Question:
Any vehicle over 8500 lbs GVRW is excluded from CAFE standards now being implemented.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Yes, but (there’s always a but in these things) that only applies to cars. > Trucks aren’t in the same ballpark. So if the manufacturer makes fuel > guzzling trucks for the people and they buy them, it doesn’t affect the CAFE > standards.
Response:
> (snippage) > Things have really gotten too clever at times; domestic and imported > vehicles are counted separately, so at one point Ford increased the > Mexican content of the Crown Victoria so it counted as an import! It’s > counted as domestic these days, by the way… > This is something I don’t really understand: why should the > import/domestic distinction matter? As far as I know, fuel economy will > not magically change for a given car when it crosses a border…
Are you trying to apply logic to the U.S. Government? What are you thinking? Steven’s answer gives the explanation, of course. Laid-off auto workers can still vote, hence the distinction. — Joe
Response:
(snippage) > Things have really gotten too clever at times; domestic and imported > vehicles are counted separately, so at one point Ford increased the > Mexican content of the Crown Victoria so it counted as an import! It’s > counted as domestic these days, by the way…
This is something I don’t really understand: why should the import/domestic distinction matter? As far as I know, fuel economy will not magically change for a given car when it crosses a border… Could you care to explain, please? Regards, — Grenoble, France
Response:
> (snippage) > Things have really gotten too clever at times; domestic and imported > vehicles are counted separately, so at one point Ford increased the > Mexican content of the Crown Victoria so it counted as an import! It’s > counted as domestic these days, by the way… > This is something I don’t really understand: why should the > import/domestic distinction matter? As far as I know, fuel economy will > not magically change for a given car when it crosses a border… > Could you care to explain, please?
Think back to the days of, say, 1979. U.S. manufacturers were still, by and large, building rather large cars; the standard "full size" cars that led the market were almost the size of a current S-Class Mercedes! The quick and easy way to meet CAFE would be to import a bunch of smaller Japanese cars, which were cheap anyway back then, and use them to offset the above-average consumption of the main output. GM already had a relationship with Isuzu, Ford with Mazda, and Chrysler with Mitsubishi to provide an instant source of the high-economy cars that the market was demanding at the time. This was thought to be ungood for a couple of reasons. First, it was perceived as a cheap trick; the hope was that the CAFE standards would actually change car design, not that they would create new methods of creative accounting. One could imagine, say, Honda and GM creating some sort of alliance where Honda’s smaller cars would be averaged in with massive Cadillacs and the like. Second, there was much fear that the net effect would be just to steal sales of U.S.-built cars. So, by and large, CAFE has succeeded: it forced U.S. companies to make a long-term permanent shift toward more efficient vehicles. Those gains are eroding, unfortunately; today we import about 60% of our oil, as compared to about 30% back when the OPEC embargo wreaked economic havoc here. — -Stephen H. Westin Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.
Response:
Yes, but (there’s always a but in these things) that only applies to cars. Trucks aren’t in the same ballpark. So if the manufacturer makes fuel guzzling trucks for the people and they buy them, it doesn’t affect the CAFE standards.
Response:
> Yes, but (there’s always a but in these things) that only applies to cars. > Trucks aren’t in the same ballpark. So if the manufacturer makes fuel > guzzling trucks for the people and they buy them, it doesn’t affect the CAFE > standards.
Not exactly. There’s a separate CAFE standard for light trucks, which is not as stringent. I believe it applies only to trucks under 8500 GVW, so things like the F-350 and some Suburbans are excluded but Explorer, all Jeeps, etc. are counted. — -Stephen H. Westin Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.
Response:
> Is that the correct term?
Corporate Average Fuel Economy: CAFE for short. > I vaguely recollect that some years ago, the US government > required the automakers to meet targets for average fuel > consumption of the vehicles they produced. Gas-guzzlers had > to be compensated for by building economy cars. > I wonder if this still applies today, given the large number > of vans and SUVs on the road, not renowned for their good mileage.
Absolutely. Passenger car fleets are required to average 27.5 MPG; light trucks have a separate average they need to meet, I think around 20MPG. One of the goals of the Ford PN96 program (current F-150 and light F-250) was to improve economy to meet the standard. That said, I’m not sure any of the Big Three is meeting the standard at this point in time. This has been dealt with in the past by carrying forward credits from years when buyers cared more about economy than they did today. A more recent dodge is that the standards give extra credit (I think double fuel economy) for alternative fuel vehicles; remember that the standards were written in the ’70s and were supposed to reduce our dependence on imported oil, so encouraging domestic fuel sources like alcohol or natural gas was part of it. Anyway, a certain proportion of the minivans sold today (from Ford and Chrysler, at any rate) are able to run on up to 85% alcohol, so they qualify. This helps to offset those Expeditions and V8 Dakotas. Things have really gotten too clever at times; domestic and imported vehicles are counted separately, so at one point Ford increased the Mexican content of the Crown Victoria so it counted as an import! It’s counted as domestic these days, by the way… — -Stephen H. Westin Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.
Response:
> Is that the correct term? > I vaguely recollect that some years ago, the US government > required the automakers to meet targets for average fuel > consumption of the vehicles they produced. Gas-guzzlers had > to be compensated for by building economy cars. > I wonder if this still applies today, given the large number > of vans and SUVs on the road, not renowned for their good mileage.
It’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE for short. It still applies, but there are several things you need to know to understand why so many trucks are sold. First, domestic and import cars are separate. Each group needs to meet the CAFE requirement separately. Second, trucks are separate. Also, trucks are only required to meet CAFE if their Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) is below 8500 lbs. GVWR is the wieght of a fully loaded truck, NOT the wieght of the truck itself. The truck CAFE requirement is much lower than the car requirement. The government recognized that some people work with their trucks and need to carry things, and that a truck can’t get the same fuel economy as a car. That’s how we can still buy trucks and meet the CAFE requirement. — Mark ’30 Ford Model "A" Tudor ’98 Ford Taurus ‘59 Edsel Corsair ’99 Mercury Cougar ‘94 Ford Club Wagon 7.3L Diesel with Hypermax Turbo ‘98 SunnyBrook 33′ Travel Trailer The views expressed above are mine, and mine alone.
Response:
Is that the correct term? I vaguely recollect that some years ago, the US government required the automakers to meet targets for average fuel consumption of the vehicles they produced. Gas-guzzlers had to be compensated for by building economy cars. I wonder if this still applies today, given the large number of vans and SUVs on the road, not renowned for their good mileage.