Z28x

CAFE Plan Draws Praise, Criticism at Final Hearing

HCCI, eAssist, and start/stop technology will probably be standard on all vehicles by 2025. eAssist adds about $1000 to the cost of building a car last I heard (maybe someone else has a more accurate number), so in 13 years time I imagine the batteries will be exponentially stronger, lighter, and a fraction of the price. I think this 2025 standard is going to be a piece of cake to hit with minimal cost to the consumer. Volt will berated well over 100MPGe by the. Daily driver cars like the Malibu, Lacrosse and Cruze will be hitting 55mpg+ and performance cars will probably be getting 40mpg+ hwy thanks to HCCI, 8+ speed transmissions, and lighter weight building materials.

HAZ-Matt

I agree. This standard will be cake.

Z28Wilson

Only an operation like the federal gov't would come up with 54.5 = 36.

99SilverSS

So essentially if you're on the EPA side you can claim a victory in that CAFE is 54.5 mpg and if you're on the automakers side you can claim a win by saying it's only 36 average mpg?

Seems too easy... or is it?

Z28x

Since when is claiming worse MPG a victory

It is just two different ways to calculate mileage by 2 different groups. EPA numbers are more real world and are for the benefit of the buyer so they can comparison shop one model against another. CAFE is just a number to regulate the industry by. I'm not sure how the math works but basically the CAFE number is pretty close to what the car gets on the highway.

Koz

The CAFE values come from measurements taken in a lab. From what I infer, the raw measurement is the number that CAFE laws reference. In the past this was also the EPA window sticker number. However the public complained that they weren't able to achieve the window sticker numbers. Now EPA takes the lab measurements (the CAFE values) and applies a correction factor to it (they decrease it), and call that corrected number your EPA fuel economy.

That's why 54.5 = 36. The equipment that measures fuel economy would give you 54.5, but EPA says the measurement of 54.5 is much more like 36 "real world" MPGs, so that's the number they put on the window sticker. The difference is due to the drive cycles that are followed during the test (they aren't too aggressive), weather condition differences, road surface differences, headwinds, etc. etc.

All emissions laws are written with respect to CAFE, since CAFE was the only thing around when the original laws were written! Nowadays they make new laws, but they still reference CAFE because they don't want to have to re-write and re-engineer the testing methods and calculations.

bossco

and we will still probably have ZL1s and GT500s

King Moose SS

I wouldn't be Surprised if the Corvette is nearing 36mpg by 2025.

Z28x

I see great things coming once more electric motors go into performance cars. Imagine a 200tq electric motor paired with a 4 cyl. or V6 that kicks in when the gas peddle is stomped. For regular driving you get 35-40mpg, yet it also can do 12's in the quarter mile. The electronic version of NOS.

I think we have hit the performance ceiling with gas engines and cars like the ZL1, ZR1, and GT500. The next frontier with be performance hybrid/eAssist/EVs cars that can be both economical and fast as hell. No more having to settle for one or the other. Cars like that are probably a good 10 years away though.

bossco

I'd have to say, I dont share your enthusiasm. The rational part of me says; "yep electrics will offer some awesome performance"

The emotional part of me says; "YUCH!" for much the same reason I dont care for cars like the GT-R. Tons of performance but no soul, just an appliance.

Chrome383Z

There is something called the point of diminishing returns and we are approaching that. Don't get too excited about 55mpg mid-size cars... they are 20 years away not 10.

Electric cars are different, but battery technology has the same problem.

Then you have the problem of added safety features which will always continue to add more weight, hell a civic hatchback got amazing mileage (damn near higher then any non-hybrid car offered today) 20 years ago; FX was it? I forget the name... but do to safety regs it couldn't be sold today. Sad.

Tokuzumi

This truly made me chuckle.

I do hope all the hybrid/e-assist technology helps drive battery technology forward. Meaning this will make its way to consumer electronics, so we can have cell phones that last more than a few hours under heavy usage.

Z28x

We already have a 37mpg fullsize Lacrosse, next Fusion hybrid will get 47mpg, and the Cruze Eco is already getting 42mpg without DI or HCCI.

Current eAssist uses a 0.5kWh battery, it would be interesting to see what they could do with a 2.0kWh and a lightly more powerful electric motor. I think in 10 years or less we could easily see a system like this costing the same as the current eAssist yet getting 50mpg in a Malibu.

Yup, right now batteries for cars are about $1000 per kWh. We really need to see that number come down to $200/kWh. That right there would shave about $13,000 off the cost of a Volt.

I want a whole house UPS, or at least one that can run my fridge and natural gas furnace for a day. A laptop that lasts 24hrs. would be nice too.

guionM

This is what I've been talking about since they raised the standard to 35 by 2020..... it's not that big of a deal. Especially compared to the 1st CAFE stsndards that covered 1978 to 1987 that started at 18mpg in 1978 (cars were estimated as averaging 15 in 1975) to 27.5 by 1985.

Something like a 75% increase in fuel economy in just 7 years.

Think of it this way:

Is the cost of building a mile of road going to be the same in your town of Sterling Heights, Michigan as it's going to be in Brooklyn, New York? Or Yuma Arizona? Meridian Mississippi? or even Siberia in the USSR?

Of course not.

Now, is it effective to estimate the cost of building that road at the same cost per mile in all those areas and expect no problems?

Again, of course not.

There's even a number of websites that will tell you what $1 in Sterling Heights equals in New York, Meridian, and Yuma (helps determine wage equity levels in various areas to determine what you should expect in pay if you relocate). Yes, Russia too.

Different purposes, different numbers, same unit of measurement.

Same goes for that 36 equals 54.5 number.

For fuel economy measurment there are 2 separate agency standards. One is the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA), and the other is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA.

The EPA number is what you see on the window sticker. That number was created using a standardized series of "real world" tests to create a yardstick so that we can have an accusrate measurement as to how one vehicle compares to another in fuel economy, and generally what we can realistically expect when driving the thing. The EPA lowered their numbers across the board by deducting a percentage in 2005 to get a better bead on realistic numbers after the public complained that the numbers were overly optimistic.

The NHTSA number is a combined number using a different set of tests. It's not a consumer driven number (where the public complains, and it gets downgraded as happened with the EPA number). Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007, which mandated 35mpg by 2020 and set different standards based on a vehicle's footprint. But regardless, it's still a number that is measured differently than EPA number. And that number is higher. Always has been. That's why I always chuckle when I see posts from the sky is falling brigade.

There's a whole other set of things to consider as well.

First, As the CAFE initials state, it's a Corperate Average, meaning everything the company makes must average whatever the CAFE number for that year is. A standard of 36mpg DOESN'T mean everything has to reach 36mpg. It means that the whole company has to average 36mpg via CAFE standards (Right now, they are averaging about 32).

Second, there are different classes of standards. The revised CAFE standard has moved up the 35.5mpg date to 2016. However, due to the "footprint" standard, small cars have to average 41mpg while bigger cars have to average 31. In EPA window sticker terms, that's 31mpg and 21mpg combined. Remember again, that's averages.... meaning that low production nearly 600hp ZL1 Camaros and 650hp are perfectly safe thanks to all those V6 Camaros and gazillion 4 cylinder Regals and Malibus GM sells.

Third (and this is the key reason all US automakers are falling over themselves to support the new CAFE), unlike the previous CAFE standard of the 70s, [u]it gives the carmakers leeway if sales trends towards the public buys more larger cars than smaller cars. Plus, between 2017 and 2020 there is not only no increase for large trucks, there's ways where car makers can get around some of the increases from producing hybrids and electric vehicles (no matter how many they do or don't sell) to trading and buying "credits".

The reason for all these loopholes, compromises, and way outs is because the public demanded them (there was a poll that showed at least 80% of the public wanted higher fuel economy standards!), there was a lawsuit that enviromentalist won, and California (and the states that follow California emission standards). The US auto industry was very involved in setting up this compromise.

Everyone walks away satisfied. Enviromentalists get a bigger number than what initially was planned, the public gets their higher standards, California agrees to drop their own standard (which combined with the states on California standards constitutes something like half the US car market), and car makers get more realistic goals and an escape hatch if they can't.

To top it off, there's a review near the end of the decade to decide if the final push to 54.5 is economically viable to the auto industry.

Sure it's far easier, simple, and more popular to make an anti-Fed quip than to really look into why the CAFE number is higher than the EPA window sticker. because the real answer is a bit more complex.

But for those a bit more curious and want to look into it, there's good reasons and (in this instance) things don't look anywhere near as bad as some think.

guionM

By the way, FWIW.......

* Camaro's V6 gets 22mpg combined. That's 28.5 by CAFE's measurement.
* Cadillac CTS V6 and the Chevy Malibu's 26 mpg combined gets 34mpg by CAFE
* Chevrolet's Cruze @ 31 combined gets 41mpg by CAFE
* Buick Regal's 24 EPA combined gets 31 by CAFE
* Camaro SS and Corvette's 19 is 24.5
* An SRT8 300 combined gets 22.5
* Meanwhile, a Pentastar powered Dodge Charger (23 combined, EPA) gets 30mpg by CAFE.

The 2012 CAFE standard for large "footprint" cars is 28mpg.

The 2012 standard for small cars is 36.

Here's a twist for you.

As long as Camaro remains the size it is, it falls under the lower CAFE standard for larger cars.

If it shrinks, it falls under the standard for smaller cars.

Translation:

As long as Camaro SS sells in high volume, if you're going to keep the V8 it's better off staying the size it is.

If you shrink Camaro down to, say. Alpha size (roughly the size of that 130R concept) by 2020 the SS will likely have a V6 with the V8 regulated to ZL1/GT500/SRT8 status in sales numbers. There's a 9mpg difference between the 2 classes that year, 27 vs 36 via EPA window sticker (36 & 49 CAFE).

It's ovious that performance isn't going to die as long as there's buyers. It's not likely numbers will change very much as same power, smaller engines replace current lineups.

It's just going to look a little bit different.