US Dept of Energy Study: Fuel Usage Could Drop 80% by 2050 with 74 MPG Cars

Bob, I'm only replying again, because if we fail to learn from bad government programs and call them good, we often expand them, not that you appear to be in favor of bad programs.

We do have documentation of the goals. How did we do

I hope there is broad agreement that goal 1 was a failure, I believe the NRC report is pay now, but they go into a number of details. The program did not help the US car industry become more competitive with the Japansese. On goal 2, they claimed some victory. On goal 3 there was also absolute failure. THis is because they forgot cost and pollution were vehicle characteristics. The PNGV was never part of a planned 1-2 punch, it was done instead of raising cafe standards, which were thought to favor japanese car companies. It was done 20 years ago in 1993. The clinton administration never tried in 8 years to raise cafe standards. They did not go up until 2007, inspite of agreement there were bad loopholes that needed to be corrected in the early 90s. Higher gas prices, not pngv were the impetus for raising cafe.

Read up my friend
The Green Brigade - Car Comparison - Feature Article - Page 4

You don't see much of the precept in the volt. Carbon fiber and aluminum to keep weight down, sacrifice practicality for aerodynamics, a diesel engine that couldn't pass emissions, cost as no consideration at all. Nothing really impacted volt development. The EV1 produced for the california ZEV initiative is the father of the volt, and most of the concept was produced back then with the ev1-phev version. Even the market research for 4 seats came out of the ev1 program not the precept. As car and driver foreshadows a tiny bit of pngv made it into the GM 2-mode trucks and SUVs, which failed because of cost, one of the PNGV big problem.

Yes hydrolic hybrids and the kitchen sink were part of the project, something has to sound good to you, but it wasn't a big or well funded piece.

But wait there is more

PNGV went through until it was obvious to the National Research Council that no one was going to buy one of the beasts. Read that CR evaluation and tell me who would buy the production version of one of those beasts instead of say a camry hybrid in 2005 when the automakers would have had them hit the road. Agree that the bush administration should have just killed the program instead of keeping the fuel cell parts and throwing more money at it. I don't think raising cafe in 2005 after the program failed instead of 2007 would have made much of a difference, but... raising them at the begining of the first bush term when it was clear this was a failure would have helped. But politics rolls on, continueing bad ideas, and making them worse.

Imagine how long it would take if the cars cost $100,000 a piece and clouds of black smoke came out the tailpipe. The program wasn't to build a prius killer, the prius didn't even exist. It was to build a much more efficient midsize car damn the cost. One thing that was mentioned about the failures were tax policies to encourage the technogy. This was followed through with the hybrid subsidies, but it was late. It takes 5 years to develop a car, and the leading hybrid the gen II prius was alredy developed before the subsidy. The 2013 ford fusion energi seems like a much better solution than the prodigy. Ford was the closest to using some of the technology it develped, coming out with the escape hybrid, by dropping the diesel and aerodyanmics and aluminum body. Ford was by far the most successful and used its patents in a swap with toyota. If Ford dropped the energi components in the 0.2 cd aluminum body of the prodigy I wonder how many mpg it would get? This is car and drivers take on why fuel economy didn't go up in spite of technology being available
Csaba Csere: Why Mileage Hasn't Improved in 25 Years - Column - Car and Driver

 

The 'rollers' are dynamometers that need coefficients from "roll-down tests:"

The roll-down tests measure the aerodynamic and rolling drag of a vehicle. The three coefficients, A, B, and C, applied in a formula gives the horse power needed to overcome vehicle drag. These are measured and adjusted for a 'Standard Day.' The dynamometer with the appropriate roll-down coefficients gives the functional equivalent to driving on a 'Standard Day.'

The EPA test protocols measure the engine and drive train power and fuel consumption using an exhaust gas analyzer. The exhaust gas is analyzed and gives the measured fuel consumption:
How Vehicles Are Tested

What surprised me was to find the roll-down coefficients of the CMAX and Prius v were similar but the dynamometer values were different:

	Column 1
0	[tr][th]roll-down / dyno[th]Target Coef A (lbf)[th]Target Coef B (lbf/mph)[th]Target Coef C (lbf/mph**2)[th]Set Coef A (lbf)[th]Set Coef B (lbf/mph)[th]Set Coef C (lbf/mph**2)
1	[tr][td]C-MAX[td]22.93[td]0.3908[td]0.01874[td]0.05[td]0.31983[td]0.01752
2	[tr][td]Prius v[td]31.366[td]-0.41078[td]0.028127[td]13.56[td]-0.23424[td]0.024158
3	[tr][td]Prius v[td]34.558[td]-0.34633[td]0.027725[td]14.533[td]-0.17206[td]0.023768

Bob Wilson

 

We have different memories and understanding:

1. New technologies have a steep learning curve with orders of magnitude differences between the working prototype, first production run, and sustained production. I always saw the PNGV as getting the working prototypes out as the first step followed by two or more generations of product refinement and cost reduction.
2. I don't see the 2000 Precept being that big of leap from the VW two-seater diesel demo or the first Honda Insight. It takes working prototypes to map out what subsequent development should accomplish including price reduction. Exhibit A, Prius which has held its MSRP value all but constant in the low $20k range, NHW11 to 'Prius c'.
3. Adoption of high tech often looks like a chicken-and-egg problem. The manufacturer can't go into production because the materials cost too much. The supplier can't get economies of scale to reduce material costs because the market is too small. The PNGV cracks that shell game.

The EV-1 and Precept were contemporaries from the same company, GM. Although not impossible, it seems strange that GM Precept and EV-1 teams were so isolated they didn't share technology. But we know GM went out of its way to erase the "EV-1" and killing PNGV meant that one never became a working prototype.

We can agree the hydrogen fool cell program was a complete waste. As for what 'might have happened,' we each have to revert to opinions and contemporary statements. My experience suggests PNGV should have led directly to higher CAFE standards . . . puncturing the claims that such mileage is not possible. As it was, Chrysler and GM got nearly a decade of relief from 'doing the right thing' . . . and went bankrupt. Now the European manufactures are scrambling with 'me too.'

Bob Wilson

 

I don't really have a memory of it, I read the reports afterward. I have a memory of freedom car and thought what a poor policy choice instead of raising cafe standards, or doing both. Creating pngv instead of raising fuel standards seemed to lead to missing the goals of the program.

OK, then the question is did cancelling PNGV hurt the goals? Aerodanamics from pngv seemed to hurt user comfort. We don't see production cars with cd's bellow 0.2. The insight already used aluminum, the ev1 plastic, I don't see what PNGV has brought to refine to the table. Do you see a major technology we would have missed without PNGV?

Yes, the xl1 is son of the PNGV vehicle, its logical extension. THe problem is the cost. Did your read the car and driver report from before PNGV was canceled. They pointed to the problem being the cost and pollution. These were problems backed into the PNGV program. VW 20 years later has found solutions to the pollution problem, but not the cost. Perhaps in 10 more years. The less exotic atkinson and mostly steel prius seemed to not have these problems but it was shooting for a much more reasonable goal in terms of mpg.

Absolutely not, this was a criticism from the begining of PNGV. It asked for the impossible damn the cost. It was set up as a moon shot. Ford wanted the goal to be a 50 mpg car, that was sellable. That was rejected by the government. Instead we got expensive materials and diesel hybrids.

The PNGV tech was shared with all the other automakers, which is why gm kept things from the ev1 out of the program. GM has written about killing the ev1 being a bad mistake. It was a marketing blunder, but it also made volt development more expensive. GM has claimed the 2-mode had PNGV lineage. Do you see parenthood in the volt from the escalade hybrid, or from the ev1-phev prototype. I'll give you a clue the T-shaped battery and electric motor and control came from the prototype.

But we have statements on the record that PNGV was done instead of cafe. We have criticism at the time that raising cafe standards would do more for fuel economy. We do not have to guess about a 1-2 punch. The bankrupcies tell a cautionary tale of government helping industry by having them follow a path they don't want to go, while failing to regulate things in the peoples interest. I can't connect all the dots to say that pngv made american car companies less competitive, but pngv and freedom car told them they did not need to improve fuel economy from the governments perspectives. PNGV specifically was written with no accountability. When gas prices rose and auto sales sank, GM and chrysler did not have the cars to stay afloat without government help.

Certainly if PNGV should have led to higher cafe standards, why didn't clinton/gore raise them in 2000? Was it that Gore told the car companies that pngv was instead of raising cafe? They could have set a date of 2005 for new cafe, a date after pngv technology was supposed to trickle down. They could also have passed a hybrid tax credit for the cars to get them built. Let' honestly look at mistakes in government policy. Not everything each administration does is as bad as the next one says, but certainly PNGV was supposed to make american car companies more competitive and efficient, instead of head them towards bankrupcy. Royal fail, if that is your goal. 1-2 punch easily implemented by delayed implementation of cafe. That is why the 2025 goals of obama's cafe standards give car companies time to implement technology, and include tax credits for plug-in technology. This fixes some bad mistakes in the previous policy. They also don't exclude foreign manufacturers. Some things though, the DOE grants and loans seem to follow the corporate welfare idea for jobs that was a fail in freedom car and super car.

 

AG, your conclusions come out wonky because you keep trying to spin facts to match you ideologies, rather than just apply the facts evenly to the context of the period.

Gore was/is an environmentalist, Bush an oil man.
Gore saw AGW, Bush acted/thought that AGW was nonsense.
Both Clinton and Gore wanted to strengthen US auto competitiveness
Detroit wanted free money
Add in the price of fuel leading up to these programs

 

OK. Question? Did oil use go up or down during clinton/gore? Did american competitiveness in autos go up or down during clinton/gore? Did PNGV reduce ghg at all? If the cars had sold well they definitely would have increased unhealthy pollution.

No spin attempted. I am saying the current US policy is much better than super car or freedom car. When you dismally fail at your goals as evidenced by the car and driver piece on the prototypes and prices and pollution, saying we failed because we cared too much is a little like believing in the easter bunny. I don't see bad intentions, but bad results. By 1997, it seemed many saw this, and Clinton/Gore could have changed path, they did not. Bush saw a bad idea and made it worse. I object to the spin that if only Bush had kept promoting these cars exactly how GOre envisioned them that they would have sold. They could not even pass emissions, so I guess Bush could have forced the companies to produce the cars that wouldn't sell, and asked CARB and the EPA to give them a waiver for their higher particulate and NOx pollution. The problem was that bush administration didn't kill the program completely, not that they changed it. Fuel cells were already a part of the program, also clearly stated in the PNGV car and driver piece.

At least in 2006, most had rejected these policies, and plug-ins started getting support as well as increased cafe.

Just because Gore is behind it doesn't mean its good for the environment or the country. Gore was part of the venture capital and and got one of the first Fisker Karmas. Do you think the Karma is better for the country than the prius? The problem with the karma are similar to problems with PNGV, an expensive vehicle that isn't very competitive. It at least does satify epa emissions requirements unlike super car. The DOE just canceled the policy where tax payers subsidiesed the karma, which IMHO was a necessary change. We can kill bad programs, we don't need to pretend they are good and give them more money. We can honestly look at fuel cells, and let car makers test them in Europe instead of feeding more money to build infrastructure for the freedom car idea.

No knock on Gore's intentions, but if clinton had kept his campaign promise and raised cafe standards, just about every analysis not done by monkeys finds that goals would have been met better than PNGV. Detroit wanted cafe to stay the same, PNGV didn't hold them accountable to any improvements, so they took the deal offered. That doesn't mean it was good for the country. With any objective hindsight the best you can say is it didn't cost us as much money as other government mistakes. Who said the government should try to tax everyone to try to help automakers in ways they don't want to be helped with no accountability?

 

I don't know. Certainly not me. I only want to tax and pay externalities, and do away with ALL subsidies. That will work a hell of lot better than CAFE.​