New CAFE Mileage Numbers Announced

[Jamie B]

A friend of mine is always amazed that my 20-some year old Sportster gets over 50mpg where his Honda VFR only gets around 36- with a smaller engine, I have to remind him that he gets 3x the HP and has 4 times as many valves allowing his engine to breath a lot more.

I don't understand.
If his engine, albeit smaller, has better intake and exhaust floe, and it is less efficient?

[RaspberrySurprise]

I don't understand.
If his engine, albeit smaller, has better intake and exhaust floe, and it is less efficient?

Im guessing this is because the better intake and exhaust system allow it to burn more fuel to generate more horsepower.

[RoadKingLarry]

Not only that, but the EPA is always at the verge of mandating 15% ethanol fuels. If the CAFE standards can'tbe met with straight gasoline, they surely cannot be met with E-10 or E-15.
A properly tuned turbo-deisel in a rally car sized vehicle could probably easily do it, but the EPA isn't going to allow that either.

There is also the known fact that 15% ethanol is not compatible with older vehicles. The newest vehicle I own is 10 years old the oldest  is 60 years old. There is a war on older cars as well. We saw some of that with the cash for clunkers program where it was required to destroy the engines of the traded in cars. Another tactic to deny lower income people the ability to afford a car and thus be slightly more independent of government.

[Stetson]

Wonder how many mpg my horse gets, considering the diesel fuel used harvesting hay ...? 

Are oats or bucket feed higher octane?

[drewtam]

55mpg hmmmm....

Seems like they are requiring the vast majority of passenger cars to be diesel, hybrid, or full electric. Regardless of the cost/benefit.

I think the trucks and suvs (because suvs are considered trucks) don't actually apply to this standard. Minivans might be under the "car" category, if I recall correctly.

Sooo.... expect SUVs to continue to sell strongly as the only cheap large passenger vehicle available. I expect this will be the death blow to the  station wagon. If I am right about minivan classification, I expect they come out with a hybrid or diesel version. New minivans are already expensive, so I expect that market will also shrink.

[Scout26]

IIRC, trucks and SUV's fall under this, as it's "Corporate Average Fuel Economy"


Yep, from Wikipedia:

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) are regulations in the United States, first enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1975,[1] and intended to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles) sold in the US in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. Historically, it is the sales-weighted harmonic mean fuel economy, expressed in miles per US gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer's fleet of current model year passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 pounds (3,856 kg) or less, manufactured for sale in the US. If the average fuel economy of a manufacturer's annual fleet of vehicle production falls below the defined standard, the manufacturer must pay a penalty, currently $5.50 USD per 0.1 mpg under the standard, multiplied by the manufacturer's total production for the U.S. domestic market. In addition, a Gas Guzzler Tax is levied on individual passenger car models (but not trucks, vans, minivans, or SUVs) that get less than 22.5 miles per US gallon (10.5 l/100 km).[2]

Starting in 2011 the CAFE standards are newly expressed as mathematical functions depending on vehicle "footprint", a measure of vehicle size determined by multiplying the vehicle’s wheelbase by its average track width. A complicated 2011 mathematical formula was replaced starting in 2012 with a simpler inverse-linear formula with cut-off values. [3] CAFE footprint requirements are set up such that a vehicle with a larger footprint has a lower fuel economy requirement than a vehicle with a smaller footprint. For example, the 2012 Honda Fit with a footprint of 40 sq ft (3.7 m2) must achieve fuel economy (as measured for CAFE) of 36 miles per US gallon (6.5 l/100 km), equivalent to a published fuel economy of 27 miles per US gallon (8.7 l/100 km), while a Ford F-150 with its footprint of 65–75 sq ft (6.0–7.0 m2) must achieve CAFE fuel economy of 22 miles per US gallon (11 l/100 km), i.e., 17 miles per US gallon (14 l/100 km) published. CAFE 2016 target fuel economy of 38.5 MPG (44 sq. ft. footprint) compares to 2012 actual advanced vehicle performance of Prius hybrid: 50 MPG, plug-in Prius hybrid: 95 MPGe and LEAF electric vehicle: 99 MPGe.

CAFE has separate standards for "passenger cars" and "light trucks", despite the majority of "light trucks" actually being used as passenger cars. The market share of "light trucks" grew steadily from 9.7% in 1979 to 47% in 2001 and remained in 50% numbers up to 2011. [4] More than 500,000 vehicles in the 1999 model year exceeded the 8,500 lb (3,900 kg) GVWR cutoff and were thus omitted from CAFE calculations.[5] More recently, coverage of medium duty trucks has been added to the CAFE regulations starting in 2012, and heavy duty commercial trucks starting in 2014.

Bolding mine

[AZRedhawk44]

So, do Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Lotus, Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Bugatti all pay the CAFE penalty?


Does "manufactured for sale in the US" mean:

-manufactured in the US
-manufactured anywhere, but sold in the US

?


Strikes me as the peak of Mount Stoopid if we are penalizing domestic manufacturers and not holding auto importers accountable to the same standard.

[Scout26]

Strikes me as the peak of Mount Stoopid if we are penalizing domestic manufacturers and not holding auto importers accountable to the same standard.

Welcome to .gov thinking....

If it's stoopid or really, really, really stoopid, then the .gov is behind it.

[griz]

So, do Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Lotus, Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Bugatti all pay the CAFE penalty?

Yes, millions.  Or at least the customers pay it even if it is channeled through the company.  A company such as Ferrari is pretty hard hit because they don't sell any economy cars that increase their average. 

[mtnbkr]

Porsche has been working with hybrid tech.  Though, IIRC, they use the electric motors to increase performance as much as to reduce fuel consumption.

Chris

[Tallpine]

Let's see ...

No cars

No garbage trucks

No long haul trucking



Won't that be fun ?   

[birdman]

Yes, millions.  Or at least the customers pay it even if it is channeled through the company.  A company such as Ferrari is pretty hard hit because they don't sell any economy cars that increase their average. 

Ferrari is owned by Fiat.

[Nick1911]

54MPG?

My Honda motorcycle will just barley get 54mpg on the highway if you are easy on the throttle.

It will be interesting to see how expensive this makes buying cars in the future.

[mtnbkr]

I don't know that it will make them all that much more expensive in the long run.  My 93 Paseo (big enough for 2 adults and 2 kids) got an honest 40mpg on the highway with a 5spd transmission and my lead foot (30mpg in town without AC).  The current generation Mustang V6 gets 20mpg in town and nearly 30mpg on the highway with an automatic transmission, while being more powerful than the previous generation V8.  I think we can get there, but it'll take work and a change in tech (diesel, small turbocharged engines, smarter engines, etc).

Chris

[Harold Tuttle]

so if a bicycle gets 10000 miles per gallon, if Ford buys Trek and sells bikes, then they can offset a 250 superduty rather nicely

[Nick1911]

I don't know that it will make them all that much more expensive in the long run.  My 93 Paseo (big enough for 2 adults and 2 kids) got an honest 40mpg on the highway with a 5spd transmission and my lead foot (30mpg in town without AC).  The current generation Mustang V6 gets 20mpg in town and nearly 30mpg on the highway with an automatic transmission, while being more powerful than the previous generation V8.  I think we can get there, but it'll take work and a change in tech (diesel, small turbocharged engines, smarter engines, etc).

Chris

Maybe.  I'm just wondering how much more one can squeeze out of a gallon of gasoline.  These engines are already pretty darn good.  I wonder how close engines are to theoretical carnot cycle, and how much of that difference is in losses that can't really be mitigated?

[Monkeyleg]

Would a price tag of $100,000 be considered "economy" for Ferrari? I wonder what they could build for that price that would meet CAFE standards.

[griz]

Ferrari is owned by Fiat.

Yes but still a different company, so the average computed on Ferrari's products, not their parent company.  (I am not a lawyer and this is only based on my layman's understanding)   They could put Fiat badges on them I suppose, but then who's going to pay 300K for a Fiat?

[Tallpine]

Yes but still a different company, so the average computed on Ferrari's products, not their parent company.  (I am not a lawyer and this is only based on my layman's understanding)   They could put Fiat badges on them I suppose, but then who's going to pay 300K for a Fiat?

Maybe 300K in fiat currency .... 

[brimic]

I don't understand.
If his engine, albeit smaller, has better intake and exhaust floe, and it is less efficient?
 

Think of Harley engines as tractor engines versus Formula-1 engines in sport bikes- the Formula-1 engines make a lot more horsepower but don't any more torque than a tractor engine, and their torque peaks are up high in the RPM range.
Now imagine those same engines geared for best driveability- your tractor engine will be loping along not more than 2-3x its idle speed at cruising speed, while the formula-1 engine will be revving much higher. Same displacement, the engine that is breathing more at the same RPM is going to use more gas.

That's the best analogy I can give. The Harley engine doesn't rev very high, but pulls at low speeds like a mofo, while the high performance engines are a lot more powerful once the throttle is cracked open.

[birdman]

Yes but still a different company, so the average computed on Ferrari's products, not their parent company.  (I am not a lawyer and this is only based on my layman's understanding)   They could put Fiat badges on them I suppose, but then who's going to pay 300K for a Fiat?

that can't be the case.  GM is/was the parent company of both hummer, Saturn, Pontiac, Cadillac, and yet the higher MPG vehicles of Saturn offset the Cadillacs.

How do you/them define different companies?  Ferrari is just as much Fiat as scion and Lexus are Toyota.  U Ferrari/fiat different than Cadillac/GM?  Chevrolet/GM?  Lamborghini/VW?

Badge doesn't matter.

[mtnbkr]

Maybe.  I'm just wondering how much more one can squeeze out of a gallon of gasoline.  These engines are already pretty darn good.  I wonder how close engines are to theoretical carnot cycle, and how much of that difference is in losses that can't really be mitigated?

I don't expect us to get 54mpg out of a truck or full size sedan, but there's no reason we can't get to the mid 50s in a compact car (current Civic or Corolla size cars) and mid 30s in the full size sedan.  Toss in a few subcompacts (Geo Metro, etc) hitting 60mpg and we'll have our 54mpg average for CAFE.  We're nearly there today with naturally aspirated gas engines.  Maybe make a wholesale switch to diesel for the midsize and larger trucks to bring them up to the 20s (know a guy with a newer dually 4x4 F350 diesel that gets into the 20s on the highway).  An SUV the size of my 4Runner with a turbodiesel I4 will hit the mid 20s with roughly the same power (lower HP, but more torque).  The Crosslander 4x4  (ARO in Europe) that never made it to the US back in 2003 was supposed to have those specs.  IIRC, it didn't make it because of emissions. 

Chris

[Harold Tuttle]

I passed a EV Fisker Karma last week

how many CAFE indulgences is that worth?

[brimic]

how many CAFE indulgences is that worth?

I dunno. I heard that if you order a Chevy Volt, Obama himself will deliver it to your door while wearing a Pope hat.

[roo_ster]

Increase CAFE and increase road deaths.

Let people / the market decide what the ywant to prioritize.