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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.