54.5 MPG by 2025

[Mike]

Interesting event happened this week. Our commander in chief (like him or not) has signed a rule mandating that automakers get to 54.5 MPG by the year 2025. Here's an article, post more if you've got them.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Obama-Completes-54-5-MPG-U-S-Fuel-Economy-3821627.php

[Wade Nelson]

As an engineer, I can see that 54.5 is very difficult. Today's BEST technology, a Prius, can hit 51, provided you keep it @ 55mph.

to hit 55+ would require a lithium battery in place of the NiMH, and to AVERAGE out the trucks and other lower MPG vehicles, you'd need SOME that got 75-80MPGs. That would require a tiny, turbocharged diesel in place of the gas motor in the Prius.

And how do you calculate CAFE when it includes vehicles CAPABLE of all-electric operation, like the Leaf, and Volt. The math will be VERY important to automakers.

There simply isn't a "free" 20mph on the table, anywhere. The Prius gets MOST of its great mileage from it's low weight, low wind and rolling resistance. The hybrid synergy drive only adds 4-5 on top of that.

The average car today weighs TWICE what a Prius does, and accelerating and decelerating that mass costs energy, hence MPG's. Regenerative braking is less than 20% efficient, it can take as many as FIVE full stops to regen enough power for a single take-off in the lighweight Prius.

It's a noble goal, but short of some serious breakthroughs in batteries, small diesels, etc, it will be add considerable $$$ to the price of a vehicle in 2025.

IMHO.

[JonnyRock]

Wade, regarding CAFE calculations:

Most people do not understand that these regulations are for the CAFE test cycle, which is very different from the EPA test cycle. CAFE tests only two conditions (city/highway) whereas the EPA cycle tests five conditions including high speed, hot weather, cold weather, and A/C use.

In short, it works out to 54.5 CAFE = (about) 40 EPA miles per gallon. Not only will it likely not be incredibly difficult to hit this number, but halfway to 2025 the government and automakers will sit down and see how things are progressing and decide whether or not to push the requirement date back.

Edmunds did a great write-up explaining the ins and outs of all of this.

[JonnyRock]

As someone working in the automotive industry, I'd also like to dispel a couple of your statements Wade.

1). The Prius is great tech, but it's not the BEST out there. And it can do much better than 51 mpg with the right driver, and that doesn't require cruising at 55.

2). Diesel hybrids are coming, VW has been working on one for the last few years. It was recently rated @ about 260mpg. If it makes it to production it'll be significantly lower sure, but it will likely easily be 70-80mpg+.

3). The EPA has formulas in place to calculate electric MPG, it's called MPGe or Miles Per Gallon equivalent. I'm not sure about CAFE formulas but rest assured knowing these are definitely being worked out.

4). The Prius is not a "light weight" car. It tips the scales at over 3000lb. Now that's pretty good, but not light weight. And true, aerodynamics and rolling resistance play a large roll in fuel economy but your estimate of the electric motor adding only 4-5mpg is quite low. It's more than double that, into the double digits. I've had the opportunity to build a lightweight car from the ground up (carbon fiber monocoque) and utilize a Prius drivetrain in it. I know a little bit about that motor.

There are new cars coming out everyday rated at 40+ MPG. That's on the EPA cycle, meaning they likely already meet CAFE. We've got 12.5 years to meet 54.5 CAFE and the average vehicle on the road currently is 10.8 years old. Doing the math, I don't see much trouble with the new standards.

[5thhorsemann]

Whenever government gets involved in private sector endeavors, the result is always negative.

Electricity is primarily generated by burning coal or natural gas, and the transmission of that power involves loss. Gasoline is the safest and most economical point of use energy supply around, there is no denying that. Pure gasoline, without additives like ethanol, will give you superior MPG results over the mandated blends the government has imposed on us. In short, if the government removes the ethanol mandate, fuel economy will rise by 3 to 5 real world MPG in every vehicle on the road.

The Volt is dead, GM stopped production weeks ago sighting safety and production cost as the primary reasons. First responders are trained to handle these vehicles with great caution in the event of a moderate to severe collision because of the extreme dangers involved with the batteries if a breech or short occurs.

What government needs to understand is that this market will work these things out on its own based on demand and competition, just like every other area of the economy does when not subjected to steering regulations and mandates.

Politicians love to pick winners and losers for their own benefit, and tell us it’s for our own greater good, which is a flat out lie. Take the new CFL light bulbs as an example. Instead of a bulb that costs pennies to produce on existing production lines, a bulb that consists of a small amount of glass and metal, the reliable old incandescent bulb. The government has seen fit to mandate a bulb that contains plastic (oil), mercury, an iron copper transformer, electrodes that dwarf the material required to form the filament of the old bulb and a new more complicated assembly line that consumes more power (coal and gas) to produce a single unit. If not for the government mandate not one clear thinking person would ever buy one. The winner; the companies that got the taxpayer handout to tool up for production of the CFL. The loser; the taxpayer, the consumer, and the companies that can no longer sell the reliable incandescent bulbs domestically after the mandates take effect. They use our money to screw us for our own good.

We can debate the viability of an electric car all day, but the reality is that it is nothing more than a novelty without government’s intrusive overreach into the private sector markets. Likewise, mandating that we MUST own a car that gets 50+ MPG will distort the market, harm trade with foreign nations, harm our GDP, harm our strength as a nation and harm domestic wealth creation.

Drill baby, drill.

[John Coffey]

Command economics doesn't work - never has, never will. But the CAFE standards are a whole lot more complex and flexible that what's being discussed here and there's a lot of room for the automakers to hit those numbers.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/the-cafe-numbers-game-making-sense-of-the-new-fuel-economy-regulations-feature

[5thhorsemann]

My understanding of command economics is more of a situation where the government controls the availability, or supply of a product or commodity and dictates the price of that item regardless of market forces. Kind of like what is happening in this country with the oil industry, the government refuses to allow drilling on private land or granting permits for new refineries (controlling supply) and then mandates what additives must be included in the blends (manipulating the price). That’s not really what we are discussing here.

If I build a car that is capable of getting 54.5 MPG, but has no smog pump, it would not be street legal because the government has mandated that all cars must have a catalytic converter and a smog pump. If I put the smog pump and cat on the car it will no longer get that 54.5 MPG because the smog system creates a drag on the engine which will bring the MPG down. I am therefore creating more pollution, by burning more fuel, in the name of building a cleaner car. The car will test cleaner because the government tests vehicle emissions, at the tail pipe based on PPM of CO2 and other gasses. Since I have installed a pump that stuffs millions of parts into the PPM sample, I can make the car seem to have very low emissions by virtue of the volume of the pump I install. You see, this is all a racket used by governments to strong arm the auto makers and extort taxes out of us.

Obviously, a car capable of getting that kind of MPG is not a going to have hateful emissions, so why mandate that you must have emission controls and a smog system. Such a car will burn approximately 1 GPH at highway speeds, my John Deer lawn tractor burns almost 5 gallons of gas in the 3 hours it takes me to mow my 3.5 acre lawn. So this car has better emissions than my lawn mower.

The reason the government mandates these things is not for safety, the environment, or to reduce reliance on foreign oil. These mandates are there to generate funds for their pet projects and government pork. Look at the mess California has made of these regulations, pointing to 1960’s automotive technology as a reason to carry on these ridiculous programs and add further regulatory burdens on owners and manufacturers. I understand that there were smog problems in the larger cities back in the 60’s and 70’s, but those days are 40+ years behind us and the average consumer is so much more sophisticated in today’s reality. A car that gets that kind of mileage, stripped of all the useless crap government says it must have to pass emissions and crash tests, would be an inexpensive reality with current technology, and they would sell like hot cakes.

Government will not get out of the way and will continue to over burden and over tax everyone and everything it can get it’s hands on, for our own good.

[Wade Nelson]

Very few cars today sport a smog pump. And functions like EGR actually BOOST mileage by reducing manifold vacuum under cruise conditions. ABout the only thing you can honestly rail against is a cat converter, which DOES increase back pressure --- but it also functions as a muffler, meaning you can get by with a lighter, less complex muffler on a car with a cat.

Basically you've suggested that mileage, and meeting tight emissions, are incompatible, and they're not. You take an engine with variable valve timing, it can perform the EGR function without even the add-ons. Keeping a cat healthy means burning a near-optimum fuel-air mix. Sure, if you could run SLIGHTLY leaner than what the cat demands (for longevity and health) you could get slightly better mileage.

Calling emissions equipment "useless crap" pretty muchh destroys your entire argument. You apparently didn't live in the "smog days" in LA, when it used to look like Bejing. As a nation, pollution from cars directly impacts our healthcare costs. (REMOVED ON EDIT).

The government mandated emissions, and safety systems on modern vehicles are one of the best things that ever happened to this country. Just wait till you crash one and NEED that airbag, or stability system on an icy road.

(REMOVED ON EDIT)

Edited September 2, 2012 by EScanlon
REMOVED POLITICAL DIATRIBE

[5thhorsemann]

My 07 BMW M5 has two smog pumps, granted I seldom work on a car newer than 1991, but they all have the pumps on them.

I have an 87 F350 superduty bucket truck originally rated at 11,000 lbs GVW, no cats. I regestered it at 10,000 lbs GVW for insurance purposes which made it subject to emissions testing which it failed. I replaced the two factory smog pumps with two larger pumps designed to work as single pumps on the same size motor and low and behold it pased. I just close a valve and remove the belt after the test and the truck runs fine. The government gets it's $15.00 and the truck still burns the same ammount of gas and pumps out the same amount of exhaust.

As for stability controll, if you know how to drive that is "useless crap". Saftey systems are just fine for those who want them, but why should I be forced to buy something I may not want. If the car has air bags (I don't like them) anti-lock brakes (not on all cars yet) and stability controls your insurance is cheaper. Likewise, if you dont crash into things your insurance is cheaper.

All I'm saying is the private sector will drive these inovations on it's own, we don't need mandates to develop these things.

I can't recall a single automotive inovation designed by a politician, can you? I can however recall lots good things that have been deemed unlawful.

[Wade Nelson]

So you publicly acknowledge tampering with emissions equipment, intentionally disabling it. Is that correct?

If a vehicle IS equipped with a smog pump, no, it does NOT pump out the "same ount of exhaust" if the pump is disconnected. The added oxygen supplied by the pump assists in completing combustion of unburned fuel, and also helps to keep the catalytic converter and/or diesel particulate filter working properly. A diesel with SCR may ALSO need the added 02. I'd have to re-research it.

When your DPF fails, you will be in for an even larger expense, and may live to regret disabling these systems. Along with the fine imposed by the EPA for your disabling of federally mandated emissions equipment.

Best of luck to ya.

[5thhorsemann]

When your DPF fails, you will be in for an even larger expense, and may live to regret disabling these systems. Along with the fine imposed by the EPA for your disabling of federally mandated emissions equipment.

Best of luck to ya.

The truck was originaly a state vehicle that I bought on auction, it was not equipped with a cat from the factory. The GVW dictates the emission test requirement and I put the larger pumps on it as it would never pass the test without them. There are is no EGR system on this vehicle as it was never subject to emissions laws, with the exception of the larger pumps and the manual valve in place of the failed automatic valve, the trucks exhaust system is as it was from the factory. So, just to be clear, you are saying that the government is justified in punishing me as an outlaw for complying with their silly mandate.

[Mike]

Hi guys, jumping in to make sure we keep this one on topic. If you want to discuss the smog equipment or removal of such equipment, please start a separate thread.

Back to this topic.... I sure do hope this 54.5mpg thing works out. Not because I'm a supporter of the green movement, but, more because I believe in changing the way we look at transportation. I don't know about most of you, but, I was extremely disappointed when we didn't have flying cars on the year 2000. A mandate like this may actually push us to think about alternate ways we look at cars or personal transportation vehicles. Whatever the new technology may be, I like the idea of moving forward and pushing our car manufacturers to try something new -- rather than simply cranking out more of the same cookie cutter cars.