Porsche's forthcoming majority stake in Volkswagen has the potential to remove a CAFE-sized thorn from the automaker's side. After a failed bid in Congress to create an exemption for itself from the recently revised fuel economy standards, Porsche needed a way to increase its CAFE rating in the U.S. This might be achieved by combining Porsche and VW's emissions and fuel-economy numbers into one lump sum, thus preserving the automaker's performance heritage.
While this certainly isn't anything new – Ford does it with Mazda, despite a minority stake in the automaker, and Chrysler has done it in the past when it was part owner of Mitsubishi – Volkswagen's average in 2007 was 28.6 mpg, just over the U.S. mandated 27.5 mpg. If Porsche gets thrown into that average, it's obvious that number is going to sink, quickly. However, Volkswagen's plan for the future involves new smaller, fuel-sipping vehicles, like the up! and more diesel-powered vehicles that might bring the number back up, but maybe not enough to meet the 2020 standards of 35 mpg. Porsche execs deny that this was a deciding factor in the buyout, but considering that the gentlemen from Stuttgart have cut a few checks to the feds over the years ($5 million in 2001), we're sure the idea wasn't lost on them while making their bid.
[Source: Autoweek]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
HotRodzNKustoms @ Mar 25th 2008 2:57PM
I don't care what anyone says I hate CAFE. I hate any government mandate that does not concern ethics. And I especially hate a government mandate that affects the car industry so badly and has nothing to do with protecting the consumer or other car makers. I believe that the government is too involved in our daily lives.
Mr. Oak @ Mar 25th 2008 3:13PM
Mr. NSA man, his name is HotRodzNKustoms. Just so you know I have nothing to do with this.
Guenther @ Mar 25th 2008 3:42PM
Not sure that I want to go there, but...
Excessive consumption is a question of ethics.
Michael Ishigaki @ Mar 25th 2008 3:46PM
HotRodzNKustoms,
I believe in fairly conservative economic policies. However, I do believe that in certain very special cases it's absolutely necessary that the government intervenes. After all, neither a government ran nor a completely free market economy works. I sincerely believe that the CAFE standards will be better for the consumer in the long run and for the suppliers in the very long run. Even if, or perhaps especially if, that means that we move to electric vehicles.
The resulting surge in technological progression in electrical power storage and generation would have an amazing halo effect in our economy. It will be hard at first, but in the very long run we could very easily see America coming out of this as the world leader in electrical power. Now that is good for everyone. (Except Saudi Arabia, Russia and a few other [mostly corrupt] countries.)
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 25th 2008 4:10PM
Excessive consumption of oil someone else might need to keep their house warm in the winter can be considered an ethics issue.
psarhjinian @ Mar 25th 2008 4:31PM
The market does self-correct, but corrections can be brutal. You want consumers and markets eased into restrictions calmly and without undue disruption; you do not want them shocked into recession or crisis.
That's what CAFE is designed to do: nudge, not push, in situations where leaving the market to do it's thing would be worse, not better.
HotRodzNKustoms @ Mar 25th 2008 4:34PM
Well as far as I'm concerned I can afford to drive cars that get 8mpg on premium so I feel that I should be allowed to do so. It's my money. Not all of us want to be driving around Toyota Prius and Honda Insights. I'll stick with my SUVs, Trucks, and sports cars. Thank you very much
HotRodzNKustoms @ Mar 25th 2008 4:36PM
@psarhjinian
I feel the market will self correct in plenty of time without the need for government intervention you can already see the obvious signs of this in the truck and SUV market
EndlessMike @ Mar 25th 2008 3:19PM
I'm not sure how negatively Porsche would affect VW's CAFE score. The number of Porsches sold each year in the US is probably less than VW does in a month. There will be a small change, but probably not that much.
Eric Biran @ Mar 25th 2008 3:22PM
28.6 mpg, is that just VW? If Porsche gets in on the act, what about Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti? They don't sell in very high volumes (especially those last 3) but they also get dismal ratings when it comes to portioning out the dino juice (or in their case, dyno juice). Comparatively, a Porsche flat 6 is quite fuel efficient. Their biggest offender, ironically, the Cayenne, is the only thing shared with VW in their Toureg.
A co-developed DI turbo 4 cylinder for Porsche/VW would be sweet. VW pretty much has this already, but with Porsche's talent for wrangling every last horse out of an engine, that could make for some very sweet entry-level bahn-burners from Stuttgart. Not a bad option for top level VWs either instead of the weighty VR6 AWD setups. Here's hoping.
User @ Mar 25th 2008 3:37PM
Eric,
Bugatti, Bentley and Lamborghini will not count in the CAFE act. They do not even sell enough vehicles to have a reliability rating or a crash test rating. Audi could easily get to CAFE standards because they offer small, turbo charged engines. :)
Eric Biran @ Mar 25th 2008 4:37PM
Audi does have a number of more fuel efficient models sold overseas, but I don't know if those would be enough. Audis still are not that light, especially with AWD, and go all the way up to the S8 sedan and R8 supercar. Anyway, check out their current EPA ratings here:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymake/Audi2008.shtml
Now if you take their MOST fuel efficient vehicle (by far), you get:
Audi TT 2.0t 6-speed manual
2008 EPA:
23/31
2007 EPA:
26/34
1984 EPA=CAFE:
28.6/41.48
Avg. (55%/45%) = 34.396mpg
That means that even their most efficient vehicle will fail to meet the 35mpg average that ALL their vehicles must average out to meet by 2020. If you take their 2nd most efficient vehicle (and a more common one at that) the picture gets worse:
Audi A4 2.0t 6-speed manual
2008:
20/31
2007:
23/34
1984:
25.3/41.48
Avg. = 32.581mpg
I would hardly call that easy.
I do still wonder about the logic of brands wholly owned by a company being exempt simply because of the label applied to them. It's one thing if they are really independent, but this seems like a loophole if it's true. What's to stop Hummer from being classified on it's own, with each model broken down into sub brands to get around the limits? I'm not saying I agree with the coming CAFE standards, but they should at least be consistent.
montoym @ Mar 25th 2008 10:12PM
It would be ridiculous for Hummer to do that, they'd still sell too many vehicles to bypass CAFE. The H1 might be the only model that would possibly make it and they don't even sell those anymore.
I don't know the exact figures, but the other VW premium brands(Bugatti, Bentley, and Lamborghini) all sell less combined than Hummer, I can assure you that.
For instance, Lamborghini itself sold 2406 vehicles worldwide in 2007 with about 1000 of those sales here in the US. Bentley sold 10,014 worldwide in 2007, I don't know the number for the US. Bugatti has only one model which costs over $1 million, it can be assumed their sales are significantly smaller, especially when they only plan to build 300 of them total.
The most recent figure I found for Hummer was from 2006. In '06, Hummer sold 66,617 vehicles, with 50,000 of them being H3's.
I don't know the exact number, but I believe that to bypass CAFE, you can't sell more than a few thousand vehicles. That may be subject to change though since the new CAFE regulations haven't been fully determined yet.
AMcA @ Mar 25th 2008 8:33PM
I've been saying this all along: this is a key driver of the Porsche/VW merger. Porsches are WILDLY profitable. It's worth the trouble to pair them up with VW so they can keep selling.
Look for more smaller V-dubs, too. As needed, of course.
superdart @ Mar 26th 2008 12:01AM
I'm sorry, you consider a jump from 27.5 to 35mpg AND rolling trucks in to that number a NUDGE??
Am I the only one that is REALLY comprehending what they are asking? Short of some amazing new technology, 35mpg CAFE is a fairy tale. your BIG cars can't get 30, and only crazy and expensive hybrids, or crazy expensive VWs get 40+ to balance these things out.
They are just trying to force us in to small econoboxes that will make me hate driving.
Scorch @ Mar 26th 2008 1:43AM
I agree with you.
I don't think anyone realizes what 35 mpg will really do to cars. None of the current desirable cars on the market today come anywhere close to that and try as I might, I just can't get excited about some new econobox just because they put leather seats in them now. Most of the full size sports sedans out today will likely be gone in 12 years and we'll have nothing to choose from except for sluggish diesel luxury cars or nasty looking econoboxes. Rear wheel drive and most naturally aspirated V6's will be a thing of the past as well. Needless to say any kind of performance car will probably be priced out of the normal-people price range so I hope no one likes going fast. Unless car companies can make MAJOR technological breakthroughs in a very short period of time, it looks like anyone who thinks driving should be fun is SOL.