Senate votes to raise CAFE standards

[Balta1701]

The fight isn't over yet, as some of the auto-industry-"friendly" Dems are saying, but the Senate passed a measure which is now hooked to the upcoming energy bill which will raise the CAFE standards to 35 mpg within the next 13 years.

 

It's a start.

[StrangeSox]

Will it actually reduce fuel consumption or encourage more people to drive more frequently, resulting in the same amount of fuel being burned overall?

 

 

CAFE standards won't fix squat, IMO. Why bother with the inconveniences of car pooling or public transportation if your car gets good gas mileage? People need incentives to change their habits to reduce fuel usage, not just increased MPG. I've never been a huge fan of legislating ground-breaking technological break-throughs, either. There's an awful lot of people working on increasing fuel efficiency of vehicles right now. Congress passing a bill won't make the laws of thermodynamics go away. Increasing MPG that far is going to drive the cost of cars way, way up.

 

There was a good op-ed in this month's Car and Driver or Road and Track on why it really won't work.

 

Here's another one:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../704220301/1008

Edited June 22, 2007 by StrangeSox

[mr_genius]

I think it's a great start.

[StrangeSox]

Let's not forget that its also arbitrarily (have their been any studies showing what a reasonable MPG goal should be?) telling the market what it must produce instead of letting consumers and producers decide for themselves.

[jackie hayes]

Let's not forget that its also arbitrarily (have their been any studies showing what a reasonable MPG goal should be?) telling the market what it must produce instead of letting consumers and producers decide for themselves.

Well...yeah. Pollution is an externality, so a perfectly free market will not yield a good outcome. The government should intervene.

 

But maybe not in this way. Your post before this one is a good example of how this sort of regulation can go wrong.

[StrangeSox]

I found this discussion by of bunch of economists, pseudo-economists, and a handful of engineers:

 

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2007/0..._standards.html

 

My Internal Combustion Engines professor joked that, with the way emissions standards are going, a car's engine will have to be an air purifier in a few decades.

 

Well...yeah. Pollution is an externality, so a perfectly free market will not yield a good outcome. The government should intervene.

 

But maybe not in this way. Your post before this one is a good example of how this sort of regulation can go wrong.

 

It depends on what your intentions are -- less dependence on oil, environmental concerns, etc. Pollution is being effectively controlled in other ways, and there are better means (IMO) to reduce total automotive emissions than increasing fuel efficiency.

 

There's still efficiency to be squeezed out of the ICE. But a heat engine can only be so efficient. The government making laws demanding that they be more efficient than physically possible just isn't going to work.

[NorthSideSox72]

Nice to see something being done.

 

*slow clap*

 

Now let's see if it passes, and if they can continue to move in the right direction.

[StrangeSox]

And then we can pass a law to disband Al Qaeda and after that we can pass a law to make power plants 100% efficient.

[jasonxctf]

quite simply, increasing mileage standards is a matter of national security.

 

if we can use this excuse to invade countries and spend trillions of dollars rebuilding them, we can use it to get a Lincoln Navigator to get 35mpg's.

[Rex Kickass]

Jason, exactly.

 

This is a small step towards energy independence. Just because you get more miles to your tank of gas doesn't suddenly mean you're going to move 15 miles further away from work. Because even if you get better mileage, it doesn't improve the amount of time you spend traveling.

[Balta1701]

Jason, exactly.

 

This is a small step towards energy independence. Just because you get more miles to your tank of gas doesn't suddenly mean you're going to move 15 miles further away from work. Because even if you get better mileage, it doesn't improve the amount of time you spend traveling.

Actually, to some level, there is evidence that this will happen; as cars get better MPG, you don't have to spend as much to drive as far, so you will have the ability to drive more, and some people do so.

[vandy125]

I like it. If they are forced to make smaller vehicles or cut back on the SUVs, then I like it even more.

[Rex Kickass]

Actually, to some level, there is evidence that this will happen; as cars get better MPG, you don't have to spend as much to drive as far, so you will have the ability to drive more, and some people do so.

 

 

But - if you increase the MPG on an SUV by 75%, it doesn't mean that people are going to drive 75% more. I think there's a time component there that will eventually win out. People will drive more, but probably not to the extent where the benefits of raising the MPG standard will be nullified.

[southsider2k5]

The funny thing is the refiners are already using this and Ethanol as an excuse not to expand refining capacity.