That's right. Meeting higher gas mileage is so hard, we'll have to reach back to 20 year old technology to do it.

Mileage for new cars sold in the US peaked in the early 1980s around 22mpg and has been declining slowly ever since. In 1993, Honda produced the Civic VX, which got 51mpg -- no hybrid, no cylinder deactivation, no engine shutoff at stoplights. Just a lightweight, efficient car.

We have had the technology since the last fuel crisis in the 1970s, but the issue is marketing. Even on new technology, you can't get 35mpg out of the big SUVs people like to drive.

If conspicuous consumption is more expensive, through gasoline taxes, higher gas guzzler tax at purchase, etc, the market will correct itself.

Mileage for new cars sold in the US peaked in the early 1980s around 22mpg and has been declining slowly ever since.

That's not entirely accurate. "Cars" usually mean automobiles, ie, light vehicles which aren't light trucks.

The LIGHT VEHICLE average has been somewhat stagnant over the past 20 years, almost solely due to changes in the national personal vehicle fleet -- away from automobiles and towards light trucks. Consequently, this holds down average fuel efficiency for the entire national fleet of light vehicles.

As of 2004, passenger cars were 40% more efficient now than in 1980, and light truck efficiency improved 33% over that time period. For new vehicles, those numbers are 23% and 18%, respectively.

Total fuel consumed by passenger cars has only increased 9% from 1980-2004, whereas fuel consumed by light trucks has increased 163%.

Refs.
http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb25/Spreadsheets/Table2_11.xls
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_05.html

JW, you must be a lawyer trying to make a bad situation look good. The POINT is: cars are NOT more efficient than 20 years ago, and the law suite is going after that point.

From a purely legal perspective, the automakers have a point: they deserve clarity as to whose fuel economy/CO2 standards take precedence in a given market. The argument about foreign policy is bogus IMHO.

A sensible ruling would allow CO2 to be treated the way other emissions are: individual states should be free to set stricter standards than the federal government does. After all, carmakers already have to tailor their products to two different sets of emissions regs. However, the ruling should strongly discourage the emergence of additional sets as that would indeed unneccessarily balkanize the US market.

Of course, CO2 does not damage human health at the local level, whereas the already controlled compounds do. Therefore, it would be sensible to certify carmakers' individual models based on life cycle assessments of their products wrt all GHGs, rather than just CO2 coming out of the tailpipe. This gives carmakers an incentive to also reduce emissions during manufacture and recycling (a/c fluids). Specifcally, it means GHG emissions ought to be assessed on the basis of a suitable standardized weel-to-wheels analysis procedure for the energy used to operate the vehicle. Otherwise, how can you reasonably compare ICE-only, ICE hybrid, plug-in ICE hybrid, battery-powered and fuel cell drivetrain concepts wrt GHG emissions?

Carmakers should also be allowed to bundle their products with fuel contracts from environmentally suppliers in order to meet any new GHG regs. For example, a carmaker could continue to offer a mediocre-MPG vehicle provided it comes bundled with a coupon book for 1000 gallons of biofuel from a state-certified network of outlets of his choice, redeemable in the first 3 years after purchase. There would be no way to guarantee that the customer would actually use up his coupons but since he's already paid for them, chances are he would. By pre-paying for the fuel, possibly on credit, he is also insulated to some extent from future energy price volatility. Similar packages could be offered for PHEVs and FC vehicles, to promote the use of alternative energy sources for these emerging technologies.

A vexed porblem for the longer term is how to trade off different types of environmental damage, e.g. GHG vs. nuclear waste vs. land use for biofuels vs. land use by hydro dams etc. It is almost inevitable that commercial interests and the politicians whose campaigns they finance as well as single-issue political activists will try to hijack the decision-making process. The best available antidote is to put in place a formal change process that limits how fast GHG regs can be tightened and, guarantees adequate lead times for the capital-intensive industries being regulated.

JW, you must be a lawyer trying to make a bad situation look good.

No, I'm just someone who's trying to clarify a common misunderstanding, since people keep repeating "not any more efficient than 20 years ago" meme, and it's not really true - especially for passenger cars.

Vehicles have improved their efficiency (albeit at a slower rate than in past times), but this is primarily because of changes in the national fleet mix, and secondarily because of increases in weight and horsepower relative to a baseline (eg, Civics have increased horsepower by 109% and increased weight by 40% over the time period I mentioned).

The POINT is: cars are NOT more efficient than 20 years ago

Yes, they are. Sorry to break that to you, but you're free to check the references I provided. It's not intuitive that efficiency of both passenger cars and light trucks can increase, but average efficiency doesn't.

Don't confuse my desire for accuracy with my opinions about the situation of things. Of course more efficiency is desirable, but we need to get our facts straight first.

"From a purely legal perspective, the automakers have a point: they deserve clarity as to whose fuel economy/CO2 standards take precedence in a given market. "

True, but from a practical perspective, CA standards would provide a national standard, which would be a perfectly good basis for planning by automakers. They simply object to a higher standard.

Perversely, the national standards which automakers successfully blocked would have been set in a forum which would have allowed for tradeoffs and compromise, such as a federal subsidy (research, healthcare for autoworkers, etc), or purchase credits, to offset the costs. A local standard doesn't allow for that kind of horse-trading, so the automakers may have shot themselves in the foot.

I won't argue with your numbers or the links, but I think you're misleading people by taking advantage of a statement that wasn't quite pointed enough.

The truth is that the technology to make all vehicles much more efficient is 20+ years old. They didn't use the technology on the average vehicles, then or now. They used it enough to prove the technology.

Average mileage of production vehicles doesn't have anything to do with technologically possible efficiencies.

Auto makers are still fighting something they should be instead embracing as a chance to recapture market share.

Fuel efficiency per ton weight has gone up quite well. Fuel consumption per vehicle has remained somewhat stagnant (import cars were at a peak in the mid-late 80s based on www.bts.gov and domestic cars are slowly improving to match imports).

The specs on a 2006 Honda Civic just about match a 1989 Honda Accord (weight, height, length, width and even horsepower). Too bad Honda didn't make a small car out of the fit like the Yaris is...the Fit is much heavier and larger than the old Civic Hatchback of the early 90s.

Richard, here's a better chart which gets right to the heart of it:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_22.html

Since the most current data they have is 2004, and they don't have data for 1984, we'll use 1985-2004, which is as close to "the past 20 years" as we can get.

Just take vehicle-miles for passenger cars and divide it by fuel consumed and you get average MPG. For passenger cars, it went from 17.4 mpg to 22.4 mpg -- an increase of 29%. For light trucks ("Other 2-axle 4-tire vehicle"), it went from 14.3 to 16.2 mpg -- an increase of 13%. Combined, light vehicles went from 16.6 to 19.6 mpg -- and increase of 18%.

This chart compares the fleet averages with the averages for new vehicles sold:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html

You can see that the rated averages for new vehicles sold increased very slightly from 1985-2004 (passenger cars by 5%, light trucks by 4%).

jw, one thing you are doing which is not correct in the context of the conversation: You are comparing the fleet averages which includes technology that may be 5-10 years old. You should only compare the new vehicle efficiency in the context of this discussion as it is pointing at the technological advances in the last 20 years...the fleet average shows what we really are consuming but does not show what the latest products are capable of.

Now if all car manufacturers made "special" California models that had the following configuration it would be a great slap in the face for California:
1. Minimum safety requirements to save weight (only front airbags). Remove all the side & side curtain airbags, ABS, electronic brake controls and stability controls. Remove crash reinforcements that are beyond the minimum requirements.
2. Remove all telematics and entertainment equipment. This reduces alternator load and weight.
3. Remove all comfort electronics: Power seats, power windows, power locks, climate controls (vent actuators, split temperature configurations, etc).
4. Remove A/C
5. Use only base model engines with firmware revisions strictly for fuel efficiency & emissions not power.
6. Equip all vehicles with small rims & low rolling resistance tires (Civics with 14" rims and 185 width tires, Fusions with 15" rims and 195 width tires).
7. Remove all excess cosmetic pieces with negative aerodynamic impacts (spoilers used for looks rather than function).
8. Use less sound deadening.

They would meet California's demands and at the same time consumers would not want to buy another California spec car and would probably vote out any politician which supported the changes that turned their vehicles into basic transportation. This would cost the carmakers sales but nothing for extra equipment (it would save them a ton of cash in production which they would need for their lack of sales, atleast they would save on the lawyer & court fees!!!).

BTW- this is sarcasm.

I suspect that Richard's point is that CAFE standards have not changed in 20 years. We are now (or are about to be) behind Communist China and the civilized world in this regard.

California will win this suit. The jury will find that CO2 is a pollutant, and, as the means of achieving the CO2 standard are not specified, the rule does not amount to a fuel economy regulation (vehicles could satisfy it by not burning gasoline or Diesel fuel).

After appeals are exhausted neocons and Bushites would respond by trying to change the CAFE standard from miles-per-gallon of gasoline fuel to miles-per-erg of energy input, but they will be gone by then.

I remember reading that Volvo had developed a turbine wheel that fits on the end of a special exhaust manifold. This wheel was connected by a gear to the transmission and on the first generation increased efficiency on diesel trucks by 10%. Seems like this tuned properly on a gas/diesel hybrid would offer real world benefits. It's all about money spent! If we look at the cigarette companies then this is a follow on idea. Monies collected from settlement would finance this type of turbine technology being implemented on vehicles. As is sits now every gadget we add to a car increase cost wich decreases market penetration. If all were treated equall, then implimentation would be across the board for public good(i.e. catalytic converters) and taxable jobs created that provide a healthier environment. Humm... While this is not the only technology that has to be supported beyond wich pure capitalism can provide taxing polluters and spending that money on direct clean options and improvements is my idea of good government.

Repeat after me.

Fuel efficiency is not the same as fuel economy.
Fuel efficiency is not the same as fuel economy.
Fuel efficiency is not the same as fuel economy.

Fuel efficiency is how much work you can do with a given quantity of fuel.

Fuel economy is how far you can travel on a give quantity of fuel.

Slap a 2 cycle weedwacker engine on a bike and you could go a good distance on a small quantity of fuel but it would have a high specific fuel consumption.

The engine in the link below has high fuel efficiency but given it's size it would return poor fuel economy driving a commuter vehicle.

http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsshb/12cyl/

Vehicles are getting more fuel efficient but since they (including cars, by all manufactures) are getting larger heavier, more powerful, faster, etc fuel economy has not changed much.

the fleet average shows what we really are consuming but does not show what the latest products are capable of.

Well, the latest products are capable of 61 mpg in the city with a 5 passenger midsize vehicle that weighs 3,000 pounds and has all the modern safety and convenience features -- all for $20K. This same technology will soon be getting 94 mpg in the city.

That's what we're capable of right now in terms of what's on the market. So, if that's the metric, that's a HUGE advance over where we were 20 years ago.

Patrick,

You just described my 96 Civic! lol

BTW, it weighs 2350 lbs, has 205,000 miles on it, and averages 39 mpg.

Nick -

"[...] from a practical perspective, CA standards would provide a national standard [...]"

I don't agree with that assertion. Carmakers would be free to sell a different mix of efficient cars and less efficient trucks elsewhere. Of course, Californians and New Yorkers are among the country's wealthiest consumers, so carmakers prefer to sell them luxury vehicles with high profit margins. Truck-based SUVs used to excel in this regard. Detroit has not yet established a replacement segment, one reason why all three are now in a world of hurt. They are currently pinning their hopes on car-based CUVs, aka sexed-up station wagons.

A more fruitful avenue might be to expand the business model beyond making cars (manufacturing) to delivering personal mobility (a service), e.g. by extending credit to pre-paid deals on environmentally friendly fuels. See my initial comment above.

A bit of heresy but consider: eliminate CAFE. Instead, let states vary their gasoline taxes and registration fees based on efficiency, consumption, etc. Automakers can produce whatever they want, states need to pony up the political capital to regulate based on cost to operate. If they do not, upward pressure on fuel prices will have the same effect within a few years. Now consider: this is nearly the situation we have now, due to CAFE being stalled out and the availability of the Flex-fuel loophole.

Rafael has a good point. In 2004 registrations for light duty trucks (under 8000lbs GVWR) were around 8.8 million which was around 2 million more than in the state of Texas. Californians love their SUVs and it would be a good place to really regulate fuel use.

As a resident of one of the 40 remaining dirty states, I can only hope this litigation brings more attention to the cause, and culminates with meaningful direction in US gov't by 2008.

California is obviously trying to set its own mpg limits. I personally don't have a strong objection to their doing this but I don't think the courts will let them.

An alternate approach to achieve the same result would be to gradually raise the fuel taxes (Blasphemy!!); take the revenues raised and return it to the citizenry on an equal basis.

Correctify me if I'm wrong, but the only reason California is being sued is because the politicians weren't smart enough, right? The Federal regulations state you're not allowed to write an arbitrary cap on fuel economy, and CO2 is a proxy for fuel economy. Hence, the politicians wrote an unenforceable law.

However, states can raise whatever taxes on vehicles they want to, and use whatever measure they wish to do so. Currently many states look up the Federally mandated MSRP for a basis of vehicle registration / vehicle licensing tax. Who is to say they can't just change it form MSRP to EPA combined FE?

States already legally have full control to set their vehicle license tax however they wish. California already has a VLT that varies based on car. All this would do is change the lookup field from MSRP to EPA-FE. If you wanted to make it a hybrid tax then you could say that the registration tax is an equasion, such as (MSRP*0.02)+(MSRP*(1/EPAFE)) = VLT.

Example: Honda Fit, 13,800 MSRP, 35.5mpg EPAFE =

(13800*0.02)+(13800*(1/35.5)) = (276+389) = $665

Example: Ford Explorer XLT-V8 2WD, 26,500 MSRP, 18mpg EPAFE =

(26500*0.02)+(26500*(1/18)) = (530+1472) = $2002

In that example, the Explorer costs 92% more to buy at MSRP, but costs 200% more to register per year. That would have the same effect and you could even apply it retroactively by making that the new rule for VLT. CAFE only applies to new vehicles, but VLT applies to ALL vehicles!

All you guys are caught up in points of law when the planet is melting away. All I hear is chin music when you could be actively working toward reducing the know problem. You should all be smart enough to buy your next car based on the toxic gas and mpg figures. Then tell everyone else to do the same. Then the auto companies F,C&C would follow the lead or die. Trying to work with a bunch of lawyers and politicians is a losing battle. Each person has to bypass all these money grabbers and depend on themselves by making use of the best that's available in the market place. Publically, encourage the better companies and damn he worse.

Ike, personal responsibility only goes as far as you can throw your car. I drive a vehicle with LEV emissions ratings and I'm getting around 38mpg combined fuel economy (I've seen 43mpg highway) but regardless of what I tell my friends & family they will buy what they want. I've already tried to reason with people in the past and now all I can do is laugh when they cry at the gas station.

Often times people don't commit crimes due to the punishment and possiblity of getting caught, not because it is the right thing to do unless it is a serious crime. Most people (in general) would not return the cash if someone gives them too much change back from a purchase or they would not complain if they ended up with excess items in their bag that they didn't pay for. To many people a bit of pollution from their one car or a bit of overindulgence in gasoline usage is along the same lines and without any visible in your face consequences they won't change (global warming? I hate cold winters - higher tax on gas? I'm not buying that 17mpg full size pickup which I use to commute daily).

17 miles to the gallon you dont drive a dodge

It comes down to what sociologists call core values. "This is a free country and I will do as I darn well please". When you explain to them that using more than they need drives up the prices and reduces availability for others, they say "so what!?"