, every time they are raised, they have the effect of increasing the amount of time older, less-efficient cars will remain in service, instead of being replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient models, and, once again, the country's overall average mileage will shrink. Way to go. Of course, once they ram cap-and-trade through the way they did health care, no one but Donald Trump, the President, and Congress will be able to drive. So much for sticking it to thos
Well, probably it it's the best we can do (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuel economy standards are actually a stupid way to reduce petroleum usage. A far more effective way to do this would be to put a hefty tax on gasoline, and then the market can decide what the optimum trade is for fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, tax is such an incredibly dirty word in politics that this is just flat out impossible; anybody trying to do such a thing would not merely be voted out of office, they'd very likely be lynched.
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Do not forget the Law of Unintended Consequences. When you raise taxes on gasoline, you also raise prices on food and every other good that needs to be transported, which includes just about everything. The US is flat-out large and even though we try to do large-scale transportation for goods (such as trains and river shipping where applicable), everything comes down to trucks in the end.
Yes, they're diesel. You think that not taxing diesel would work when there's a heavy tax on gasoline?
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We don't have a VAT. Yet.
High Mileage cars are easy to build... (Score:3, Informative)
So long as you don't mind sacrificing safety.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg. With rider, even a large bike won't top 500 kg.
About 20 years ago, MADD put up a billboard with a crushed Toyota Corolla - a man and his 4 children were killed when the distance between the dashboard and the trunk was reduced to a mere 6 inches by a drunk driver. They were trying to demonstrate the evils of drunk driving, but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teens who grew up seeing the smashed cars caused by drunk driving are now buying behemoth SUVs with full frames.
Long story short - unit body construction saved hundreds of pounds of structural steel from car designs. It raised gas mileage. But the whole car - crumple zones and all - simply folds up like a tin can in an accident. Accidents which used to be survivable are now deadly, thanks to the weakening of car frames designed primarily to boost fuel economy.
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I thought crumple zones were to absorb kinetic energy?
Otherwise the force transfers to you and you get thrown around the car extremely violently.
Nope (Score:3, Insightful)
They do. They crumpled. Now what? That truck is still moving into the passenger compartment at 75 miles per hour.
Incorrect. The crumple zones absorb the energy from the truck so that the passengers don't have to... the truck is not still going 75 mph. The chance of surviving a high speed head on collision is still pretty low... it's not magic. But there's no question today's crumpling designs are far safer than old cars with separate frames.
Extra stiffness from something like a roll cage only works well if you are securely fastened down with a 5 or 6 point harness and are wearing a helmet... that's the safest way t
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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
Those cars are available now. (Score:2)
Consumers can already buy cars that get that kind of gas mileage if they want them. This really means fewer options in car purchasing.
Translation: "People don't know what kind of car is good for them, so we will to force them to buy the right kind."
Politicians are too cynical. I'm smart enough to make decisions for myself. I didn't need the old regulations and I don't want new ones.
This is a typical government trick. (Score:5, Insightful)
You've been taken by the oldest ploy in politics. They are telling you "these regulations aren't for you, but are for someone else". All government regulations are for you. The government is only capable of passing regulations on people and the burden of any government action will ultimately fall on your shoulders.
Think about it this way, will these new regulations affect your ability to buy the car of your choosing? Yes, it will because manufacturers will need to balance the number of low mileage vehicles they sell with the number of high mileage vehicles to maintain an average that meets the regulations. That means they will change their line-up and may charge higher prices to dissuade customers from buying the lower mileage vehicles. Ultimately, that means that low mileage vehicles will either not be offered, or will be offered at a price that some will not be able to afford.
Does this bother manufacturers? You bet, because the resulting line-up will be less appealing, and that means fewer sales. Should you be bothered as well? Most certainly absolutely yes! You may no longer be able to buy/afford a vehicle that meets your needs once these regulations take effect.
Stupid Waste of Time. (Score:2)
And money. Clearly, our whole society would benefit much more (and create much less pollution) by switching over completely to electric. If the government spent even a fraction of the money they spent on the TWO useless oil wars we have going on in the middle east on nano-capacitors or eliminating costly and vile corporate patents on battery technology, we would have better more reliable cars (electric cars have many, MANY less moving parts), that would be cheaper to operate, own, and be faster and quiete
Height Discrimination (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice, but... (Score:3)
...the US is still behind the rest of half the world. 35.5 mpg == 6.6 liter / 100 km
Europe: 5 l/100 km by 2012
Japan: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
Australia: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
China: 5.7 l/100 km since 2008
Better late than never, though.
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"Fleet Average" is the key word here. ie, some things like trucks can be less, some things like small cars can be more. That's how an average works.
If Ford just goes and sells the cars it has for sale in the UK right now in the USA it will already be well on the way there, enabling it to sell the current crop of low-mpg trucks.
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This bar has been set really, really low, EVEN for a fleet average! It's pretty pathetic, really.
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Oh I agree. 35mpg here is the target for an SUV - if you drive anything smaller, we're already way up.
My 1995 beater got 35mpg until the cambelt failed, and I now drive a large diesel MPV that has been doing 45.9mpg in my weekly use (a 2003 Xsara Picasso in fact).
My sister just bought a Ford Fiesta that does 65mpg. There's no reason US cars can't get the better figures!
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Even the Porsche Cayenne has become a running joke here, it's clear that whoever buys them doesn't know much about cars. Not even a Porsche fan would opt for one of those.
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An average fuel economy across a fleet of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. Just work out the mean of all the models available for sale that year, per manufacturer.
So if Ford sells a 10mpg truck, it needs to sell a 50mpg compact to offset it, with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
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...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.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Informative)
Ford makes class leading cars in the UK. Not just "average cars" - they make genuinely desirable, high quality, class-leading cars in several size/usage classes with some of the best handling and best engines available.
There is no reason for them to be selling shit in the US, which is essentially what they are doing with all but their trucks. They make some amazing vehicles, and do so profitably in Europe.
The engines they sell *right now* in the UK are way, way above what these CAFE proposals are mandating. They don;t even need to do any reseach so there;s no "bankrupting" going on - they just need to bolt those engines into the US models, or just tweak the UK models slightly so that US licence plates fit onto the back (ours are thinner but wider) and Bob's your uncle.
Maybe also tweak the screen slightly - I remember a story somewhere about the US safety requirement for airbags is to assume the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt, so the screen has to be more upright to account for this in some models. Just lobby to have that common sense thing changed and we're done.
The big automakers in the US like to hide behind that "oh woe is us, it will cost too much and we don;t have the time to do the R&D, and the margins are too low" wailing, but they are really just dragging their feet. Ford is *very* competitive in the European market, and has innovated and picked its game up to get itself there, in the commercial and the consumer market. Hell, the light commercial it sells is the word for van in the uk: Transit Van, and you can't turn left without seeing a Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Ka and occasionally the odd Galaxy (I'm afraid the French have pretty much sewn up the soccer mom van market - it's the only segment Ford doesn't have a class leader in).
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
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Not questioning your point, but are those UK gallons or US gallons for the mpg figures you quoted?
Re:Laws (Score:4, Informative)
I got them from Ford's UK site, so presumably UK gallons - divide by 1.2 for US values, which makes the worst petrol automatic Focus 29.4mpg.
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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.
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FWIW Ford is becoming quite competitive once again in the US as well. The 2010 Fusion has won numerous awards and is favorably reviewed against its peers. Quality ratings are consistently rising and are now as good as or better than their Japanese competitors. The new line of "ecoboost" turbo engines, finally replacing the trash version of the Focus with the superb model available in Europe, the introduction of the new Fiesta - all of these things are conspiring to resurrect Ford's passenger car line and sa
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The problem is that the Ford Focus sells for (starting at) nearly $30,000 USD in Europe. That's why Ford can afford to put in extra quality into the European Focus - I've driven one before and they're very nice.
No American would buy one at that price. They'd expect almost an entry-level luxury car (i.e. BMW 3-series) at that price range. In America, the Ford Focus sells for around $15,000. The barebones model with manual, roll-up windows, no power locks, etc. will be under $12,000.
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.
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Ford's UK Focus petrol cars exceed that 35mpg figure (in US gallons) for all but the 2 litre automatic, which has a US gallon figure of 30mpg.
Even leaving the diesels aside (which in Europe are often a collaboration between major manufacturers - (Ford's diesels were developed in partnership with PSA, for example).
We already have several low particulate diesels here in Europe and have for some time, that exceed the US requirements.
All of the petrol engines are more efficient for equivalent power.
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b-but the founding fathers!
Re:More deaths for the good of the country. (Score:2, Funny)
But more deaths means there are less people driving and using resources. Population control, its green!!!
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Re:More deaths (Score:5, Insightful)
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply. The crumpling absorbs the crash energy so the occupants don't. Lighter cars also means lower crash energies. Lighter cars are less likely to crash in the first place owing to better handling and manuverablilty.
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For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
It's striking how well that works. It's common to see wrecked cars where everything in front of the passenger compartment is crushed, but the windshield is unbroken and the passenger compartment is completely intact.
Re:More deaths (Score:5, Funny)
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
All that liberal science claptrap is just a bunch of nonsense. I always judge things with my gut, and my gut says that sturdy stuff don't break. Them liberals believe in hippy crap like "inertia" and that hippy Newton and his "Laws of motion". I believe in the strength of American Steel.
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Ideally hard and you go right through the obstacle, feeling nothing
Only if the obstacle is made of marshmallow fluff. If it is made of a similar material, the collision energy is dissipated by the squishiest object involved in the collision - the human.
Lighter = less momentum, sure, but it also means less control.
Clearly the Lotus Elise is the apotheosis of the ungainly clunker, unable to turn any corner at more than 20 mph.
Better handling is subjective, and I vastly prefer the feel of a heavier vehicle.
You clearly have never driven a light car, or suffer from terminal confirmation bias. Better handling can be defined by at least one absolute number (lateral g-force it can hold) and one relative number (exit spee
Re:More deaths (Score:5, Informative)
Frictional force exerted at the road is given by weight * coefficient of friction [u]. Since weight = mg that all boils down to mgu.
Lateral acceleration at a velocity v on a curve of radius r = v^2 / r. Since F = ma, The
lateral force = mv^2 / r.
As long as the first force is greater, the car is gripping. When it ceases to be, you skid. The limiting case is where mgu = mv^2 / r. The m cancels out, and you, sir, fail @ science.
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If there were a noticeable decrease in the average weight of cars, wouldn't that actually reduce total deaths, due to lower average kinetic energies involved?
Re:More deaths (Score:5, Insightful)
Until those who are driving around overweight behemoths are made to pay for their huge negative externalities. E.g. with mandatory sentences for manslaughter every time they bump into a smaller car and kill someone, increased taxes, etc. It's hardly fair that those who do the responsible thing are penalized.
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Overall, the U.S. transportation sector accounts for 33 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and highway fuel consumption for 20 percent.13 Other greenhouse gases from the transportation sector such as methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons contribute an estimated 23 million metric tons of carbon equivalent,14 which is equal to about 5 percent of transportation carbon dioxide emissions.15 The remaining two thirds of U.S. emissions are attributable mainly to the industry and to industrial and commercial buildings and the energyusing devices they contain; this includes emissions from the generation of electricity, nearly all of which goes to the industrial and buildings sectors. The numbers show that U.S. greenhousegas emissions cannot be sufficiently reduced by focusing on motor vehicles alone, but neither can they be sufficiently reduced without a significant effort in the transport sector.
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.
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This isn't about "making all cars have this fuel efficiency." It's about individual companies "making a fleet of cars which average this fuel efficiency level." No one vehicle is going to satisfy everyone, and at least the government seems to sort of recognize this by acknowledging that some types of vehicles won't attain massive improvements in the near future.
Also, it's Tata Motors...
However, driving your current car for as long as it's working/not spewing waste is the best approach, of course :)
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