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NHTSA announces Final Rule for CAFE and HDPUV standards

The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today issued new vehicle fuel economy standards for model years 2027-2031. In this final CAFE rule, fuel economy will increase 2% per year for model years 2027-2031 for passenger cars, while light trucks will increase 2% per year for model years 2029-2031.

These increases will bring the average light-duty vehicle fuel economy up to approximately 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031, saving passenger car and light truck owners more than an estimated $600 in fuel over the lifetime of their vehicles.

Heavy-duty pickup truck and van (HDPUV) fuel efficiency will increase 10% per year for model years 2030-2032 and 8% per year for model years 2033-2035. This will result in a fleetwide average of approximately 35 miles per gallon by model year 2035, saving heavy-duty pickup and van owners more than an estimated $700 in fuel over the lifetime of their vehicles.

These new standards will save almost 70 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050, preventing more than 710 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

NHTSA’s new fuel economy standards complement the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions standards for similar vehicle fleets. NHTSA worked closely with the EPA to optimize the effectiveness of its standards while minimizing compliance costs, consistent with applicable statutory factors.

Though NHTSA does not consider electric and other alternative fuels when setting standards, manufacturers may use all available technologies—including advanced internal combustion engines, hybrid technologies and electric vehicles—for compliance.

Consumer Reports explained that this rule allows automakers to average in any electric vehicles they sell, which will get credit as having average fuel economy of around 300-400 mpg in 2027 when the rule goes into effect. The Department of Energy’s Petroleum Equivalency Factor will decrease this value over time, but EVs will still get credit as having fuel economy of around 120-130 mpg after 2029.

This means that the sale of a relatively small number of electric vehicles will allow manufacturers to meet these standards without having to improve the efficiency of their gasoline vehicles, which was the original intent of the CAFE standards.

Consumer Reports (CR) does not expect this rule to deliver any incremental improvements to new vehicles beyond those delivered by EPA’s new vehicle emissions standards. CR advocated for NHTSA to set a stronger rule that would have prevented automakers from backsliding on the efficiency of their gasoline-powered vehicles as they roll out more electric vehicles, and that would have pressured automakers to ensure the EVs that they do build are as efficient as possible. The final standards are not strong enough to achieve either of these objectives, CR said.

The administration is merely checking the box on the legal requirement for NHTSA to set CAFE standards. Unfortunately, NHTSA is hamstrung by statutory limitations that prevent the agency from considering electric vehicles in setting the stringency of CAFE standards. It’s likely that this important consumer protection program will become increasingly irrelevant as EV sales continue to grow.

—Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for transportation and energy at Consumer Reports

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