Posted on 08/22/2018 10:25:29 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Trump administration recently proposed the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule. The proposed rule offers modifications to Obama-era Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards with a “preferred alternative” for model years 2021 through 2026.
Without a doubt, the Trump administration’s proposed revision is a welcome victory for consumers’ wallets and for consumer choice.
The Obama administration implemented fuel-efficiency mandates that would force auto manufacturers to have a fleetwide fuel-economy average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The new rule’s “preferred” change would maintain the existing fuel-economy mandate through 2020 (increasing to 37 mpg) and keep the level at 37 mpg through 2025.
New fuel-efficiency standards create a number of unintended consequences, including higher prices for new cars and costly retooling of existing auto plants.
A 2016 Heritage Foundation analysis estimates the Obama fuel-economy mandates increased new-car prices $6,800 more than the pre-2009 baseline trend, and that eliminating the more aggressive standards would save 2025 car buyers at least $7,200 per vehicle.
As my colleagues detail, “Economists and engineers accurately predicted that the [model year] 2016 standards would hurt consumers by at least $3,800 per car.”
Consumers—not government bureaucrats—should make decisions about what cars they drive.
If consumers value saving money on gasoline, they will simply choose to purchase more fuel-efficient cars, and automakers will meet that demand without a federal mandate. If consumers value other attributes—vehicle weight, engine power, safety—Washington shouldn’t force automakers to ignore consumers’ preferences.
In fact, a 2011 paper from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that if vehicle weight, horsepower, and torque were held constant at 1980 levels, fuel efficiency would have increased 60 percent from 1980 to 2006 instead of the 15 percent increase that did occur.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
Nanny State PING!
Ping.
37 mpg is still BS!
The Polar Bears are gonna EXPLODE!
“37 mpg is still BS!”
Well, FWIW, I drive my 6-speed, C5 Corvette Coupe between the Bay Area and Monterey (112 miles from one home to another) and am averaging 31 to 34 mpg portal to portal driving between 70 and 75 mph. Mixed highway/city driving still nets 21 to 23 mph ( as long as I don’t participate in any Stoplight Grand Prix). Getting the aerodynamics right is a big factor in milage improvement, and you don’t end up having to drive a golf cart to meet the CAFE standards.
I agree. It should be lowered to 25 mpg . . . for starters.
Oh no, now how will the left force everyone to drive electric vehicles because one size fits all or else?
*Snerk*
37 cafe is only 17 to 28 on the window sticker. We are already there. Game over.
We need car kits we can build and soup up without this epa crap.
Kit cars have been around for decades. Go buy one and build it yourself.
Imagine if the Obama CAFE standards were kept. In 2025 American roadways would look like Cuba with 30+year old trucks and SUVs patched up and still running because there were no newer models available that could haul the loads or meet the needs of the motoring public
In 1980, I had a little 185 cc motorcycle that got ~65 to the gallon. Currently, I have a 250 cc motorcycle that gets ~84 to the gallon. Ignoring the engine size difference, that is about a 23% increase in fuel economy.
Are motorcycles held to the same standards as cars?
The thread may be slender, but it's been holding the earth suspended in space for several billion years. I think it will last a little bit longer.
If the uniparty wants to improve fuel efficiency, an easy solution: Dump the ethanol mandate.
CAFE standards should be abolished. They were imposed initially as an anti-OPEC/anti-oil-import measure. They are advanced today on environmental grounds. Both of these are defensible public policy goals (about which people can disagree). But the correct way to pursue them was ALWAYS for Congress to have the backbone to sharply raise gasoline excise taxes. The market would do the rest. But that would require politicians to accept accountability and to defend their choice in the political debate. CAFE standards were never anything more than a backdoor scheme intended to mislead the public, who were invited to blame automakers rather than politicians for higher costs.
Just watched that episode a couple of weeks ago.How fitting.
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