White House Finalizes 54.5 MPG Fuel Efficiency Standard 1184
The Obama Administration announced today it has finalized new fuel efficiency standards that will require new cars and light-duty trucks to have an average efficiency of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This adds to the requirement that 2016's new cars must average 35.5 miles per gallon. "The final standards were developed by DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and EPA following extensive engagement with automakers, the United Auto Workers, consumer groups, environmental and energy experts, states, and the public. Last year, 13 major automakers, which together account for more than 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States, announced their support for the new standards." According to the administration, the standards will reduce dependence on foreign oil, save money at the pump, protect the environment, and everything else that sounds good in an election year.
Air resistance. (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point you just have to account for the laws of physics.
Pushing a vehicle at 80MPH down the highway is going to be hard to do and get 54.5 MPG. No matter how "hybrid" the car is, no matter how good your regenerative breaking.. once you're at highway speeds, air resistance becomes insurmountable.
Yay! (Score:1, Insightful)
I, for one, am glad to have overlords confident enough to legislate physics.
Got this wrong.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This adds to the requirement that 2016's new cars must average 35.5 miles per gallon.
I hope they mean AT LEAST 35.5 miles per gallon, or my 60 miles per gallon super-car is doomed..
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Force all new cars to use some alternatve fuel, one that doesnt just move the pollution and I will be happier.
To be fair, they might as well say 'all cars will run on magic moonbeams by 2025', because it's about as likely to happen.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:3, Insightful)
Cite or GTFO.
My mother, in her little blue Ford escort, was crushed to death under an oncoming SUV that was gigantic relative to the size of its passenger, and barely controllable on an icy Buffalo-area road in winter. I am, understandably, dubious about this constant "CAFE kills" blurp that occurs in every last conversation of fuel economy. I'm willing to bet that if most people used the same size vehicles, rather than vehicle size being related to income level, everyone would drive more carefully and charitably.
Overcomplicated solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
We should just stop subsidizing the oil and car industries. Stop subsidizing refineries. Stop giving tax brakes to oil companies. Stop subsidizing road development out of regular taxes. Gas will hit $10/gal and the problem will take care of itself.
Re:Overcomplicated solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right! And I would dearly love to see the laughter from the audience in the debate where that policy is expressed. That would be pure comedy gold.
While we're at it, I also suggest that we stop using electricity and only eat food that we grow within 10 square miles of our local village. And all our clothes should be made out of hemp.
Do I hear a convention speech coming on? I think I do.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:5, Insightful)
it's an arms race (Score:2, Insightful)
soccer mom texting in her gas guzzling behemoth, when wrecking with a subcompact, tends to survive better than the poor guy in the subcompact
so the real solution is to just get rid of the gas guzzling behemoths
but i guess some people want status conscious assholes driving our energy policy
The most efficient car is a city (Score:5, Insightful)
He's got the wrong target. The most efficient vehicles are the ones that aren't on the road at all. Further proof that "if you can measure it, you can mismanage it".
The most efficient "car" I ever drove was a condo in the city. I even went without a car for a while. Driving was OPTIONAL there.
I have a car now, but still live close to commuter rail and within walking distance of many shops.
Policy makers should focus on making development more walkable. It wouldn't be bad for the economy either. You would get construction stimulus from building residences in commercial areas, and commercial buildings in areas such as the vast residential tract that I grew up in. With these spaces encouraging people to walk, ride bicycles, and drive less there would be knock-on benefits in health.
Re:Overcomplicated solution. (Score:1, Insightful)
Oil companies don't get tax breaks aside from normal ones that every other person and business gets.
We don't subsidize car industries. We subsidize+bailout corrupt and inefficient auto unions so they can continue to give 80% of their union dues to the politicians whom bail them out. I'm all in favor of ending this vicious cycle of corruption.
If road development was solely funded by state and local governments, the federal government would lose its stranglehold power over them over domestic policy issues e.g. drug legalization, minimum drinking age, education, medicare funding, etc. I'm all in favor of that too.
You dare us libertarians to have freedom as if you think its a bad thing. I dearly wish you would put your money where your mouth is.
Re:Air resistance. (Score:4, Insightful)
So they'll just re-introduce the 55 MPH speed limit, which was done to save energy. [wikipedia.org]
There's also the fact that once on the highway, you won't be taking advantage of regenerative braking or other aspects that make the car more efficient. Then again, you could daisy chain cars together ala NASCAR and save wind resistance, but that would introduce computer control. Oh wait, that's being tried now anyway [drivesteady.com], so by 2025, the Government will:
1) Reintroduce the 55 NMSL.
2) Put GPS Tracking in your car and charge you by the mile.
3) Mandate Computer Controlled Driving in the name of safety and fuel efficiency.
It's all being done for your protection and to save energy. The Government can't force public transit on you so they'll just regulate cars to make them behave more like public transit.
Blah.. I don't think I'll want to drive in 2025 then.
Re:effectively raising the cost of vehicles once a (Score:4, Insightful)
Suppose there are two cars that irreparably die at exactly 100,000 miles, and that gas stays at its artificially and temporarily low $4 a gallon. If Car A gets 28MPG, and Car B gets 35.5MPG but costs $3000 more, then you'll end up paying the same ($purchase_price + $fuel_price) for each.
If you exactly that to a perfectly reasonable 150,000 miles, then Car A would have to get at least 30.2MPG to make it a better deal. If gas goes to $10 a gallon like it is in UK, then Car A would have to get 33.1MPG to make it cheaper than Car B.
Basically, your math only holds for cars that aren't driven. If you actually use the multi-thousand-dollar vehicle you purchase, better gas mileage directly converts to cheaper per mile to operate.
Re:Air resistance. (Score:5, Insightful)
For fucks sake people. This is completely attainable and not an unrealistic goal. Fucking shill posters out in force early.
I had a car in the 80s that exceeded the 2035 guidelines. A civic hatchback with an 80hp 4banger. It was cheap, useful, and lasted 20 years before I got rid of it.
I'd buy one today.. BUT NOBODY MAKES THEM ANY MORE.
Have you seen cars today? Gigantic, heavy, creature-comfort cocoons that cost an arm and a leg. And that's it. Nobody sells a value care in America.
Initiatives like this force the industry to re-inject some sanity in to the market. Cheap credit has distorted the auto market. We all drive luxury vehicles.
And don't give me that fucking bullshit narrative about mandatory safety features the culprit for added weight. Want proof? EVERY FUCKING CAR IN EUROPE SOLD TODAY.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it's an arms race (Score:2, Insightful)
but i guess some people want status conscious assholes driving our energy policy
Also known as "consumers". I'd rather have the market deciding what's needed than have it come from officious busybodies in a Politburo who want to dictate energy policy from on high, "for our own good" of course. If you want an example of what a more unfettered energy policy can do, North Dakota and natural gas fracking is one. Natural gas prices have fallen so low that manufacturers are relocating to the US just to take advantage of the new cheaper resource. Even car companies are looking into making vehicles that run on the stuff.
Re:"Savings" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it's an arms race (Score:5, Insightful)
soccer mom texting in her gas guzzling behemoth, when wrecking with a subcompact, tends to survive better than the poor guy in the subcompact
Simply not true. The behemoth is safer in a head-on collision, sure, but that's only a tiny percentage of accidents.
In almost all other types of collisions the SUV will roll over and kill everybody inside.
(After wrecking everything else in the area with all that kinetic energy...)
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:4, Insightful)
You're completely unable to comprehend what you read.
The GP wrote that small cars are unsafe when most other drivers are driving trucks. He is correct. It's not the truck driver he's worried about.
Re:even assuming your lame premise (Score:4, Insightful)
status conscious assholes should not drive our energy policy
You've used that term twice now, I assume because you need to demonize the people whose vehicle choices you disapprove of. Invective isn't much of a convincer.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:2, Insightful)
If a heavy car hits a light car the light car is going to move further.
True, but *after* shoving the little car out of the way the SUV will have enough kinetic energy left to roll over three times and kill the occupants.
Plus ... SUV drivers are more likely to die if they swerve, fall asleep at the wheel, or any of the other accidents which are more common than head-on collisions with other vehicles.
Re:it's an arms race (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of like survival of the unfittest.
In this context, the fittest do survive but the world may not define "fittest" the same way you do.
In that example, the soccer mom may survive and continue her genetic line not because her driving habits make her "fit", but other factors may. Maybe she can afford a minivan with excellent safety features, and because of those she survives. Or maybe someone else buys those features for her. Selection pressures in those cases would include her ability to earn pay, or her ability to socialize.
We have to be aware, in our current situation, that we are quite literally changing the priority and types of selection pressures. They aren't always what we've understood to be classical pressures, but they are always there. People will always be subjected to them in some form or fashion because we don't live in a bubble, instead we live in a world with finite resources where selection is a much more subtle and complex thing than it was 10,000 years ago.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if you take a big car with no safety features and compare it to a smaller car with safety features, the smaller car is going to be safer. That goes without saying. That said, a modern big car with equivalent safety features would be safer than a modern small car. You have to compare apples to apples.
the fallacy of the immaculate marketplace (Score:5, Insightful)
just admit that you want energy companies deciding US policy rather than the actual american people
stop with the bullshit nods to the miraculous marketplace, which has no meaning in this conversation. we are just talking about a choice between two different monopolistic modes: energy companies, or the US government. i don't understand people who see so much menace in their own democratic government, and less menace in oligopolistic multinational energy corporations (that corrupt your democratic government). personally, as a resident of a democracy, i'll go with the organization that is entrusted with our willpower, however flawed, than the organization entrusted with making profit by any means necessary
Re:it's an arms race (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always the fittest who survive, you're just unhappy about who that turns out to be.
Re:Tell a better lie (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Air resistance. (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the advantage of some future 70mpg car if I'm burning-up $200 a month recharging it with electricity.
All you've done is switch the country from pollution by gasoline to pollution by coal or natural gas. Plus you're not saving energy. It's still the same consumption level. I would be more impressed with a non-plugin car that actually squeezes 70 miles out of each gallon (like my insight or a Lupo TDI).
I spend about $20 on 100% renewable (wind and small hydro) electricity (at about a 25% surcharge for it), and that eliminates about 35 gallons of gas I burn a month. Those are hard numbers -- that $20 translates into about 1400 miles of driving.
So its much cheaper, and zero pollution for those miles.
You choose to fail to see the benefit because you choose to ignore facts to try to fit reality to your beliefs.
Re:Air resistance. (Score:5, Insightful)
There were cars that got over 50 mpg. The 90's Geo Metro was just such a car.
Getting to 54 mpg will actually be fairly easy. There's a ton of low hanging fruit auto manufacturers have simply been ignoring. Aerodynamics is a big, big one where it's easy to improve. Smooth the underside. Add skirts to the rear wheels. Change the rear into a "beaver tail" or "boat tail". Add some dimples like they have on golf balls to the trailing edges. Make grill openings smaller.
That's just aero. There's also plenty to be had in weight savings. Use carbon fiber, it's lighter, cheaper, and stronger than aluminum. Weight savings tends to snowball. If you aren't dragging around as much weight, you can have a smaller engine, saving even more weight. Your structural components can be lighter. Get the weight under 2000 pounds, and you can omit the power steering, for yet more weight savings.
Another area ripe for improvement is the torque converter on the classic automatic transmission we've been living with for decades. Those torque converters impose a 20% hit to fuel economy! It's disgusting that the industry couldn't be bothered to switch to more efficient designs, and that the public didn't demand it. Even just a lock for the torque converter helps. You don't have to have a manual transmission and clutch pedal to dodge that 20% hit.
Why don't we already do all this? In the case of rear wheel skirts and smaller grill openings, the reason is pure cosmetics. People think such things look ugly! That we've been willing to burn all this extra gas over such frivolous considerations is a sign of just how much waste, slop, and slack there is.
what really needs to be done... (Score:4, Insightful)
What really needs to be done is to cut the tax breaks and subsidies for energy production in this country. The government gives massive handouts to the oil industry making the gas at the pump unrealistically cheap. What you pay is incredibly low because the companies are getting government handouts (in form of subsidies and tax breaks). If we paid the true price of gas at the pump, driving a giant SUV would show its true impact on our wallets. With the government handouts, the true price of fuel is shared among all Americans, so even if you're driving a Chevy volt and you're not spending any money at the pump, you are paying through the nose for the gas that your neighbor puts into his Chevy Suburban. The subsidies and tax breaks are in the billions, and we're all sharing in that burden. If people want to drive giant cars, let them drive giant cars, just don't make me pay for their damn fuel.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:5, Insightful)
True, and that ticks me off. I live on a farm and my less than 2-year-old pickup is beat to hell in the bed and covered with scratches because I USE it.
Seeing lots of pristine, clean pickup trucks driving around is a joke.
Re:Air resistance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. See here [fueleconomy.gov]:
The energy required to move the rollers can be adjusted to account for wind resistance and the vehicle's weight.
You can quibble about how accurately drag is accounted for, but you can't say that it isn't.
Re:55 mph is not inherently more efficient ... (Score:4, Insightful)
So they'll just re-introduce the 55 MPH speed limit, which was done to save energy.
It depends entirely on the design of the car and engine. I get 4 additional miles per gallon (mpg) when cruising at 65 rather than 55. I was surprised and repeated the measurements several times. Verified the onboard computer's reported mpg against the odometer and actually gas consumed (top off at same fuel pump before and after). Perhaps 55 was some sort of average efficiency point for vehicles of the 1970s but I expect a higher efficiency point with today's designs.
Cars used to have only 3 (for automatic) or 4 (for manual) gears. 55 was probably around the speed while in top gear that the engine was in it's most efficient range. Today, cars have 5 or 6 gears (with some luxury automatics having as many as 8). Those top-end overdrive gears allow for driving at higher speed while in the RPM sweet-spot for efficiency.
Re:CAFE Kills (Score:2, Insightful)
As an aerospace engineer I will say that from a physics standpoint, momentum conservation means that all the safety standards you see for a vehicle colliding onto a wall either directly or at an angle, merely represents what would happen if that vehicle were to collide with its mirror image. Replace that wall with a vehicle twice its size moving at the same speed and all of a sudden your 'five star' rating doesn't mean too much in the real world.
I say this as a matter of fact, but realistically people are faced with a prisoner's dilemma, purchase a large car for safety because someone you might collide with could choose a larger car, or pick a compact vehicle. Everyone would be better off if we all chose compact vehicles as the nature of our collisions would contain less energy & momentum.