New CAFE Standards...How Will Manufacturers Meet 35 mpg?

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Well, this week I heard that a new CAFE standard of 35 mpg hwy will be enacted within the next few years. CAFE Stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Basically, this means that when you take all of the cars sold that year, add their highway mpg together and divide by the total number of cars sold, it legally can be no less than 35 mpg. (It does not mean every car must get 35 mpg hwy minimum) It is currently nowhere near that amount. Also, the EPA has changed the way it measures fuel economy in the last year or two with a more conservative formula that makes most cars have a lower figure than before. Anyhow, this is to discuss the possible ways that manufacturers will meet these goals and what it means to our automotive future. Will the Mopar Hemi cars disappear? Is the new Camaro dead? G8? Mustang?

For technologies currently here and on the way, we have hybrids, diesel, direct injection, electric cars, hydrogen, CVT transmissions, and even the new "Diesotto" engine (which combines diesel and gas engine technology.) Will 2 strokes make it back in a new form? How about the Miller cycle engine? The Saab variable compression ratio engine? Staged turbocharging? VNT turbos? Or will it take something entirely new? Is it even possible without radically changing the kind of vehicles we drive? Will the already ailing US auto industry survive?

 

[Derision]

Well, this week I heard that a new CAFE standard of 35 mpg hwy will be enacted within the next few years. CAFE Stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Basically, this means that when you take all of the cars sold that year, add their highway mpg together and divide by the total number of cars sold, it legally can be no less than 35 mpg. (It does not mean every car must get 35 mpg hwy minimum) It is currently nowhere near that amount. Also, the EPA has changed the way it measures fuel economy in the last year or two with a more conservative formula that makes most cars have a lower figure than before. Anyhow, this is to discuss the possible ways that manufacturers will meet these goals and what it means to our automotive future. Will the Mopar Hemi cars disappear? Is the new Camaro dead? G8? Mustang?

For technologies currently here and on the way, we have hybrids, diesel, direct injection, electric cars, hydrogen, CVT transmissions, and even the new "Diesotto" engine (which combines diesel and gas engine technology.) Will 2 strokes make it back in a new form? How about the Miller cycle engine? The Saab variable compression ratio engine? Staged turbocharging? VNT turbos? Or will it take something entirely new? Is it even possible without radically changing the kind of vehicles we drive? Will the already ailing US auto industry survive?

This is going to create an American auto industry reminiscent of what it had become in the early nineties... small-engined, front-wheel-drive, faceless cars that you can't tell from one another.

This is what actually killed the idea of bringing a RWD Monte Carlo back. GM was actually going to do it; the guy in charge made a comment that, unless they can figure out a way to provide that kind of mileage on a rear-wheel-drive platform, that there would never be a new RWD model. And that the future of the RWD Impala, G8 and Camaro looked bleak.

The industry, then, will remain much as it has been -- manufacturers of primarily boring vehicles (Ford Tempo anyone? Perhaps a cup of Buick Century or a warm bowl of Chevy Corsica?), with most of the room that'd normally be slated for performance vehicles going to what seems to be selling like hotcakes: luxury SUVs for your mom and, to a lesser extent, rappers and football players to drive.

I see this as kind of the nail in the coffin of the American auto industry... which had been getting a bit of a lift. Honestly, I've felt that cars have been getting better and better lately. Big grilles again, rear-wheel-drive, V8s... I've even seen some chrome! This is going to kick all that in the butt, and we'll be back to the world of four-cylinder Chevy Prizms.

Seriously... I'm glad I don't buy new cars.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Well, I am hoping the future is not as bleak as it would seem. I think there may be a way around the whole thing with cleaner diesel technology because diesel inherently has better combustion efficiency than gas. The biggest problem with diesel in this country is the bad rap it got in the 80's due in no small part to GM's poorly designed passenger car diesels. The biggest technical hurdle to overcome will be particulate and NOX emissions standards. As many on the forum who have read some of my rants lately may know, I have been doing a lot of reading about diesel. I am continuously surprised by just how efficient many diesel vehicles are for their size and weight. Some of the older Mercedes models from the later 80's (190D,300D W124 chassis) got 33 mpg highway using the technology from 20 years ago. Diesel can also be synthesized from food and agricultural wastes and some garbage. The person who figures out how to do that on a large enough scale will become a rich man. It would serve a two-fold purpose of reducing landfill waste and replacing some of the petroleum we import from foreign countries. I think the hybrid thing will not be a technology with a huge future in it's present form. It is a stop-gap measure that does not provide the economy it promises when used in the real world.

 

[KrisW]

GM already does do that -but it's in europe and it's called opel.

They've got little diesels, turbo and non, that can do this. Technology will eventually overcome this, just like the 90's, and things will be better. The problem is that the interim leaves us with more Prizms...

If it wasn't for stupid wackos and their stupid ideas (like mpg standards and clean air standards) we wouldn't have fuel injection or 4 cylinder cars that are faster than our old V8's.

I hate that the auto industry is so greedy and lazy that it takes a communist government act to get them to give us stuff like we have today, but the truth is, that IS what it takes.

It makes me mad from both sides of the argument because it will be twenty years before I get any benefit from either position.

I guess I'm back to old cars again!!

 

[megaladon6]

35mpg is not that hard. my 89 gas engined golf got that on the highway. the problem it that they keep mandating more and more safety equipment and stricter emissions levels. you can't have all 3 on a gas engine. more safety equals lots more weight, therefore you lose MPG. lean out the mixture for better MPG and you get NOX. decrease emission and you lose performance and MPG. since they now have 50 state compliant diesels from VW, Me/be, and soon GM things will get easier. since diesels have that nice low-end torque you can have the extra weight of 14 airbags, 42 computer modules, 200 sensors, and your dvd player. the new blue-tec and DPF systems make diesels cleaner than any other car and they still get 40+MPG.
the really bad part of the new CAFE laws is that every successive year must have a higher MPG, including trucks. in the next 15yrs or so every vehicle, car or truck, is supposed to get 50MPG!!!!! oh and they have to be zero emissions. i love how congress can just ignore reality and physics.

isn't it amazing that our 15ft solid steel cars weigh the same as a uni-bodied , soda can doored, 4-cyl, 8ft long little car of today?
my 97 jetta is actually started to look big next to some of the crap coming out now.

 

[Vern]

More diesels less SUVs. Eventually the marketing people will get the herd mentality public to decide SUVs are not cool anymore its *** and that will work in conjunction with corporate mileage needs. More diesels, hybrids, & lighter vehicles in general will make it happen. There will still be hot rods even real wheel drives just maybe less of them.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

I tend to think the new standards are a little over-reaching. I think if the Republicans gain control over the Congress and Senate again that it will be scaled back. Either that or crash test standards will have to be loosened up a bit so we can get cars like the VW Lupo, Fiat Panda, or Japanese Kei cars here to offset the larger vehicles that don't get great mileage. Electric cars could also conceivably be offered as a mass market item. It would take a few technological leaps to make them practical on a wide scale, things like fast charging batteries, more efficient magnets and thus motors, and lower weight for the batteries, motor, etc. to be palatable to the average consumer. If you could charge a car in the time it takes you to fill the tank on a gas car, I think it would sell very well provided it was offered at a good price.