2016 CAFE rules.

[olegvolk]

Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.

I get a distinct impression that USGov is deliberately trying to make cars too expensive for the majority of the population. The so-called “clunker” destruction reduced the availability of inexpensive used vehicles. CAFE rules on fuel efficiency slated for 2016 phase-in would be

Comments

[anonymous]

yeah that shit is absolutely ridiculous. we had better cars back in the 70/80s - the budget ones during the oil crisis were as good as, if not better than the priuses of today. and much less to break. we made cars with good gas mileage that didn't require an engineer to fix. now we have a day and a half of safety/emissions bullshit with gadgets and gizmos out the ass just to do the same things a willis jeep did in WW2.

[maineshark]

Yup. I love how my vehicles have to get worse fuel economy and produce more overall pollution, as long as they don't produce the specific types of pollution that cause smog, just in case I might ever drive to one of those cities... which will absolutely never happen. One-size-fits-none solutions (enforced by armed thugs, or course) are great!

[captain_smollet]

Goverment at this time is doing a right thing. 1st - reducing CO polution 2nd - trying to enlarge a local demand for a new cars to recovery local automotive industry.

[maineshark]

First, carbon monoxide pollution levels are related to engine design, not fuel consumption. A large vehicle with an engine that promotes complete combustion will produce less carbon monoxide than a small vehicle with an engine that promotes incomplete combustion, even though the large vehicle uses more fuel.

Second, the "broken windows" theory of economics is hogwash. If I smash all the windows in your house, you won't thank me, even if it produces work for the worker who repairs windows. You probably had other plans for that money, and spending it on those plans would have helped some other industry. Arbitrarily favoring the window industry just means that someone else goes hungry.

[ravenclaw_eric]

It wouldn't surprise me a bit. There are a lot of people on the left side of the aisle in particular who'd much rather that private automobiles went away for good.

[maxomai]

The world oil market is choking the life out of the economy. That's going to do more to restrict our transportation choices than anything unless we start powering personally owned cars with something other than oil. To that end, the smattering of electric cars out there are a step in the right direction.

[maineshark]

Um, where is the electricity for those electric cars coming from?

It ain't being produced by unicorns running on treadmills. It's being produced by burning fossil fuels. And the overall efficiency of burning fossil fuels in a power plant, sending the power out over the grid, charging a battery, and then using the power (not to mention the ridiculous levels of energy wasted to build that electric battery, and all the toxic waste produced in the process) is far less than just burning the fossil fuels in the cars.

Personally, I like my truck. I can haul darn near anything I can imagine wanting to move, and I get several hundred miles per gallon of petroleum (averaged over the year - I get about 4000 miles per gallon of petroleum during the summer).

[maxomai]

So, here's some information you might not have known. First of all, not all electricity is produced by fossil fuels. Depending on where you live, you could be getting most of your power from nuclear or hydroelectric. Secondly, the primary fossil fuel used to generate electricity isn't oil, it's coal. The secondary fossil fuel to produce electricity isn't oil, either, but natural gas. Remember, it's the OIL market that's choking the economy. Lastly, even with all the efficiencies of T&D you mentioned, the cost per mile for a Leaf or equivalent EV averages out to three cents, versus about sixteen cents for a modest pickup running on $4/gal gas.

If you like your truck, you should be encouraging more electric vehicles so the demand for gas, amd thus the price of gas, will go down.

[maineshark]

"First of all, not all electricity is produced by fossil fuels. Depending on where you live, you could be getting most of your power from nuclear or hydroelectric. Secondly, the primary fossil fuel used to generate electricity isn't oil, it's coal. The secondary fossil fuel to produce electricity isn't oil, either, but natural gas. Remember, it's the OIL market that's choking the economy."

Far too much of it is made using oil, for additional load to be irrelevant. Even if oil is the third in line, it's still a huge chunk of the total electric generation, and any change in electric demand will have a huge impact on oil prices.

"... the cost per mile for a Leaf or equivalent EV averages out to three cents, versus about sixteen cents for a modest pickup running on $4/gal gas."The cost per mile is irrelevant, without knowing what's being transported. Three cents per mile to move one pound would be ridiculously expensive. Three dollars per mile to move a half a million pounds is cheap

[scarybaldguy]

Point 1: Nobody was forced to trade in their so-called "clunker" and any efforts by .gov to mandate their retirement will be simply ignored. You know, like Prohibition (the 1920s and the current version).

Point 2: Cars today are a hell of a lot more efficient, reliable, and clean than anything built in the '70s and '80s. My first car, a 1973 Nova, required constant adjustment and maintenance only 13 years after it was built and it got 8 mpg on a good day. My current ride, a 2012 Cruze, gets 30 mpg in bad conditions, I don't have to do any more than check the tire pressure and oil level, and it produces pretty much zero emissions.

There's no massive conspiracy to get old POSes off the road; they're doing just fine removing themselves.

[maineshark]

"Point 1: Nobody was forced to trade in their so-called "clunker"..."

No, but I was forced to pay for their car, so it could be destroyed.

"There's no massive conspiracy to get old POSes off the road; they're doing just fine removing themselves."

If that were the case, then CAFE standards could be removed completely, right?