Following the big CAFE announcement this morning – which called for a 54.5 mpg fuel economy standard by model year 2025 – EPA administrator Lisa Jackson (pictured) gave a bit more information on how the proposal will affect the vehicle landscape in the U.S. She said that there is no expected percentage of what kinds of powertrains (diesel or plug-in or more efficient gasoline engines) will make up the fleet of vehicles sold in 2025, just that the rule requires those vehicles need to be cleaner than the ones produced today. Jackson told AutoblogGreen that gasoline and diesel vehicles "are treated the same" under the new proposal, something that Volkswagen is not too happy about since diesel doesn't get any of the miles per gallon equivalency incentives, the way that plug-in and fuel cell vehicles do. The EPA says that the proposal also gives, "Credits for technologies with potential to achieve real-world CO2 reductions and fuel economy improvements that are not captured by the standards test procedures," that's apparently not good enough for VW. The White House proposal also gives a lot of love to big trucks, and Jackson said that, "full-size pickups are where we decided to make some accommodations," since that segment is running a bit behind the rest of the industry in terms of getting better fuel economy.
We also gathered a few numbers from various press releases that were put out today. There have been a some negative comments issued (see VW and the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, below), but most are positive:
- Savings to the consumer of $1.7 trillion at the pump (Source: EPA)
- Alternate number: Savings of $107 billion at the pump (Ceres)
- Savings of $8,000 per vehicle by 2025 (EPA)
- A loss of $65 billion in federal funding for state and local highway, bridge and transit improvements (ARTBA)
- The entire program will save 12 billion barrels of oil (EPA)
- By 2025, oil consumption should be reduced by 2.2 million barrels a day (EPA)
- 54.5 mpg is the same as 163 grams per mile of CO2 emissions
- 54.5 mpg "would create roughly 484,00 jobs nationwide" (Ceres)
Source: Autoblog Green
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One concern is that auto makers will produce much lighter cars in order to meet the CAFE regulations. Lighter cars are great for mpg but not so great in case of an accident.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that carbon fiber technology is cost prohibitive as this would certainly help. These numbers can be reached WITHOUT hybrid technology if auto manufacturers were willing to allow fuel injection and mixing techniques that allow more complete combustion. Autos have been built for decades that attain great fuel economy but the technologies inexplicably become deep six'ed. Obviously, the oil companies are averse to high mpg vehicles.
ReplyDeleteI think it's achievable because the standards are applied to the entire fleet and not specific car. Car companies can still sell SUV's and trucks if they offset them with EV's and hybrids.
ReplyDeleteEnterprise - Well said. Listening to auto manufacturers make excuses about their inability to achieve these numbers becomes tedious.
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