Posted on 01/14/2015 5:27:38 AM PST by thackney
Auto makers are on a collision course with U.S. regulators over the timetable to achieve stringent fuel-economy standards as cheap gasoline sends consumers flocking to less-efficient pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
Car companies are laying the groundwork to seek some relief when the targets come up for review by regulators in 2017, executives said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. They are in some cases already canvassing the White House, Capitol Hill and regulatory agencies to start lobbying for possible changes to fuel economy standards that take effect in 2022.
The mileage targets, known as corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, call for auto makers to sell a portfolio of light-duty cars and trucks averaging 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025. The fleetwide standard for cars and trucks rises in 2016 to 37.8 mpg and 28.8 mpg, respectively.
But with gas prices dipping below $2 a gallon in some parts of the country for the first time in six years, auto makers are confronted with consumers pining for larger trucks and SUVs that get worse mileage than cars. Auto manufacturers, attracted by profits on each truck that often exceed those on cars by thousands of dollars, are increasing production of the bigger vehicles.
Car companies plan vehicles years in advance, leaving them vulnerable to big swings in commodity costs, especially the price of oil, and the subsequent price at the pump. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV sold more than 449,000 Ram pickups in 2014—the best of which now gets 23 miles a gallon with a diesel engine—up 24% from a year earlier. Regulators in 2017 will review mileage targets for 2022-2025.
“All of us are going to toward a relaxation of the timeline,” ...said in an interview on Tuesday. “The question is the rate of change...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I have a Honda Pilot which is not small.........
If these CAFE standards prevail US highways will look like Cuban streets with fleets of aged trucks patched together and still running as replacements are not available.
http://www.nissanusa.com/trucks
http://automobiles.honda.com/pilot/
http://www.acura.com/MDXLanding.aspx?model=MDX
http://www.lexus.com/models/LX
Sales of Heavy Duty trucks, with lower mpg but outside the CAFE requirements, will also go up.
Toyota built one of the largest factories in the world outside of San Antonio. All it builds there is pickup trucks.
If people buy vehicles that guzzle more gallons of gas, that will mean the DC backstabbers won’t have any excuse to raise the gas tax, right?
If it doesn’t have a blue oval on the front it isn’t a truck!
Consider resizing the photos so they will at least fit on a normal monitor screen.
This can help: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDownload.htm
I’ve known several people that bought a tundra/titan pick-up, they all sold them within 2 years...POS.
no problem ...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/video-kids-in-open-car-boot-832444
I’m really sorry. I was doing this on my phone and didn’t realize that the images were that big until after I posted them.
Give me a Road Runner with a 440 six-pack!
Things aren’t always as they seem. :)
Cell phones have software that shrinks any photo to cell phone screen size.
Unfortunately, automatic software doesn’t exist in the world outside the cell phone. Virtually all pics have to be reduced to fit on a standard computer monitor or tablet.
It goes beyond that. They pad truck/SUV margins to subsidize barely-profitable/negative-margin small cars. Without CAFE, large cars would be cheaper, and small cars more expensive.
Some years ago Reason Magazine had an article on the tradeoff between increased gas mileage via shrinking the size and mass of the car via the CAFE standards and the savings in petroleum.
As I recall, whatever fuel cost savings were obtained thru greater gas efficiency were offset by a factor of 5 from the increase in the costs due to the greater number of deaths and number and severity of injuries from accidents.
Everything has a cost, a principle so fundamental and simple that it’s beyond the comprehension of politicians.
Just a reminder, Hillary wanted the 55 MPH Speed Limit reinstated to protect the planet.
I love the way Politicians just make up numbers.
Gas Mileage (make it 1000 MPG), Minimum Wage (make it $1,000 an hour), The Stimulus Package (keep it under a Trillion), Obamacare (it will save you $2,500 a year), makes no difference.
They also take credit for the Engineering needed to achieve their lofty Goals. You know, so it is written, so it shall be done.
I guess they think that is Leadership. I call it Tyranny.
Well, in reality, FR should have code that prevents that from happening. When I post the same photo on Facebook, it doesn’t display any larger than any other photo.
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