epa premium fuel standard EPA - Fuels New Standard - Premium?

[G. David Felt]

EPA - Fuels New Standard - Premium?

Current administration has been doing everything they can to gut the EPA even though Auto companies have stated just push out the MPG standard till 2030 or so giving us time to delivery the results. Yet with that, the auto industry is trying to get onboard with Europe to a single standard. In Europe, 95 RON is their baseline fuel standard. This is equal to our 91 octane and while we have a 40 to 50 cent premium standard for 91 octane fuel, this only makes up 11% of the gas produced in the US. Making 91 the new base standard would increase gas creation resulting in lower prices for that gas and cleaner running engines along with a 3-4% increase in fuel economy for new Auto's.

The story does say that you would not see a drop right away overnight but over a couple of years in the price of premium.

This brings up some interesting questions:

What about the cost hit to the lower income parts of society? Could they handle seeing a hit to buy gas as automakers stop producing auto's that run on regular or mid grade?

Could they just drop Mid grade and like Costco, offer only regular or premium at the same price to help transition people to Premium autos everywhere?

What else could be done to help with a change to a superior fuel?

The Drive Story

[ccap41]

2 hours ago, dfelt said:

and cleaner running engines along with a 3-4% increase in fuel economy for new Auto's.

Why would they be cleaner? 

Also, it seems like a wash because the fuel will cost more to get better fuel economy.. they should just make a standard octane for everything.

I feel like they were saying with economies of scale with 91 octane that the price would come down some.. okay so I'm assuming it would be priced like mid grade is now..  seems fair enough. So we'll pay $0.15-0.20/gallon more and get up to 11% gains in economy? I'm not seeing the benefit to any party other than the engineers themselves getting to play around more. 

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I did a little math for my car and over the course of the 15,587 miles I've driven if I got 11% better fuel economy and fuel cost me $0.20/gallon more I would have saved exactly $26.93.

$26.93

Edited May 14, 2018 by ccap41

[G. David Felt]

3 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

Why would they be cleaner? 

Also, it seems like a wash because the fuel will cost more to get better fuel economy.. they should just make a standard octane for everything.

I feel like they were saying with economies of scale with 91 octane that the price would come down some.. okay so I'm assuming it would be priced like mid grade is now..  seems fair enough. So we'll pay $0.15-0.20/gallon more and get up to 11% gains in economy? I'm not seeing the benefit to any party other than the engineers themselves getting to play around more. 

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I did a little math for my car and over the course of the 15,587 miles I've driven if I got 11% better fuel economy and fuel cost me $0.20/gallon more I would have saved exactly $26.93.

$26.93

I also thought it was very little gain for the required premium. Yet I also see the business case for auto companies building global auto's with a single powertrain and not dealing with various octanes. A single grade gas would be best.