With fuel prices down by as much as 30% from their 2014 peak, millions of Americans have been migrating to pickups and SUVs and abandoning compact passenger cars and alternative fuel vehicles. That’s leading some industry executives to question whether the federal government should re-think the 54.5 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standard set to take effect in 2025.
Such a move would be a critical mistake, warns Margo Oge, a former official with the EPA who helped put together the compromise fuel economy rules and who has been dubbed by some “the Queen of Cleaner Cars.” If anything, she says, the tough mandate targeted for a decade from now doesn’t go nearly far enough.
“2025 is the first down-payment to the planet for the need to get away from fossil fuels,” Oge told TheDetroitBureau.com during a lengthy interview marking the release of her new book, Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars. “We, as a society, need to move to zero-emission vehicles by 2050…if we are to meet goals of reducing carbon emissions.”
If Oge were to be calling the shots, she said, she’d be pushing for CAFÉ rules that would come in something closer to 180 miles per gallon.
Such numbers are well beyond the pale of anything the industry could imagine today. Volkswagen has come up with a limited-edition model, the XL1, that it claims can hit an amazing 261 mpg, but it requires the extensive use of carbon fiber and other super-light materials, offers two cramped seats, provides weak performance – and comes in at around $250,000.
For one thing, she insists that many CAFE critics knowingly misstate what the 2025 rules actually set down. She notes that the mandate is “footprint-based.” In other words, it doesn’t expect all vehicles to reach 54.5 mpg. A complex formula effectively lowers the target for larger vehicles – so much so that the two-wheel-drive version of Ford’s new aluminum-intensive F-150 already meets the phased-in fuel economy standard for 2021.
Add the fact that manufacturers will get various credits and adjustments and the 2025 target – in terms of real world mileage will be closer to 40 miles per gallon, not 54.4 mpg, the Greek-born Oge explained. For a full-size pickup like the F-150, the number would be significantly lower.
That’s good news considering the EPA did make at least one major error in laying out the 2025 fuel economy mandate. It assumed that 55% of the U.S. new vehicle market would be made up of sedans, coupes and other passenger cars, with trucks making up the remaining 45%. Currently, those numbers are almost exactly backwards – though industry analysts suggest things could shift dramatically if fuel costs were to surge back up to $4 a gallon any time soon.
The compromise that led to the 54.5 mpg mandate marked a significant transition in industry-government relations, stressed Oge, who spent 32 years with the EPA. She pointed to a comment by Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne that the industry had ended, “the bad habit of crying wolf.”
To see the original article go to The Detroit Bureau.
