Sunday, May 31, 2009

US Fuel Efficiency Standards Too Low?

Last week we discussed the new US fuel efficiency standards that were agreed between the White House, Environmentalists and the Auto Industry. We questioned the concerns of those who suggest that US consumers will not spend extra money on a more fuel efficient car unless the cost of fuel increases and remains high.

Continuing with this topic, we have also heard from the other side of the spectrum that the fuel efficiency standard of 39 mpg for a passenger car to be met in incremental stages before 2016 is too low. Here they may have a point. The average fuel efficiency of all cars, SUVs and minivans in the US is around 23 mpg. In Europe and Japan that figure is over 40 mpg. So if Europe and Japan already produce cars with an average fuel consumption higher than the standard set to be reached in the US by 2016 then why is this standard so low.

While you can buy a few cars in the US that get great fuel economy (Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid, Mini Cooper, Smart and now the VW Jetta TDI), around 40 mpg, there are not too many and at least 2 of them (the Mini and the Smart) are small cars. One of the reasons Europe in particular has such a good average fuel efficiency is that there are numerous cars that use clean diesel engines. In fact back in 2002 when I (Dudley) Lived in England I drove a VW Golf TDI (diesel) that got about 50 mpg, . In fact diesel engines get at least 30% more fuel efficiency than gas powered engines.

So why do we not have more diesel powered cars in the USA? Diesel engines actually produce less carbon dioxide emissions than gas powered cars but unfortunately they give off other pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxide and other small particulates. In the USA and particularly some states the emission standards are high and the higher sulfur content in US diesel means many diesel engines cannot meet these stricter standards. In Europe this problem is averted because their diesel has a much lower sulfur content than the diesel produced in the USA and therefore gives off less Nitrogen Oxide and particulates. The German engineered cars (Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes) also seem to be far ahead in producing clean burning diesel engines.

So we know how Europe achieves its 40mpg average fuel efficiency standard with diesel powered cars. We also know that there are less diesel cars in the US because of the concerns with emissions but that the technology is improving quickly and some diesel cars that are now meeting the emissions standards and being sold in the US.

If we take these diesel engines into account in the US, knowing that they can achieve fuel efficiency standards above 40mpg already then the 39 mpg standard set passenger cars by 2016 is really not good enough.

But lets look at this in a different way. Until now very few diesel powered cars have been sold in the US and if standards for gas powered cars was to increase to 39 mpg that would be a reasonable goal. If a smallish gas powered car in 2009 averages 30 mpg, then a 30% increase to 39 mpg over 7 years should be an achievable goal for most car manufacturers.

At http://www.gogreenmug.com/ we would love to see much higher standards but we also expect that once car manufacturers start to improve fuel efficiency there will be no point stopping at 39 mpg, because in the end we know that gas prices will rise and the demand for ever more fuel efficient vehicles will increase. We hope to see a hard drive storage space like evolution in fuel efficiency soon.

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