Shouldn't there be a law mandating fuel economy indicators in all new cars?

I wasn't born yet for the 1st crisis and only had vague memories of the 2nd one (rationing, odd/even system and colored flags). I posted a thread about the 1st crisis at http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-house-pancakes/90757-remembering-1973-oil-crisis.html. The link to sfgate.com article has pictures from both crises.

Yep. I'd agree w/all of the above. At the same time, unfortunately, there are still a bunch of heavy gas guzzlers that are exempt from fuel economy testing (thus their EPA mileage is unknown). The Ford F-250/350 remain exempt as of 2011 per Which Vehicles Are Tested.

 

Yep. We most definitely still have CAFE. See Fuel Economy | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). And yep, the passenger car CAFE standard has been stagnant from 1990-2010 at "27.5 mpg". The "light truck" number has been moving higher during the same period.
You can see this at http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2011_Summary_Report.pdf.

The 2011 Prius counts as getting "70.7791 mpg" for CAFE purposes.

Unfortunately, an automaker's CAFE numbers can be boosted thanks to the E85 scam/incentive. I'm not sure when that's going away. See How a Suburban gets 30 mpg (at least in CAFE) - Alternative vehicle credits, CAFE, Flex-fuel vehicles | TerraPass: Fight global warming, reduce your carbon footprint, Ethanol Promises - E85 and Fuel Economy - Car and Driver and National Taxpayers Union - Ethanol: Bumper Crop for Agribusiness, Bitter Harvest for Taxpayers.

Notice that most of the FFVs at http://www.e85fuel.com/flexible-fuel-vehicles/ are from the "Big 3" US automakers and the vast majority of them are classified as "light trucks" (even the Chevy HHR is a "light truck").

 

When you have rules like CAFE, they have to be formulated, regulated, supervised by a money wasting government department. Plus, while you can mandate fuel economy to a degree, the laws of physics still apply.
If the goal is to reduce the country's dependance on foreign oil, raise fuel taxes drastically, and the market will force it's own fuel economy standards.

 

Built in to the car, I cannot imagine that it would add more than $2 to the factory cost of a car that lacks an available display, far less in the many cars that could share an existing display.

This is far cheaper than many other government mandates on our cars, yet is a very valuable tool for drivers who wish to make use of it. With it, I could have significantly boosted the disappointing mpg of my Subaru a decade earlier than my discovery of ScanGauge.

I vote yes to requiring it be available in the car, but not that it be a dedicated display. It could be on shared display, brought to the top at the option of the driver.

Even my oil-company-executive sibling supports this requirement.

 

Sure its cheap, but do we really need more government mandates, I think we should have less. The government does a bad job on most of the things it does, and I would rather it fix more important things like remove oil and ethanol subsidies.Would our prius need to change, since my indicator always reads high? If you don't have an indicator and want one shop for a different car, the market will decide. Most expensive cars and efficient cars have them. If people are staring at them, as many do in hybrids they may infact make things less safe. Do we need the government to mandate anti-safety measures? It all can get to be really political. Speaking of safety lets allow car manufacturers to choose European or American requirements, that should allow for lighter more efficient cars

Well not really a big deal to me, but all these supposed good ideas seem to make a really poor set of laws.

sure it diverts attention from removing subsidies and actually making policy to make cars more efficient. Hey my new humogosuv has a mpg indicator I now get 14mpg instead of 13mpg.

 

Yeah, like that has worked on much of anything else. Would 'let the market decide' have cleaned up our massive air pollution, water pollution, and cut highway bloodshed from 60,000 down to under 35,000 deaths per year even as driving miles multiplied manyfold ? I don't think so.

Is that how half of American consumers switched from cars to the gas guzzling battering rams of death commonly known as SUVs and trucks over the past two decades?

While I do favor removing subsidies, what policies to make cars more efficient won't get labeled by the political opposition as 'government mandates'?

As for bumping a humongosuv from 13 to 14 mpg, that is a substantial improvement, saving just as much fuel as bumping a Prius from 50 to 69 mpg.

 

Uh... they can drive any kind of gas hog they want. It's called freedom. Just as I have the freedom any day to drive my Prius, my RAV4, or my wife's Corvette. You have the same freedom.

 

that is a pretty blank statement.. keep it in mind next time when you get robbed and need to call police. Would be also good idea to get rid of FDA, who needs so-called food safety, and dontcha know snake oil work works wonders?? and what do we need army for if we have a 2nd amendment?

Anarchy in UK

 

The problem with " freedom" is defining the boundaries. Your freedom to do as you chose is fine as long as it doesn't infringe on the "freedoms" of others.

Yes one is "free" to drive a gas guzzler, but society is free to impose a penalty on you for doing so, ie higher taxes on inefficient vehicles, tax credits for more efficient ones etc, carbon taxes to encourage conservation etc.

Icarus

 

Ok, point taken.

On a slightly side-topic, I feel the income tax system is the wrong tool to use to impose penalties or benefits, though. It's an already-bloated, highly unfair, and inefficient system as it is without added rules. The income tax system should only be what it is meant to be; a way to collect revenue from income.

 

No argument from me on that score. The reason the tax code has gotten so convoluted ( in large measure) is the lack of political courage amongst our elected officials. They have made the easy choice to "fund" wanted programs through tax credits rather than direct budget subsidy. It is fundamentally more politically palatable, even though given equal dollars, it is more expensive. Then they can say "we gave you a tax cut"

Everything from oil company subsidies, to tax credits for hybrids and EVs
to mortgage interest deduction all are a function of someone's sacred cow, and it all leads to little transparency in how our government spends our money.

Icarus

 

The easiest way to collect would be at gas pump. Remember how popular Ross Perot 50c per gallon was in '92?

with respect to tax system it is such b/c congress has the power to pass new law, but has no power to undo old law. Why are we paying 3.1 billion to domestic cotton growers in subsidies?

 

The executive summary at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s10002.pdf (listed at Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2010 | OTAQ | US EPA) has an overview of US fleet fuel economy and characteristics since 1975.

For model year 1975, when the market decided, the US light duty fleet averaged 13.1 mpg. (CAFE wasn't passed until 1975.) From the PDF

In 1987, the fleet average was 22.0 mpg, a peak at the time.

I just stumbled across http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicle...ars_pickups_and_suvs/fuel-economy-basics.html that mentions CAFE standards and the E85 scam (dual-fuel loophole)) and the stupid GVWR >8500 lbs. fuel economy testing exemption.

 

And you think mandating a gauge is going to do that?

Oil subsidies and cafe loopholes seem to be the biggest reasons. Don't you think removing them would be more effective than micromanaging car instrumentation. The president is trying to do both these things btw. I don't have much confidence the subsidies will go away. Removing confusing safety regulations with some clear sets would allow more fuel efficient world cars to be priced lower, but we have lawyers and politicians trying to prevent these things. Do we really need to focus on a gauge that has been in gas guzzling bmws for decades?

I named two.

How about not subsidizing the SUV so that people doen't choose it next time. Or does that make too much sense.

They were really useless. My friend had her car stolen from the hospital she works at. The police didn't even look for the stolen car. A random person found the car abandoned on the street. Next excuse, I did not say cut off police funding.

HOw about no invading countries that we are not at war with. How about no dea arresting people using medicinal marijuana. How about smaller government that does less harm.

 

I don't think oil subsides have much to do with the switch. The key problem is that oil and gasoline are too cheap and the commodity price doesn't reflect its true price (e.g. environmental cost, military costs to secure the supply and supply routes) coupled w/marketing, dumb American habits and perceptions and CAFE.

I've read a # of studies that have claimed that due to the CAFE mileage requirements being more stringent on the passenger car fleet, car makers moved away from station wagons (the preferred family vehicle long ago) in order to keep their passenger car fleet averages up over to SUVs (which are classified as light trucks).

(CAFE has 3 fleets: imported passenger cars, domestic passenger cars, and "light trucks".)

Regarding the dumb American habits and perceptions. There are too many to list. Examples: there's this perception that big SUV = safe. I seriously doubt many of these SUV buyers have any idea how little the US posses of the world's oil reserves, where most of the world's oil resides, how much we consume and import every day, etc. Many of them hate the idea of regulations and just want to be able to drive whatever they want, to hell w/the consequences (that is, if they even realize what they are). One monstrosity class SUV driver on Tivocommunity years ago had someone bring up consequences and he said "consequences? higher gas prices?" It seems had had no clue.

In my 4 trips to Japan and trip to Europe that stopped in 7 countries, I saw very few monstrosity class SUVs running around. In all of these places, fuel is much more expensive than the US. How come they can cope w/o monstrosity class SUVs?

 

letter to C&D regarding the Ford Excretion

I was cleaning up stuff at home and going thru my old Car and Driver issues looking for issues to keep or articles to clip/tear out.

I came across this letter in the May 2001 issue that was in response to some article/column on the Ford Excretion... err... Excursion. I think this is another good one to use as an argument against monstrosity class SUVs (full-sized or beyond) :

 

A Law? You have to be kidding me. You mean like people getting arrested?

 

"How about smaller government that does less harm."
Wow, then with no Gov. we won't have any harm! Austin, you could always put a piece of black tape over the MPG readout, how's that? Works for click and Clack..
"Less Government"...so we should have no FDA help with trying to get people to stop smoking? ( this is the environmental forum, so saving gas, and less smoking fits somehow... http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/06/21/137316580/be-warned-fda-unveils-graphic-cigarette-labels
I say have a government mandate to have your MPG in a big LED readout on your back bumper..and being serious we need better government with more people being involved with helping create better solutions...duh...

 

How about this, I want to have an MPG read out on my back bumper, just to make the SUV and PU truck drivers realize how much it is costing them to compensate for their small peenies. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make that happen? I would totally install that.

BTW, most of the PU and SUV drivers I commute with are just one guy in a large truck that has never even seen a bag of mulch. If someone needs a truck to do their job, I think the pretend Blue Collar bunch should pay a heftier gas tax to supplement the higher cost they are foisting on the honest workers with their increased demand.

 

There you have it folks!

Reasons #'s 463 and 464 for Global Prius Hate:

The assumption (amongst some) that all Puckemup truck drivers have smaller reproductive organs, and that all Prius drivers have bigger brains...

Oh well.... Every group of folks have their "ambassadors" I guess. The religious right have their Jerry Faldwells, so I guess it all balances out.

Personally? (FWIW) I think that "the Government" has enough on its plate already. We're fighting 2-1/2 wars...trying to jump start the economy...figuring out things like the public schools, infrastructure, health care, stomping out forest fires, and trying to get a handle on national debt.

I like my police departments busting down doors to meth labs, and arresting pedophiles. I don't think that we need to have "MPG police" pulling cars over at random to see if their MDF is on and working.
Besides.....Toyota does not have what I would call an exemplary record in accurately measuring fuel efficiency in any case. This means that even if such a law were enacted (and it might be! the government regulates toilet flush rates after all... ) then we would need an enforcement arm to ensure that the displays are accurate! :mod: