White House Rolls Back Fuel Economy Standards (caranddriver.com) 254
Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [T]he Trump administration announced less stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in an effort to bring down the price of new vehicles. The administration says that rules put in place by the Biden administration broke the law by going beyond the requirements mandated by Congress when the CAFE program was started. The new regulations will require automakers to meet an average fuel-economy figure of 34.5 mpg across 2031-model-year vehicles, instead of the 50.4 mpg that would have been required under the previous regulations. sinij comments: "This is a much-needed move as they also recently closed a number of loopholes, such as the assumed fuel-savings credit for engine start-stop technology, that made it more difficult to meet these goals. More so, a recent string of engine and transmission failures from multiple manufacturers shows that meeting fleet standards came at a very significant cost of reduced reliability."
My honda does that now (Score:2)
My civic...all gas...gets 34.8 on ave now. I guess that means Honda can fire the dev staff and save some money. AI will of course take over any new requirements...
Re: (Score:2)
The 1996 Opel Astra 1.6 does even better by my quick calculation. Been driving it because mum can no longer drive it and the last two long trips ended up roughly at 1 litre per 19.8 km, and 17.2 km.
My best mate noted the supposed better economy of the lease cars he rode wasn't all that better over the years. Not surprisingly with the average weight of cars going up.
Re: (Score:2)
My 2.2 tonnne Ford 4wd gets 25 mpg. My 1 tonne Ford Escort (1973) got .... 25mpg.
Your mate is wrong.
When I first got a company car it did 12 l/100km. 25 years later the same model of car was grtiing less than 9, despite 25% more par, and meeting tighter emissions regs.
Your mate is wrong.
Cute Little Aluminum Blocks with Turbochargers (Score:5, Interesting)
My 2.2 tonnne Ford 4wd gets 25 mpg. My 1 tonne Ford Escort (1973) got .... 25mpg. Your mate is wrong. When I first got a company car it did 12 l/100km. 25 years later the same model of car was grtiing less than 9, despite 25% more par, and meeting tighter emissions regs. Your mate is wrong.
You're clearly not talking about American cars. What's a 1-tonne Ford Escort? I did have a 1983 Dodge Ram D150 half-ton pickup truck with a Slant-6 and an A-833 manual transmission; that thing would get 25MPG and hold 75MPH all the way westbound across Michigan... of course, it took it a while to get to 75MPH, merging was just like driving a Peterbilt with a 53' trailer full of anvils. That exact same engine and a comparable transmission were available for the Dodge Trucks line from 1960 to 1987 and was renowned for durability and reliability.
The key point is that Americans typically don't want them. To this day, in Canada, gasoline is cheaper than water. I'm not sure if that's a statement about gas prices or a slam against the sort of fool who feels the need to buy their tapwater in PET bottles, but I digress. So people buy horsepower. People buy large vehicles based on truck platforms.
As CAFE forces vehicles to become more fuel efficient - without addressing the underlying consumer demand problem! - manufacturers are being forced to use smaller and smaller engines. This means adding turbochargers to cute little aluminum blocks, narrower cam lobes and variable displacement oil pumps and smaller oil control rings all to reduce the internal drag, and thinner oils which offer zero cushion on connecting rod bearings. All of this gets stuffed into a full-size pickup truck with a trailer hitch. They're intolerant of real-world conditions and use, and because of their complexity they're expensive to repair. These vehicles will not have a long lifespan - sure, you might get a good fleet average mileage, but if 50% of the vehicles don't make it to the 100,000 mile mark, they're getting replaced faster with all the environmental damage of producing and disposing of the vehicle.
Maximizing vehicle life is an important part of reducing the vehicle's overall environmental impact.
There's a great YouTube channel where the owner of a full-service used auto parts business takes apart modern engines and shows you what failed. [youtube.com] No prior knowledge of engines is required to understand this. Some engines are spectacularly broken. And Eric talks about what will last, and what won't, with an entertaining sarcasm.
Recycling? The lead-acid primary battery gets removed, then the car gets crushed and shredded. Only the steel and the aluminum get recycled. Anyone who thinks that any other material in a car gets recycled in any quantity has never seen a car shredder in operation. ASR (Auto Shredder Residue) is a special waste stream now consisting mostly of mixed plastics, smashed safety glass, and the crap people leave in their cars when they junk them. All that plastic gets landfilled.
Re:My honda does that now (Score:5, Informative)
https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA?s... [youtu.be]
I’m not raging against US cars, either. Ford makes really good trucks, and pretty reliable too, although not quite as reliable as the best Japanese and Korean ones. But we abandoned small cars about 2 decades ago and never looked back until Tesla came along.
Re: (Score:2)
The only automakers affected by this will be the legacy US manufacturers. The ones that abandoned any make/model that weighs less than 8 metric tons.
Japanese automakers have also found large SUVs to be quite profitable for markets like the USA. I can't really see Toyota Grand Highlanders and Sequoias rolling down the streets of Tokyo. And they've also been slow to adopt electrification. Back in the earliest days of the Prius, one of Toyota's executives said that every model would be offered as a hybrid in about a decade. That might happen after three decades.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? The only ones available without a hybrid option that I can see are the GR 86 rwd coupe and the GR Supra.
We could include the GR Corolla and Hatchback Corolla if you don't consider them "Corollas."
Re: (Score:3)
I looked this up last week, and it surprised me:
Number of cars (not trucks or SUVs) made by US based manufacturers:
Ford: 1 (Mustang)
Chevrolet: 1 (Corvette)
Cadillac: 2 (CTS4 & 5)*
Tesla: 2 (Model S & 3)
Lucid : 1
Lincoln : 0
Buick (yes, they still exist) : 0
Chrysler: 0
Dodge: 0
That's it. There are only 7 car models available total from 9 US manufacturers, the rest of the models are all trucks and SUVs.
In contrast, there are 14 Japanese brand car models made in the US.
* - I did not include the $400K+, hand
Re: (Score:2)
Technically Chevy is bringing the Bolt EUV back soon. They call it a compact SUV, but it's really just a small hatchback car with some adornments to make it look more SUV-ish. I've heard that they've scaled back production targets since the EV tax credit went *poof* though, so they're probably not planning on selling many of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Dodge has the new Charger now. While bigger than the old one, it's considered to be a "car". It's not every popular at the moment because it's overpriced, but it does exist?
Re:My honda does that now (Score:4, Informative)
Chevrolet officially ended its production of the Malibu in November 2024. They still sold it as a 2025, but they haven't made any in more than a year.
Re: (Score:3)
It's hilarious that you think Tesla makes small cars. An actual small car is something like a Fiat 500e or a Hyundai Inster, not a frigging Model 3.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I guess that's sarcasm and AI humor, but remember that the average is across all vehicles for a manufacturer. Most trucks still get around 20 to 24. To offset that there will need to be lighter cars that get near 50, and not just a handful - trucks are top heavy sellers for some manufacturers not named Honda.
Nope.
Trucks, including the light trucks sold to consumers, are a separate category in DAFE. You don't average trucks in with cars.
Re: (Score:3)
Correction noted [Re:My honda does that now] (Score:4, Insightful)
The link in the summary to the CAFE standards specifically mentions it includes light trucks.
Looks like the standard must have changed, and my information is out of date. In the past, there hadseparate standards for cars and light trucks (e.g., https://afdc.energy.gov/data/1... [energy.gov] ).
I stand corrected.
Re:My honda does that now (Score:5, Informative)
Trucks, including the light trucks sold to consumers, are a separate category in DAFE. You don't average trucks in with cars.
It literally says in the very first sentence of the government page on CAFE: "NHTSA's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards regulate how far our vehicles must travel on a gallon of fuel. NHTSA sets CAFE standards for passenger cars and for light trucks (collectively, light-duty vehicles), and separately sets fuel consumption standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks and engines."
How did this blatant misinformation get marked as "Informative", I'll never know..
Re: My honda does that now (Score:3)
While, customers, the company, the epa, and EU equivalent to the EPA might disagree on TElsaâ(TM)s range by a few miles, the difference is not dramatic enough to uncover a lie on the part of the company. We are talking plus or minus 2 percent here.
a much needed move? (Score:4, Insightful)
"This is a much-needed move..."
Nothing the Trump does is a "much needed move" unless you are a criminal. I guess that tells us who sinij is.
Re:a much needed move? (Score:5, Insightful)
A "much-needed move" would be to allow BYD cars to be sold here and let the free market economics (that conservatives ostensibly claim to love) sort everything out. But nope, gotta keep selling those high profit margin gas guzzlin' pickup trucks that over half of Americans can't actually afford.
The only solace I take from this is that Musk screwed himself by supporting this administration, because Tesla's sales are down, too. [eletric-vehicles.com]
Re:a much needed move? (Score:4, Insightful)
A "much-needed move" would be to allow BYD cars to be sold here and let the free market economics (that conservatives ostensibly claim to love) sort everything out.
I'm not going to argue about the merit of allowing BYD or not. This is only about free market economics. BYD is heavily subsidized, and their entry in the market would skew any possible free market economics. That said, it isn't like Tesla didn't directly or indirectly receive subsidies. It might look closer to a free market if everyone has their thumb on the scale, but it wouldn't be.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, whatever we've currently been doing certainly hasn't incentivized domestic auto manufacturers to produce affordable cars. Or very many cars that are actually "cars" (as opposed to SUVs and pickup trucks), for that matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
BYD is heavily subsidized
No, it's not. The exported BYD cars do not get any unusual subsidies. Their initial R&D was subsidized, but not the production.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ar3 you just going to ... ignore the gigantic bailouts that US OEMs received? Not to mention the costs of the various wars fought to keep the fuel flowing, the unfunded externalities, etc? So you're going to count some subsidies (the ones in China) but ignore others (the ones in the US)? Seems like a lot of motivated reasoning to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Your comment ignores why NEW products cost more, and the more new stuff is in a product, the higher the price will be. Once those features have been around for a few years, the price for those features can come down because a fair amount of the R&D costs have been covered by product sales. There is also the idea that higher volumes of sales will allow for lower prices, because 500,000 vehicles sold vs. 50,000 vehicles sold and how many sales are needed to hit break even for the R&D.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
More BS American Propaganda. I'm American and it doesn't work on me; boy does it work on my peers! Gullible idiots; should be obvious to foreigners by now.
BYD is not subsidized into beating American cars!
#1 cost for an American car is the healthcare of their employees! BYD? "Free" healthcare. We both get "free" roads. We both have government helping the power companies; they just do that better than we do too. We are screwing alternatives, they are #1; we are building super subsidized nuclear power which
Re: (Score:3)
Re: a much needed move? (Score:3)
You cannot make a market freer by removing all regulations. That's a total misunderstanding of how markets work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:a much needed move? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really understand the right wing's deep need to completely make shit up. If you are strong in your belief of your worldview, then surely reality should justify it.
No one wants to see you jailed for differences of political opinion. Do get over yourself and your persecution complex.
The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the USA car companies are bribing politicians to keep fuel economy standards low because they do not want to spend money on R&D. Meanwhile the Chinese car makers are designing dark factories that crank out electric cars that are better and less expensive than anything made in the USA. Ten years from now there are going to be Chinese factories in the USA cranking out amazing cars. And it is going to be a bloodbath for the companies that want to keep living in the past.
Re: The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:2)
It's fine -- the Republic-bans will just ban them, keeping the expensive and crappy American-made cars the only options to buy. They need to keep their rich friends happy somehow, you know!
Or "tariff" them. One of.
Re:The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the USA car companies are bribing politicians to keep fuel economy standards low because they do not want to spend money on R&D.
Worse. Oil companies are driving the lobbying (i.e., bribing politicians) because they make trillions from people burning as much gasoline as possible.
Re:The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a guy working hard to ensure the US not only loses the global competition for auto production, but becomes the last bastion of tailpipe emissions.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a guy working hard to ensure the US not only loses the global competition for auto production, but becomes the last bastion of tailpipe emissions.
Well, don't forget that the US does produce a LOT of oil domestically, and the fortunes of those oil billionaires aren't going to protect themselves!
Re: (Score:2)
Exon is making a move to expand plastics. Whatever that means. I suppose PLA will be banned next?
Re: (Score:2)
You are also delusional if you think that Chinese cars are anything but unreliable junk [jdpower.com] that you can laugh at while they catch on fire [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I fail to see how fuel economy legislation is responsible for rod bearing failures.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Thinner engine oils cause less friction between the components [enginebuildermag.com] of an engine and result in a lower amount of energy loss from the movement in the engine, but engage reduced oil film thicknesses, which requires higher tolerances and better oil or it will generate more wear and limit durability. Basically manufacturing techniques and oil chemistry does not yet allow reliably do what is necessary. What they have now is similar to low-yield chip fab process, only they have not developed a good way to test it before installing the engine.
Have not developed a way to test it? Bullshit.
The exact same motor is installed in the American variant and the EU variant. Do you know what the oil recommendation differences are and more to the point why they are different?
0W-20 runs in the American motor in order to barely eek out another 1MPG to barely meet the CAFE standards necessary to ship product. 5W-30 runs in the EU motor because it’s the best viscosity for the damn engine. Which they determined long ago with engineering and testing, bo
Re:The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:5, Informative)
It's really quite simple if you've ever gone elbows deep into a modern engine...
To meet new CAFE numbers, you have to get your engine as small and light as possible for the parameters it needs to meet for the product. So, all aluminum 3 or 4 cylinder blocks, under 3 liters of displacement. These don't produce great power naturally aspirated so you add some form of forced induction. Turbocharging tends to be the most efficient and easiest to control to provide variable boost so you bolt one of those on, with all the plumbing and controls.
Forced induction leads to higher chamber pressures. Add direct injection and you start getting some rather "dynamic" effects during combustion. All this energy gets transmitted down the conrod to the main crank. What's protecting the crank? Soft metal bearings that expect a certain amount of oil film of a certain strength to be between the parts to cushion, cool and lubricate the crank and conrod.
Thanks to other parts of CAFE and EPA regulations, the oil specified by some engine manufacturers is light...very light. 0W-20 or even 0W-18. And, it has fewer "old school" additives like zinc sulfate or similar, that act to protect against metal to metal damage, should the oil film get too thin.
Finally, your average car owner in the US is not the best when it comes to maintenance and will run an engine long past its oil-change point. This is where the trouble starts. These thin oils don't have great additive packages because they have to be thin to keep the lubricating friction losses down to meet efficiency benchmarks. As the engine racks up hours they tend to overwhelm the oil detergent packages (detergents suspend fine particles swept up by the oil, hopefully to be filtered out) and start shedding ash and other particulates. At this point, the oil isn't meeting the lubrication requirements, and you start seeing bearing damage. Keep this up and eventually you'll trash a bearing as everything's been engineered down to the Nth degree with little margin for slop.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally, your average car owner in the US is not the best when it comes to maintenance and will run an engine long past its oil-change point.
Manufacturers themselves recommend crazy long oil change intervals, with 10K or longer, because, you guessed it CAFE and EPA regulations count oil changes against your lifetime emissions.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know what the U.S. car's problem is with those short oil change
Re: (Score:2)
Why do European companies not have this problem?
Re:The old auto makers are fucked. (Score:4, Informative)
Why do European companies not have this problem?
Generalising wildly, German engineers seem to be obsessed with manufacturing tolerances. Based on my experience disassembling and rebuilding German vs Japanese motorcycle engines, for as long as I can remember the manufacturing tolerances on parts made by German companies are just tighter. With thicker oils forming thicker lubrication layers you could get away with looser tolerances, but when you have to move to thinner oils the irregularities come back to bite you. If you've not had a company culture of tight tolerances forever then it's probably more expensive to tighten things up after the fact.
Re: (Score:2)
The big problem isn't engines using thin oil, it's engines burning oil. Piston rings these days have less spring force than they used to, and that's causing engines to burn a lot of oil. Most manufacturers now consider it "normal" to burn a quart of oil every 1,000 miles, which wasn't the case back in the 90's.
It's reached the point where engines are burning so much oil so quickly, that the oil level may get critically low even before the next oil change interval. Even if you change your oil on schedule
Re: (Score:3)
They don't allow detergents in oil any more?
They do, but that’s not the main issue I believe. If your current motor is rated for 5W-30 and I forced you to change to 0W-20, you would not be reducing that down to merely a detergent problem. American cars are being recommended a non-optimized viscosity because CAFE standards are (ironically) more important than engine longevity. Which ultimately translates into premature vehicle replacement, something only a car maker in the United States of Capitalism could love.
Sadly, even auto makers aren
Re: (Score:3)
The Chinese-made cars being sold in Australia by brands like BTD and MG and GWMHaval are not "unreliable junk".
Oil profits (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta keep the demand up so the profits can go UP. Drill baby drill!
The world is moving on from inefficient oil-burners whether we like it or not.
Good. Now bring in the smaller vehicles sold in EU (Score:3)
I want to see this at the Toyota dealership.
https://www.toyotahiluxchamp.c... [toyotahiluxchamp.com]
And many others with much better gas mileage.
Re: (Score:2)
We can't have those because they wanted to sell chicken meat to Germany after WWII.
No, really, Fat Electrician has a good video on it.
(our government is just a loony bin now)
Re: (Score:2)
Incredible that this is what you post as an example of a small vehicle in Europe, rather than, say, this:
https://www.renault.co.uk/new-... [renault.co.uk]
CAFE needs reform (Score:2, Interesting)
CAFE standards and testing have a shoddy [wikipedia.org] basis in science. The standards need more than a rollback, but a complete rewrite.
Re:CAFE needs reform (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you think that anything that bad for car owners is inherently a good thing because everyone should be riding a bicycle.
With new car prices the way they are, a lot of people actually are taking more serious looks at e-bikes and e-scooters. Heck, Car and Driver Magazine even did an e-scooter review. [caranddriver.com]
I live in a part of central Florida that's not particularly affluent and have noticed that these things have absolutely become the "poor man's Tesla".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I think people will still be riding in plenty of cars - they'll just be Waymos, Tesla Robotaxis, etc. When people can't afford to buy, they rent.
We're probably never going back to truly affordable new cars in this country, because there's too much money to be made selling transportation as a service to those who can't afford a car.
Re: (Score:2)
I traveled to poor countries where traffic is 90% scooters. This is all they can afford. I hope we can do better.
Being inexpensive to purchase and operate is one advantage scooters have over automobiles; the other is that they are small enough to maneuver quickly through heavy traffic and easier to find a parking spot for in congested areas.
This will cost you money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I like to say that gas is currently cheap because anywhere you'd want to drive to spend money has become too fucking expensive.
As for EVs reducing demand, ChatGPT estimated that if all of the roughly 4 million EVs in the USA were magically transformed into ICE vehicles, the price of gasoline would raise by about 1.3%, which is well within normal market fluctuations. So no, you don't really have to thank us EV drivers for cheaper gas.
At least now I know that my own individual contribution in lowering gas pr
Re: (Score:2)
He never has and he never will. It's all just a bollixy old story he tells himself, like the one about who Slashdot readers are, because he absolutely will not countenance that this is about points on a scale and supporting modal shifts for as many journeys as possible, rather than just trying to stop the use of cars / trucks altogether:
Active transport > electrified public transport > ICE public transport > EV private transport >>> ICE private transport.
Re: (Score:2)
the reason gas prices have been stable is we keep pushing for more fuel economy keeping demand down.
Absolute bullshit. a) Gas prices have no been stable; b) It is supply side that largely fluctuated, not demand; c) The biggest contributor to lower gas prices is the U.S. shale revolution, where a new technology allowed US-based production to increase.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a very convoluted explanation of how this is going to cost Americans money, just like the stuff about how vehicles are going to be magically more reliable is a convoluted explanation of how this is going to mean Americans spend less.
The blindingly obvious truth is that the operating costs for vehicles is going to increase, because they will use more fuel per mile in the future. And that is the direct and clear reason that this is going to cost Americans money. The other obvious reason is that it is
Roll backs (Score:3)
Can we roll back the Chicken War tariffs that have been in place since 1964? (Yes, it's vehicle related.)
How about eliminating the "foreign oil" exemption to windfall profits tax? Especially US oil that is exported then re-imported at a higher price to evade the tax.
While we're at it, delete the Jones Act (Which is why the East Coast imports oil rather than pipe it in), add in Right To Repair, Right To Own, One Touch Make Ready, Repeal of all cable and telephone monopolies, escheat back to the government leased radio spectra not 72% utilized for more than 3 months, revocation of all DRM for E-Books and printer supplies, term limits for SCotUS, Senate, and House, require congressional districts have about the same number of people with the minimum possible circumference as the only legal considerations (Because voters should pick their politicians, politicians should not be able to pick their voters.)
Yeah. Pipe dream I know. Too much power into the hands of the people, too many profits short circuited.
Those failing engines and transmissions. (Score:5, Insightful)
The GM transmission problem is apparently a bad valve design that wears out fast, which is just another sign of declining engineering and craftsmanship abilities at least in the US; but for at least Toyota their machining problem was also within Japan made parts. The entire world is just getting sloppy.
Re: (Score:2)
specifically not cleaning out shavings and debris
This explanation was discredited [autoblog.com] in every [usatoday.com] case. That reason was provided to avoid stop-sale order by NHTSA.
Re: (Score:2)
The direct fuel injection does seem to cause more trouble than it's worth. Small gain in fuel efficiency, large increase in maintenance cost.
Leave direct fuel injection to the diesels and race cars.
GM's transmission problems are due to other issues.
More expensive gas? (Score:3)
Won't this mean gas will go up?
In other words: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
don't forget the higher cost of fuel needed to travel the same distance
if we assume a 15 gallon capacity, then a 50mpg fuel standard means you would be able to travel 750 miles on a full tank. but a 35 fuel standard means you would be able to travel only 525 miles on a full tank. so you would have to buy gas to travel 225 more miles. that's about an extra 6.5 gallons of gas. assuming a $3/gallon price that's an extra $20.
so, not only we screw the environment, but we also need to buy more gas from shell, bp
Re: (Score:2)
If it makes the car less complicated and more reliable then it's worth it.
The fact that the government is mandating fuel efficiency means that most people don't care. If they cared, nobody would buy the inefficient cars so the manufacturers wouldn't make them, no need for government intervention.
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that the government is mandating fuel efficiency means that most people don't care. If they cared, nobody would buy the inefficient cars so the manufacturers wouldn't make them, no need for government intervention.
The invisible hand of the free market solves a lot of things, but it's never quite figured out how to avoid the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]. Everybody wants to live on a livable planet, but nobody wants to pay for the technology required to keep that way.
Committee (Score:5, Interesting)
In practice, CAFE is an abomination. They created a loophole big enough to drive a Ford Super Duty through, and then the automakers did exactly that. A quick recap for anyone who has not followed this saga since the 1990s:
here has long been a dual standard: one for "passenger cars" and a more lenient one for "light trucks", the latter including pickups, vans, and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) That classification created what many call the "SUV loophole." In effect, a vehicle that might, in all practical respects, resemble a car but classified as a "light truck" could escape the stricter fuel-economy and emissions constraints applicable to cars.
Because automakers must meet only a fleet-wide average, not each vehicle individually, this gives a strong incentive to produce and sell more of the looser-regulated "light trucks." Light trucks with poor fuel economy can be balanced in the fleet average if the manufacturer sells enough efficient cars (or EVs, nowadays) but with the loophole, upsized SUVs [cornell.edu] or trucks became a rational choice. This dynamic has been identified in economic analyses of CAFE's impact on the US vehicle market. this does not prove that every driver of an SUV did so because of regulations. Consumer preferences, marketing, and cultural factors also matter. But the regulatory structure plainly created a meaningful incentive for automakers to shift production toward heavier, less-efficient but more profitable SUVs and light trucks. When the consumers must choose either vehicles too small for winter, families, and vacations or a behemoth because there's no actual light pickup pr large sedan on the lot, they're not picking the smaller one.
And let's not pretend it's all an innocent mistake. The automotive lobby absolutely noticed what these overlapping rules made possible and spent years making sure the loopholes stayed open. Millions of dollars flowed [cambridge.org] into Congressional campaigns to ensure that "light truck" definitions remained comically broad. Tighter average fuel economy numbers or looser ones will do nothing to fix this. The whole scheme needs to be undone.
Re: (Score:3)
Because automakers must meet only a fleet-wide average
Hey! I know! For every Ford Super Duty sold, just throw in a 10-speed bicycle.
What's the fleet average of 20 MPG and infinity?
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much if you buy anything made by Ford it should come with a backup vehicle. /s
here we go again (Score:3, Insightful)
it seems like you can count on the current administration to make the wrong decision every time.
Small pickup trucks (Score:2)
Wake me when we can have small, cheap gas/diesel pickup trucks like the classic S10, Ranger, Hilux, Tacoma, Brat, etc.
I only need to haul a couple dirt bikes in the bed. There's no reason for basic trucks to be so goddamn big now.
And why the hell did we never get Utes here in the US? The El Camino was popular for a reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I must admit I didn't know about the Maverick until a couple weeks ago. It's certainly never in the news.
It's also interesting that Ford is apparently planning an EV version (eventually).
Re: (Score:2)
This is what the Slate EV is supposed to be. Granted, it's a bit more spartan than even the smaller pickup trucks of the late 90s and even after adjusting for inflation will be slightly less affordable, as well.
And for better or worse, it's an EV, so that rules out some of the use cases where you might want to drive it out to the middle of BFE without worrying about charging infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
Long ago, Japan kicked their ass. Foreign companies beat American laziness. Long ago, new laws protected American auto companies and harmed foreign ones in the market with the deal essentially being, cars can be imported with tariff or somewhat made here without. I don't remember the details but it also helped spawn fake car companies under a parent company. TRUCKS were functionally banned which weren't a big deal to the foreign companies plus they made more profit... a chunk of that profit is LOANS which i
Great! (Score:3)
Now US manufacturers can go even more all-on on the stupidly-large vehicles they sell domestically (because of higher profit margins.)
Of course, it means they won't be able to sell anything in Europe or Asia.
MPG? (Score:4, Funny)
How does it effect cars? Here in Norway we measure in KWH
Framing matters so much (Score:3)
So frigging annoying that almost every post on here just accepts the ridiculous framing that Sinij has been pushing, that the most significant effect of this change will be to cut costs because vehicles will become more reliable. Obviously, the two most significant effects will be:
- Vehicles will cost more to operate, because they will need more fuel per mile
- Vehicles will spew more pollutants per mile, damaging the environment and hurting the health of people (and animals)
But because of the framing, no one has talked about this
Re: (Score:3)
Yes to all of that!
But instead we have a 100+ comments focused on bullshit about engine reliability which affects a small % of people, as opposed to the costs of poor fuel economy, which affect many more.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember when cars were made from STEEL, had STEEL chrome bumpers. If you bumped into someone, you might scratch the chrome. Now, bump into someone and it is a multi-thousand dollar repair! Plus, with all the electronic sensors and what not, makes it even more expensive. ...
Rivian R1T Fender Bender Turns Into $42,000 Repair Bill [thedrive.com]
Here’s Why That Rivian R1T Repair Cost $42,000 After Just A Minor Fender-Bender [theautopian.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what's going to change. What's likely going to change is that domestic manufacturers can scale back production and sales targets of their EV models, since fleet efficiency numbers won't be as important, and they might tweak ICE vehicle software to have the start-stop systems default to being disabled.
There's not going to be any major retooling happening, because administrations change.
Re: (Score:2)
Gee I wonder what caused vehicle prices to rise?
The weird thing about the USA is that inexpensive new cars don't sell well. Probably because if you've got decent credit you can just stretch the loan out until the heat death of the universe and get something fancier.
If you don't have good credit, even a cheap car quickly becomes too expensive once those awful interest rates do their thing.
Re: (Score:2)
The weird thing about the USA is that inexpensive new cars don't sell well.
They do sell well in recession, which we are now in.
Re: (Score:2)
Automatic start/stop? Did they actually engineer the starter and electrical system to compensate? I have my doubts.
I'm very happy I was able to code that shit out on my car. I have my doubts too but if we are wrong the worst that will happen is my starter will last forever.
Re: (Score:3)
Automatic start/stop? Did they actually engineer the starter and electrical system to compensate? I have my doubts
They actually did in every case I looked. The next question is how much a replacement starter costs on such car. It cost A LOT.
Re: (Score:3)
The 3 cylinder Geo Metro in the 1990s achieved over 40 miles per gallon. 30 years later you're telling me we lost that ability?
Re: (Score:3)
The 3 cylinder Geo Metro in the 1990s achieved over 40 miles per gallon. 30 years later you're telling me we lost that ability?
Yes, but only because most Americans are unwilling to drive a Metro-sized car anymore. They've been conditioned to think small/lightweight cars are unsafe or unmanly or etc.
Re: (Score:3)
The Metro wouldn't be safe by modern standards. Of course an old Honda Civic hatchback wouldn't be, either.