BREAKING: Senators reach agreement on CAFE standards
by John Neff on Jun 22nd 2007 at 8:07AM 
As our colleagues over at AutoblogGreen note, with all the lobbying going on this week for and against tougher fuel economy standards, it's been tough following who's for what and what's good for whom. Regardless, the debate came to end late yesterday when the Senate agreed to a portion of the new energy bill that calls for raising the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard to 35 mpg by 2020 for both cars and trucks. The current CAFE standard is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 mpg for trucks. The new bill is a compromise of sorts, as a proposed annual 4% increase in the CAFE standards after they reach 35 mpg in 2020 was scrapped along with a $29 billion tax package that would have paid for tax breaks for producers of alternative fuels and owners of plug-in hybrids.
All is not over, as the larger energy bill will continued to be debated today, and then the bill will move over to the House of Representatives. If it passes through the House, there's no guarantee the president won't strike it down with his veto pen, as he's already stated he does not approve of specific mileage numbers. Nevertheless, yesterday's 65-27 vote was somewhat historic considering how effective the auto industry has lobbied against raising CAFE standards for decades.
[Source: Automotive News, AutoblogGreen]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
J 8:26AM (6/22/2007)
what is the logic behind having it the same for cars and trucks? are they just building in an SUV tax?
Reply
mavkato 9:11AM (6/22/2007)
the 35 MPG is average for the entire fleet including both cars and trucks. that means manufacturers can make cars all be above 35, and trucks all under, if they want
alex 9:27AM (6/22/2007)
@mavkato
that's not an option for companies that focus on trucks, which puts them at an unfair disadvantage.
Edsel 8:31AM (6/22/2007)
All this means is, if this were to become law today, politicians & the transportation industry will have 12 years in which to modify, amend, alter, contort, corrupt, extort, bastardize, or completely erase this law before 2020.
Reply
Altairian1 8:56AM (6/22/2007)
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Reply
Brandon 9:31AM (6/22/2007)
Incredible. You came here to spam your domain name camping site?
Renaming an unlaunched product or service is simple and can happen because someone already bought a domain name.
I had to do it when I started my business because I didn't want to pay $5,000 for a domain name. By changing the name, I saved $4,993.05. Most companies will do the same. As for your "EVToysRUs" site, I wouldn't be surprised if you get a takedown request from Toys R Us if they ever want to use that name.
Altairian1 5:09PM (6/22/2007)
Thank you.
kruisin66 9:12AM (6/22/2007)
Great. Now that we all will get great mpg, this will allow the gas companies to raise the price to $5.00. You know they are still going to make their profit. Ethanol is not the answer either. 30% less MPG and the price is the same as unleaded. No savings there for the consumer.
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NeoteriX 12:07PM (6/22/2007)
Increased MPG is not just about savings to the consumer, although that is important. It's also about reduced fuel consumption and carbon emissions that are beneficial to the planet, regardless of the price of gasoline.
Ken 9:24AM (6/22/2007)
Nothing will change, all the manufacturers have to do is have an ultra-efficient halo car that gets 50+mpg to compensate for the 15mpg SUVs the consumers still demand. So for every one 50mpg car sold, five trucks get sold that aren't more than 35mpg so the average fuel economy of the nations vehicle will rise by at most a fraction of a percent. The oil companies will use this as justification for a price hike, and cite the projected decrease in demand as a reason not to increase refinery capacity. I'm glad they're done debating this whole lot of nothing so that hopefully they can figure out something that will actually work.
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alex 9:30AM (6/22/2007)
if i'm not mistaken, it's a weighted average. which means that the average fuel economy will indeed be 35 (or higher if some companies beat the requirement)
Ken 12:47PM (6/22/2007)
It's an average, true, but it's not weighted by sales. So the slim increase in sales of highly efficient vehicles will be mostly offset by the larger sales of less efficient vehicles and a drop in the bucket when you consider how small a percentage of the vehicles on the road are brand new and meeting estimated fuel economy.
alex 12:53PM (6/22/2007)
according to wikipedia, cafe standard is a sales weighted average... does the new regulation change that?
Ken 1:16PM (6/22/2007)
How do they weight projected sales? From the government documents I've read the system does not effectively weight for vehicle sales but rather each model's various configurations.
motorman 10:26AM (6/22/2007)
these cars will cost more and the price of gasoline will go up so the consumer will end up paying more BUT the lib politicians who do not drive cars,they fly on private jets, can pat themselves on the back say,"look what we did,we are saving the planet now vote for us".
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motorman 10:28AM (6/22/2007)
remember the last lib to drive a car was ted kennedy and he did not do a very good job if i remember correctly
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mdm-adph 10:48AM (6/22/2007)
ha ha that's so funny! nobody's ever made that joke before! kudos!
Nick 11:34AM (6/22/2007)
I don;t understand what the problem is. If instead of focusing on 400 HP cars the manufacturers worked on efficiency, they'd make it in a heartbeat.
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dan 12:35PM (6/22/2007)
Widespread scientific illiteracy like yours is the root of the problem.
The laws of thermodynamics are fixed. There are not miraculous new materials just around the corner. Oil is not going to magically contain more kcal/g. The automobile is a mature technology that is well into the area of diminishing returns and evolutionary changes are expensive and slow.
Automakers already focus on efficiency and making a car that gets 35mpg is well understood. You make it tiny, unsafe and slow. This law change isn't going to make reasonably sized useful cars more efficient, it is going to make reasonably sized useful cars illegal and put us all in city sized sardine can runabouts.
Scott 1:03PM (6/22/2007)
If only things were that simple.
When you increase efficiency, you often increase horsepower as a byproduct. It is not "either or" as you seem to think. It's can actually be both, which is an obvious win-win.
The base model Corvette has 400 hp and gets 28 MPG highway. In contrast the S2000 has 237 hp and gets 26 MPG highway.