*UPDATED* White House Drops CAFE Standard To 54.5 MPG

[William Maley]

*UPDATED* White House Drops CAFE Standard To 54.5 MPG

William Maley - Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com

July 27, 2011

After weeks of intense negotiations between the US Government and automakers, the Obama administration has announced a slight reduction in their proposed CAFE standard.

The new proposal calls for a 54.5 MPG average for an automaker's fleet by 2025. Passenger cars will see a efficiency hike of 5% annually from 2017-2025 to meet the standard, while light trucks will have a efficiency hike of 3.5% annually from 2017-2021 then hiked up to 5% from 2022-2025. Regulations for heavier duty “work trucks” and other vehicles are still being worked out.

"A lot of our people are (at the White House) banging away, but hopefully we'll get this done soon. The automakers are showing a hard commitment to try to work with this administration to find a pathway forward for long-term fuel economy and C02 emissions and we're going to keep at that until we achieve that goal," said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.

So far, five companies have backed the Obama administration's plan; General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, and Hyundai. Other automakers like Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes are debating whether to accept the deal. Mazda so far is the only company that has said no to the government's standards.

A person briefed on this said Mazda wouldn't support the proposal because of requires the steepest increases from passenger cars. Both Mazda and the White House declined to comment.

Source: The Detroit News, 2

UPDATE

Mazda Motor Co., the only holdout on the US Government's proposed CAFE standard has recanted and has backed the plan.

"We have done a further evaluation of the CAFE proposal and this morning informed the White House that we can now support the proposal," said Barbara Nocera, Mazda's director of government affairs.

Mazda joins Toyota and Nissan as the latest backers to the Obama administration's plan, making a total of eight car companies.

President Barack Obama will unveil the plan tomorrow at an event with auto executives and United Auto Workers President Bob King at the Washington, D.C., convention center.

Source: The Detroit News

[SAmadei]

Warm up your voter registration card.

Lots of politicians need to join the unemployed.

[Camino LS6]

Bad concept from the start, terrible timing, unreasonable standards even if you accept the cockeyed notion that CAFE is a legitimate way to do this.

Bad all around.

[Robert Hall]

That's 14 years away...lots of room for improvement in efficiency from a mix of vehicles w/ a variety of power sources, incl. gas, diesels, hybrids, electrics...I wonder if fuel cell vehicles will ever take off..been a lot of talk for years, but not much beyond the FCV.

[loki]

Cafe is one of the more talked about topics here, most of us agree it's not the way to do it. dwight has shown that not hitting that bench mark isn't that huge of a problem for consumers in the current system.

congrats to mazda for standing up and saying no. hopefully they can prosper even if this goes through.

GM, ford, etc, saying ok, isn't this just corporatism? coercion has no place in the "free market", which we don't have anyway.

[Robert Hall]

Funny thing about Mazda is they are one of the car makers for which such regs would probably be the easiest to meet, their fleet is mostly fuel-efficient cars...

[ocnblu]

30 MPG CAFE is reasonable. Let the market decide what to buy. Any artificial hindrance to free market will be met with resistance. It's that simple.

[loki]

30 MPG CAFE is reasonable. Let the market decide what to buy. Any artificial hindrance to free market will be met with resistance. It's that simple.

and then we have to remember about the discussion of the weight factor.. be it safety or gadgets... that's practically mandated, even though safety will never leave the market, it's still rated and some people will be swayed by 1 more star than the competitor they were looking at. .. then the "toys" might be a factor too....

if we do make it to ~50mpg avg in ~19 years, will the discussion about why we fought something like this be remembered? will we still loath some of the designs and the lack of strong styling be our nightmare to dream of "yester-year", say, today... will today look like the 60's to us to what might be in ~20years?

and there will be the limit to power/displacement and efficiency we can get out of gas. then energy policy has to be looked at...every way is met with "artificial hindrances", except technology. it doesn't produce miracles, progress is good, but it's being steered by idiots, which can end up not progress.(see camino's attiude)

lol

Edited July 28, 2011 by loki

[§carlet §wordfish]

I have to wonder, though, if those of us who want more fuel-efficient cars would have the choices we do today if there had been no CAFE.

[loki]

I have to wonder, though, if those of us who want more fuel-efficient cars would have the choices we do today if there had been no CAFE.

i can agree to that, but that can't be changed. we had the metro/civic/(others?) that are/were damn close to numbers we're getting today... 40+ highway.

if the same leaps in power that were made in the 40's to the 70's could be done for efficiency since then, do you think it would be less than, or better than what we have today?

back in the 60's it was predicted ~50% of our power would be nuclear by...the 80's? while that didn't happen cause of regulations(some good, lots just stupid), do you think the better designs would not have come about if we had hit that goal that was predicted?

[SAmadei]

I have to wonder, though, if those of us who want more fuel-efficient cars would have the choices we do today if there had been no CAFE.

I would have to say yes.

The import invasion was well upon us while Detroit was in its heyday, well before CAFE. And Detroit has always understood that economical cars do sell... but they were not willing to down-engineer cars to the point of the Beetle. And I can't blame them... a 6 cyl A-body got 75% of the economy of a Beetle without giving up a ton of features and space.

Because, IMHO, the big three reacted badly to CAFE, it has led to Toyota and Honda and some friends becoming monsters in the playing field. Had the big three simply reacted to the oil shortages, they could have continued to build the big cars they were good at, and in time they would have designed decent small cars because they had to compete with Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Remember, CAFE didn't move for something like 15+ years. Toyota, Honda and Nissan would not have had such an easy time attacking the midsize and large car markets without CAFE.

Of course, without CAFE, SUVs would not have come to the forefront for replace the big cars screwed by CAFE. This actually caused average vehicle fuel economy to dive, not rise. So I imagine gasoline has been more expensive over the last decade due to the side effects of CAFE.

In any case, people like to bash GM for taking 30 years to build a good small car... but no one else could have built today's small cars in the '70s... the tech was simply not there. Not there in the '80s or '90s, either.

So in the end, I don't feel CAFE had much bearing on today's choice in small cars. We might not have had as many imports, as a few may have stayed home due to stronger American offerings... but we'd also likely have more American choices than the Cruze, Focus and Caliber... at least Pontiac, Saturn (I think GM would have still created Saturn without CAFE) and Plymouth counterparts, if not a few more.

While it may sound like I am laying a lot of Detroit's downfall on CAFE, it is not the only thing... obviously the UAW and a few other disasters also contributed.

[Cory Wolfe]

I have to wonder, though, if those of us who want more fuel-efficient cars would have the choices we do today if there had been no CAFE.

i can agree to that, but that can't be changed. we had the metro/civic/(others?) that are/were damn close to numbers we're getting today... 40+ highway.

40+? More like 50+. The late 80s and early 90s were the days of true fuel misers, lacking the hundreds of pounds in safety devices and high strength steel. Just don't wreck one.

• 1986 Chevrolet Sprint... 55 city/60 highway
• 1990 Geo Metro XFi.... 53 city/58 highway
• 1986 Honda CRX HF... 52 city/57 highway
• 1995 Honda Civic VX... 47 city/56 highway

[Robert Hall]

I have to wonder, though, if those of us who want more fuel-efficient cars would have the choices we do today if there had been no CAFE.

i can agree to that, but that can't be changed. we had the metro/civic/(others?) that are/were damn close to numbers we're getting today... 40+ highway.

40+? More like 50+. The late 80s and early 90s were the days of true fuel misers, lacking the hundreds of pounds in safety devices and high strength steel. Just don't wreck one.

• 1986 Chevrolet Sprint... 55 city/60 highway
• 1990 Geo Metro XFi.... 53 city/58 highway
• 1986 Honda CRX HF... 52 city/57 highway
• 1995 Honda Civic VX... 47 city/56 highway

Yes, from or my past, '84 Ford Escort diesel...50-55 highway.

I wouldn't want to drive any of those cars today, though...too basic and stripped down, too small and lacking safety features.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Cubical-aka-Moltar

[Camino LS6]

Yup, back then they really were efficient cars.

But we also had a much wider range of choice - that is being threatened terribly by the irrational clinging to CAFE by unimaginative politicians.

And yet, we still refuse to apply resources to the real solution: new fuels.

Change the fuels, not the cars.

[Cory Wolfe]

I wouldn't want to drive any of those cars today, though...too basic and stripped down, too small and lacking safety features.

Same could argue they were more pure. My CRX doesn't really have me begging for another 600 lbs of junk added on.

[riviera74]

The proposal is poor because CAFE itself is poor. Too bad we have a Republican problem since that party had ample opportunities to simply repeal CAFE when they had the chance five years ago. They did not.

Change the fuels, not the cars..... to what exactly?

[daves87rs]

Somehow I think the chinese are going to bring back those "no frills" cars to hit the sweet spot in this market....

[riviera74]

Somehow I think the chinese are going to bring back those "no frills" cars to hit the sweet spot in this market....

Like a Smart FourTwo or a Fiat 500?

[the_yellow_dart]

Those MPG ratings for the Sprint and Metro have been recalculated, but still beat just about anything out there.

Edited July 28, 2011 by the_yellow_dart

[Camino LS6]

The proposal is poor because CAFE itself is poor. Too bad we have a Republican problem since that party had ample opportunities to simply repeal CAFE when they had the chance five years ago. They did not.

Change the fuels, not the cars..... to what exactly?

Take your pick.

I'm a big fan of gaseous fuels myself, but bio-fuels of many descriptions are also promising.

Add-in electrics in the right applications, along with other measures beyond the fuels, and we will be making progress.

A diversified energy supply is the best energy supply.

Right now, we are doing squat to get there.

[Cory Wolfe]

Those MPG ratings for the Sprint and Metro have been recalculated, but still beat just about anything out there.

That's why I used the original ratings... The recalculations weren't based on actual testing and were just lowered for the hell of it, essentially. Case in point, my CRX. Old MPG: 32/36 - New MPG: 29/33 - User Average: 40.3 mpg with my average being 43.8 mpg.

[Z-06]

Crude oil energy needs competitor/s period.

"We are Gods" mentality of our politicians is destroying the country.

[Camino LS6]

Crude oil energy needs competitor/s period.

"We are Gods" mentality of our politicians is destroying the country.

That about nails it.

Meanwhile, any car I'd consider buying is being regulated out of existence.

Bastards.

[balthazar]

There are no cars out there today that are 'for me', but there are trucks. Someone; leave me a few good trucks in the future, please!!

[smk4565]

54 mpg seems like a high target. But my guess is electric cars will somehow raise manufacturers averages. There will be some way to use creative math with electric cars to fudge the numbers of gas powered cars to get to the 54 mpg.