Here are my: Top Ten Reasons You Should Email NHTSA Before July 1
by Greg Haegele, Sierra Club on 05.30.08
Perhaps today you looked at your Memorial Day Weekend vacation bills and fell out of your chair when you saw the gas station charges.
Last week we talked about driving the speed limit to save gas, but this week it's time to get a little more into policy and talk about vehicle fuel economy standards - simply put, how far the feds require automakers must make their average vehicle go on a gallon of gas.
The December 2007 energy bill that President Bush signed into law directs the Department of Transportation to set Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to reach at least 35 miles per gallon in 2020. In April, the Dept. of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, which handles fuel economy standards) issued its proposed standards for vehicles sold in model years 2011-2015: Cars and trucks sold in the U.S. will average 31.6 mpg by the year 2015. That's better than today's average of 25 mpg, but NHTSA could do better.
Phew! Policy can get wonky and maybe your eyes have crossed. But some action is needed - the comment period is open to tell NHTSA your thoughts on the proposed CAFE standards. But why not put it into a good ol' Top Ten List?
Here are the: Top Ten Reasons you Should Email NHTSA Before July 1
1. The best long-term solution to high gas prices is to make cars, SUVs, pickups and minivans go farther on a gallon of gas.
2. NHTSA should be aiming higher - the 35 mpg number is a floor and not a ceiling when it comes to enacting CAFE standards, especially as gas prices continue to soar.
3. The future gas prices NHTSA used to estimate the impact of higher fuel economy were so unrealistically low as to be laughable: The Energy Information Administration projects that in 2015 the price of gas will be a mere $2.25 per gallon and a barrel of oil will only be $57, and that it will still only be about $70 a barrel (in 2006 dollars) in 2030 - a whopping $2.50 per gallon.
Why is that important? In NHTSA's model, consumers are much less likely to buy more fuel efficient cars if gas is that cheap rather than the $4.00 per gallon we're paying right now. Operating under the assumption that gas prices will be that low in 2015, DOT only requires automakers to install as much fuel-saving technology (see reason #4) as they think consumers will pay extra for.
4. We have the technology right now to create vehicles with much better fuel economy.
5. It's summertime! The comment deadline is July 1, what better way to celebrate Independence Day early than by helping the U.S. secure some energy independence through using less oil.
6. The U.S. spends more than $1 billion each day on imported oil! (PDF) How about saving some money for us? Using less oil helps stop lining the pockets of oil company executives and those countries overseas in control of the oil.
7. NHTSA does not demand enough from gas-guzzling SUVs and other trucks, continuing to let truck fuel economy lag far behind that of cars.
8. Again, think about how much more we can do! Raising the CAFE standard to 35 mpg will prevent more than 190 million metric tons of global warming pollution and is the equivalent of taking 28 million of vehicles off the road.
9. Even Bill O'Reilly wants cars that go farther on a gallon of gas. On his May 28 show, O'Reilly called for 30 mpg by 2010 (please excuse the bad coal ad with that O'Reilly video link)
10. This mandated CAFE increase to at least 35 mpg by 2020 is the first since 1975. We have 30 years of catching up to do, and we need to better.
Got all that? Yes? Time to tell NHTSA!
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What boggles me is that the national MPG is roughly 25. How long have we been driving cars? 100 years or more right . Why has this number not skyrocketed in the past hundred years. e-mail these people and give them some information to think about.
"Why has this number not skyrocketed in the past hundred years. "
Mostly supply and demand, sadly. Sure looks like that is changing though.
As long as the C.A.F.E. fines remain the same, this is all irrelevant.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm
Even if they upped it to 40mpg (doubtful) an SUV/pickup that gets 10mpg would be fined $1,650.
As long as the vehicle has a large profit and sells well, the manufacturer has better incentive to make a big fuel inefficient vehicle and pay the fine, than make a small fuel efficient vehicle and make small profit and no fine.
I would love to see states passing mandates requiring cars to top out at 70mph or their state's maximum speed limit. It'd sure as hell piss off buyers and probably increase the value of older cars but you know, insurance costs would decrease. Even a rebate for drivers who get their car's governor changed would be great.
Because a maximum speed of 70mph requires less horsepower, smaller thus lighter engines would be used. Requiring turbochargers would shrink them down even more.
yeah my eyes are crossed, got a head ache now.. :D
Coleman:
Because cars 100 years ago probably struggled to reach 50 mph, had no safety features, no air conditioning, etc. The efficency of cars has gone up, but the weight of them has also gone up (even in the same vehicle class), so the mileage has remained stagnant for ~20 years. During those 20 years, weight has gone up (mostly from safety equipment) and the acceleration has also gotten faster. For example, the Honda Accord has gotten so big it's now technically a full size sedan, not a midsize.
Look what's happened to bicycles in the past 25 years.
My 1982 Bianchi Specialissima weighed about 24 pounds, had 12 gears and a steel frame. Really nice bike, a classic that I still own and ride.
A 2007 Trek Madone weighs about 15 pounds, has 20 gears and is made from carbon fiber composite.
So in those 25 years, a top-shelf racing bike cut its weight by 40% and doubled the number of gears. And even though they are so much lighter, they are more aerodynamic, stiffer, stronger (more durable and crashworthy).
Yes the price went way up, $1200 to $2700. But if you convert to 2007 dollars using the CPI that $1200 is $2600 so the price has not gone up all that much.
A bike that's 40% lighter is nice, but does not have the quantum leap in performance that a 40% lighter car would have (a 160-lb rider is >10x the weight of the bike but only 5% of a typical car's).
Important to note that the steel bike was pushed aside by oversize aluminum (Cannondale and Klein), titanium (Merlin and Litespeed), and carbon fiber (Kestrel and Trek). Note that all those alternate materials were developed by US companies, working against very conservative European traditionalists.
So why do we not apply this same ingenuity and resourcefulness to cars? Well cheap gas for one, the fact that it's a lot easier to press a gas pedal than pedal a bike, and we've been force-fed a steady diet of larger, more powerful cars relentlessly marketed for status, sex, and safety.
Time to get it in gear!
I am always a bit dumbfounded when I read stories like this, individuals, or groups, expecting or even demanding that the government solve a problem dear to them.
It is all about demand. In time the free market will solve the energy "crisis".
My opinion is that the less the government is involved, the better.
Why has 12 sprocket seen such a great improvement in bikes, as I have with motorcycles, because the consumers wanted something better, mfgs. had to compete to succeed.
To some extent Toyota and the Prius have started a major shift in auto design and technology available to US consumers, others will compete, supply a demanded product, or fade away.
Keep in mind that something like 18% of your gas costs are taxes, where does that money go? It goes, among other places, to funding government programs with mandates to decrease energy costs.
Let the free market solve the energy cost problem, your energy and transportation costs will go down.
Keep the government out of this, taxes go down.
Go buy a motorcycle, drive an even more economical car, walk, ride a bike, based on what 12 sprocket says, there is some really wonderful stuff out there.
Wouldn't $10 gas do more than anything you could think up ? With gas that high all the things would fall into place so cars would get 100 MPG. Even now the price of the vehicle is nothing compared to how much is paid to "Fill'er up " over the course of its life.
Stop yer whining! As you have all seen in the last couple of months, smaller more efficient cars ARE being requested by the marketplace - regardless of government interference (or those of you who wish to use the force of government to mandate behavior changes for the rest of us).
What's so wrong with letting people decide what they want instead of forcing your idea of "good behavior" on them?
I am not convinced that e-mailing NHTSA is the most prudent action.
I think it will be more effective to allow these measures to pass and then petition the next administration to strengthen the standards.
The current administration wields total control at NHTSA and will not be swayed by public comment.
Perhaps it would be even more effective to write your favorite presidential candidate and demand that they take this up as a campaign issue. Even if your candidate does not make it to the White House they will still have political pull in their Party.
Also, Perhaps Treehugger could maintain a database of e-mail addresses for State Governments that could be referenced for organized petitioning efforts. In this way we could start to change things state by state, so even if things do not change at the Federal level, these standards can be made irrelevant by a majority of State standards.
CAFE standards are an inefficient way to increase fuel economy, from an economic standpoint. Rather than mandating what fuel economy a vehicle fleet should be, we ought to simply raise taxes on gasoline.
The gas taxes raised should then be used to fund research to improve fuel economy, mass transit, and transportation subsidies for low-income families.
With higher gas prices, the average fuel economy must go up - we see this now as people are dumping their SUVs for smaller, less thirsty cars. Higher gas prices are already raising fuel economy standards, and they are doing it much more efficiently than any government regulation can.
Dump CAFE - raise the gas tax.
"The gas taxes raised should then be used to fund research to improve fuel economy, mass transit, and transportation subsidies for low-income families."
To an extent i agree with Kevin, but there is a problem there for the low income families having to pay a higher price for gasoline. I personally come from a lower income, single parent home and i know my mom can not afford to buy a new car and probably will not be able to the rest of her life. The car she has now was my grandparents old car. I guess i just don't see how making low income families pay more for gasoline and then some of the gasoline tax going back to low income families is going to help. It seems it would be a very complicated system and that a regulation simply raising the fuel economy average would be a simpler solution while not so easily hurting
low income families. I'm no expert so feel free to criticize me, but thats the way I see things.
I just an affordable plug-in hybrid on the market in the next 3-5 years (I'd be setting myself up for dissapointment if I said next year) that can go 75-100 on a single charge and get about 60-70 mpg when using gas.
I think 35 mpg is a sad goal for 2020, that is laughable. I say AT LEAST 70 mpg by 2020 and I am being modest.
Honestly, I don't think that the government stepping in and "Mandating" higher MPG is going to solve the problem. As a commenter above said, the real issue is Supply and Demand. I also don't blame the Oil Companies nor Car Manufacturers at all - it's simple economics. If we as a public are still willing to buy at these prices, then they have every right to make a profit.
That being said, I am NOT ok with these prices of the current MPG on the average vehicle. But I think it is time we as consumers did something, and not run to the government to just make things more complicated.
Besides, this would just take precious time away from Congress investigating Baseball...(sarcasm)
I strongly believe that the choices we make as consumers are the driving force for larger entities to shift the way they do things. An email may raise awareness, but do so also by your choices as a consumer. I see a major shift now in how people are relying on more sustainable practices to reduce costs in their lives. It's work for many different countries for many years. Let's get off our "we are the best in the world" and start doing the right things. We are in that direction for sure...
Kaleb says above:
"I guess i just don't see how making low income families pay more for gasoline and then some of the gasoline tax going back to low income families is going to help. It seems it would be a very complicated system and that a regulation simply raising the fuel economy average would be a simpler solution while not so easily hurting
low income families."
Raising CAFE standards certainly will not improve the lot for low-income households. Vehicles will become more expensive for sure.
A portion of the proceeds from higher gas taxes could be used to fund subsidies for low-income families. Based on your income tax statement, a family could receive an extra $1000 back, as use a gasoline rebate check.
=== author's response follows ===
I am intrigued with your conviction behind the idea that CAFE will make driving more expensive for the poor. Can you provide a basis or citation for that idea?
If one is truly poor, one should not ever be in the market for a new car. The poor will be forced instead, to buy inefficient used cars (SUVs and Trucks) from the wealthier classes which were buying them over the last two decades: something that would happen regardless of CAFE.
So I just don't get it.
I'm doing my part, and ordering a Corvette before any increase in fuel economy regs forces the V8 to be replaced by a hybrid V6, making Zora Arkus-Duntov spin in his grave.
...."Why has this number not skyrocketed in the past hundred years. "
Mostly supply and demand, sadly.....
Well if they'd have given folks the opportunity of driving a car that does the same work for half the gas cost, they'd surely would have driven it.
There's one thing that supersedes even Supply and Demand and that is Promotion - - our mighty advertisement machinery.
In conjunction with the jaded press and corrupt and scared public representatives they are doing a fine job paving the way for a coming disaster that will make the holocaust look like child's play.
Even the Bush administration is now releasing their (4 year overdue) report on Climate Change, confirming most of the IPCC predictions.
True, folks are to blame to not look deeper, even now in the age of diverse and free information via the WWW, but it takes Two To Tango.
my 10 cents
The free market can do wonders matching supply and demand- but will it do it by increasing supply or decreasing demand?
Gas prices are going to go up as we are forced to pursue more and more hard-to-get-to sources of oil. If we don't improve how our cars consume energy then cars will, over time, be restricted to the very rich. This is not what we want! We want to have our environment and have economic growth, too, and for that, we may need regulation. Here is one: why not have a law that automatically increments the CAFE standard each year? Sure, it'll eventually get so high no gas-powered vehicle could reach it... that just means we'd be phasing out gas, which we want to do anyway. That should be an easy fix.
Plus, take a lesson from architecture. Architects try new technologies- including green techniques and methods- on expensive homes and McMansions because those are the customers that can afford them. This lets them demonstrate how effective they really are, silences the critics, and makes it cheap to use them in ordinary houses and buildings.
If we had LISTENED to Jimmy Carter (a real nuclear scientist), we would be driving cute little electric (or who knows WHAT by now?) cars now! Some people do NOT get it yet: We need to find ways to STOP using burning petroleum products. It is REAL LATE in the game and we need to GET BUSY and either lead or get out of the way. Market driven logic is NOT a long term answer.