Ford will ask Trump to cut fuel-economy rules, CEO says; 'no demand' for hybrid, electric cars

Green Car Reports ^ | Dec 5, 2016 | Stephen Edelstein

[GonzoII]

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that existing emissions limits for passenger cars for 2022 through 2025 should remain in place.

It's a decision that is already opposed by lobbyists representing the auto industry, and possibly by the incoming Trump Administration.

Sure enough, one automaker says it has already begun talks with President-elect Donald Trump that include a request for lower emissions targets.

[cymbeline]

“It is comfortable, economical, ...”

Thanks for the Info. on your hybrid Fusion. If Ford sees no demand for its hybrids, it must be because they don’t know how to sell them, or maybe because they don’t want hybrids to eat into other higher-margin cars.

[BwanaNdege]

Now I understand...

If you want to go faster, just drop in a bigger "real" internal combustion engine, right?

Touche!

[COBOL2Java]

Shouldn’t Trump see what Ivanka has to say about this first?

[Snort!]

[ConservativeMind]

To be fair, every automaker’s low MPG cars subsidize the sale of their hybrids. This helps automakers meet annual EPA MPG averages.

It does make for a good, solid car, though.

[cymbeline]

“To be fair, every automaker’s low MPG cars subsidize the sale of their hybrids”

I’m not the brightest guy around. Are you saying that the hybrids can’t be sold for a decent profit, but that the hybrids are needed to bolster a given manufacturer’s fleet fuel efficiency value.

[ConservativeMind]

Hybrids would cost several thousand dollars more to the consumer for automakers to make a similar profit.

It’s basically comes down to CAFE requirements for MPG and pollution. The EPA allows car companies to sell more polluting, inefficient, vehicles as long as the overall fleet meets a certain minimum standard.

Some automakers meet the increasing MPG by using substitutes to MPG (which the EPA allows). Such substitutes can be $3,000-$5,000 to Tesla for its sale of a fully electric car, subsidize its own manufacture of a hybrid or electric car, or modify your cars to use 85% ethanol (which the EPA counts as positive credit toward corporate CAFE requirements—it might be that a car capable of using 85% ethanol is considered to have 5 MPG better than it really has).