I am pretty harsh on Kos and company a lot of the time, but I thought his latest advertising campaign was a classy touch.
Go check out the third blogad (“Support Your Favorite Bloggers”) on Ezra’s site. Read it, and click the ad.
But read Ezra’s post on the Gas tax v. CAFE standards first.
demimondian
Ya, but I don’t see a donate bar on your site, John…
Don Surber
Gas tax v. CAFE standards — never considered, marketplace. Demand for SUV down, Hybrids up
BTW, this is temporary. Commodity prices trend lower over time
Tim F
…which says in bold, ‘do not click on this ad.’
Trevor
So, raising the CAFE standards is supposed to help how? Detroit would need to start developing an all new platform (i.e. the basic frame/unibody design, drivetrain, body-style, etc. that will be shared amongst a family of vehicles, like the Tahoe, Yukon, and Suburban are a family.) If they want to increase the CAFE standards on the entire fleet they would need seperate platforms for the various size cars (the large companies can only afford to develop two, maybe three platforms at a time, but since we’re living in fantasy land, let’s assume they’ll develop all of the necessary platforms at the same time.) It typically takes them three to four years to even get the first model of a platform to market. Another two years for that model to migrate to the rest of the family.
Let’s assume the percentage of new vehicles (i.e. a model of the current year,) on the road is ~%15. Assume a generous rollover of three years for the majority of the driving public to own vehicles with new CAFE standards. So let’s be generous again, and say that the majority of vehicles on the road would be up to the new standards in 8 years. Even shooting for an unrealistic 10% mpg CAFE improvement would only result in an ~5% overall decrease in passenger vehicle fuel usage in an 8 year period. This doesn’t account for petroleum product usage by jets, the electric power industry, home heating, or the shipping industry. I think you get what I’m saying, it won’t amount to jack squat. Seriously, not a blip on the radar.
Andrew
Detroit already has every platform they need. GM owns Saab and has a large stake in Suburu. Plus they have licensed engine technology from Honda and sell fuel efficent cars in Europe. Ford is the same (subsitute Volvo for Saab). The could begin rolling off Fuel Efficent cars within a few month if it was required. Unfortunately they are addicted to the high profit margins of the SUV.
Trevor
Andrew, even assuming that they didn’t have to develop a new platform (which is untrue for most vehicle families, but I’ll play along,) it would still take two to three years to re-tool all of their plants. And another three years for the majority of drivers to have purchased these new vehicles. So, five years to get ~5% increase in mpg. In respect to the overall petroleum consumption of this country, that is a long wait for a drop in the bucket.
Andrew
Greg Easterbrook wrote a great article on this for TNR. I’m too lazy to link to it. If it was required that the fuel efficiency raise 10% tomorrow, the automakers could do it. They’d simply drop HP by a few %. Simple as that.
Trevor
Andrew, it sounds like Easterbrook is trying to violate the laws of physics. In order to increase fuel efficiency, automakers would need to decrease the Gross Vehicle Weight, size (or more precisely the amount of wind resistance due to drag,) and horsepower accordingly.
I’m happy to debate this issue, and to exchange ideas, but please believe me when I say that what you propose is not that simple. I’m an R&D engineer for an aerospace company. Before this, I was a manufacturing engineer.
Let’s look at highway driving (i.e. no starts and stops, just driving at constant speed.) The amount of energy used to keep a car at highway is a function of wind resistance, weight (which affects the energy needed to overcome rolling friction,) and drivetrain friction. Unless you reduce the drag, it’s still going to take a certain amount of energy to overcome the wind resistance. Unless you reduce the weight, the rolling friction of the vehicle is still the same. If you reduce the displacement of the engine (and thus the horsepower and weight of the engine, thus reducing GVW,) you help reduce the rolling friction by a small amount, but a target reduction in horsepower does not equal a corresponding reduction in GVW weight, and thus not a corresponding reduction in rolling friction. That reduction in engine displacement does help to eliminate some drivetrain friction as well, but even combined with the reduction of rolling friction, it does not come close to increasing the fuel efficiency by a comparable amount.
Real efficiency gains are made by reducing drag and reductions in weight to the overall vehicle. Weight reduction does have consequences though. It’s not an easy thing to reduce the weight of a given platform, yet still adhere to government crash safety standards. There is a reason that many European cars aren’t imported to the U.S.,they won’t pass our crash tests. IIRC, The U.S. introduction of the new Mini Cooper was delayed for a couple years so that they could beef up it’s front impact rating. The Smart Car (built by Mercedes,) is just about to be introduced in Canada, and might never see U.S. soil.
Andrew
Are you telling me that they couldn’t trim a few hundred pounds off of those huge SUV’s? The ones that are 6005 lbs? just to be over the 6000 pound limit?
Besides, I’m more concerend with in city mileage than highway mileage and that’s where horsepower is over kill. Those big engines are going to use more gas at idle than a smaller engine.
GM and Ford have tons of car models that could easily meet strict fuel requirements. All the Saturn cars, most of the new pontiacs, and smaller chevies. The new ford sedans (based on the volvo platform) could easily get a bump in fuel economy basically overnight. The biggest SUV’s could all go on a diet pretty quickly.
I have a degree in engineering as well, and I’ve done the math, and it makes sense. It can be done fairly easily. If Detroit bitches, give them 3 years for the full effect to kick in.
Trevor
Andrew, if you have an engineering degree, then you would know that the larger engines don’t use an appreciably greater amount of fuel at idle. They may have a larger displacement, but they idle at lower RPM’s. The amount of fuel used at idle is insignificant compared to acceleration to begin with. Reducing the horsepower capability of an engine to save fuel at idle doesn’t even begin to make a dent in mileage.
I don’t know what numbers you’ve crunched to get to this opinion, but I have yet to see one reasonable example of significant weight reduction that can be done overnight, yet for some reason Detroit refuses to do it. Please, give me one example.
Thomas
The H*ll with CAFE and all the other gobbledygook…park the car and ride a small displacement motorcycle or scooter if appropriate for commuting and reduce the USA’s dependence on oil. Modifying our lifestyle as a nation is what is needed, not beating on the manufacturers….choose vehicles that are naturally efficient. Two wheelers are the choice…my bike gets 80+ MPG and runs on regular fuel. What I save on fuel makes the bike payment. Figure it out for yourself.