The Temple of VTEC - Honda and Acura Enthusiasts Online Forums > Today's Reading Links > > Re: US Sets Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards

iutodd wrote:
notyper wrote:
Hopefully the EPA and CAFE will be brought to heel come 2013. They're simply out of control.

Your statement about the magic hand of the market is off-base. Mandating more fuel efficient new cars is simply going to force more people in the lower half of the income tables to retain old cars longer. The actual effect on net energy consumption in this country will be very, very small.

Something environmentalists rarely consider is unintended consequences. In part because they don't understand markets.

SC

I think the auto industry is just catching up to itself. The CAFE standards didn't change FOR 20 YEARS (from 1990-2010) so now they are finally going somewhere. God forbid car companies actually have to try to make well-engineered, fuel efficient cars (which some companies basically fought for the entirety of that 20 years (and well before) but now they have no choice and I think that's a good thing).

The average age of cars on the road is already pretty high - but that might also have something to do with the recession, the absolute collapse of the auto industry (17 million cars a year peak to 10 million cars a year two years later), tight credit markets and continued high unemployment/underemployment as opposed to (the already raised) fuel economy standards. If the global economy doesn't get better then these kinds of things might continue - but car sales are on track to be as good as they've been since the Lehman Brothers collapse so maybe they won't.

The article says that the price increases because of the increased costs due to better fuel economy would shut 7 million more people out of the car market. The Prius C starts at $19K and gets 50 mpg. There are all sorts of models you can buy in Europe that get 50 mpg (Euro spec anyway) for less money than that. I am not saying that I want our country to be full of Polos and Priuses...but if Full-Size V8 SUVs go away I won't exactly be sad...and if you're spending less than $19K that's (a Polo/Fit/Sonic/Accent) what you're going to buy anyway.

Already, in the last 5 years we've gone from mid-size cars (like the Accord) getting 31 mpg highway and that being OK, to the new Altima getting 38 mpg highway and by GOD the Accord better beat that shit. That's a 22% increase in expectations in just 5 years. Obviously to continue at that pace might be impossible - but let's say that every 5 years the Accord can gains mpgs at half that rate - 11% (because we all know that Honda will forever dissapoint us). In 2017 we will expect the Accord (or some other mid-size competitor) to get 42 mpg highway, in 2022 it will get 47, and in 2027 it will get 52 mpg highway. I don't know if those numbers are even possible with internal combustion engines alone but, 5 years ago, did 38 mpg in an Altima seem possible?