Warner Pacific College
7/29/2014
55 Miles Per Gallon
From the NY Times: "The Obama
administration issued on Tuesday the final version of new rules that require
automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks by
2025" (Vlasic, 2012)
In total, the
Administration’s national program to improve fuel economy and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions will save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the gas pump and
reduce U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels (House, 2012) .
“These fuel standards represent the single most important step we’ve ever taken
to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” said President Obama (House, 2012) .
“…At Toyota we plan
to exceed these new standards,” said Bob
Carter, the automaker’s U.S. senior vice president (Ohnsman, 2014) . In 2000 Toyota sold about 5700
hybrid vehicles in North America, comparing that to last year in 2013, they
sold about 358,100 hybrid vehicles. A exponential increase and with these new
regulations set in by the White House, Toyota will continue to sell a great
deal more.
With these new
standards in place we may not see 55+ miles per gallon from every vehicle
rolling off the line. Some trucks will still have low 10 mpg and smaller
vehilces will have close to 50. But most of the cars claiming to have 55 mpg
will be results from a lab in perfect highway driving conditions. It is
possible that the actual mpg would be closer to 36. “That's not to say,
however, that fuel efficiency overall won't increase or that there won't be
cars that get 54.5 miles to the gallon or more by 2025” (Handley, 2012)
That being said,
even heavy-duty trucks and SUVs will still have to be "incredibly
more" fuel efficient by 2025, even if targets are revised, overall fuel
efficiency will still increase (Handley, 2012) .
“The president
tells voters that his regulations will save them thousands of dollars at the
pump, but always forgets to mention that the savings will be wiped out by
having to pay thousands of dollars more upfront for unproven technology that
they may not even want” (Vlasic, 2012) . Auto dealers also expressed concern
that higher prices for new cars might exclude some consumers from the market.
“This increase shuts almost seven million people out of the new car market
entirely,” said Bill Underriner, chairman of the National Auto Dealers
Association (Vlasic, 2012) . But how many
of those people are actually looking to buy a new car in the first place. I
wonder what data that number is based of off.
Toyota also
estimates that its hybrid vehicles have saved approximately 15 million kiloliters
of gasoline compared to the amount used by gasoline-powered vehicles of similar
size (Toyota, 2014) .
"Even if you
sell all large SUVs, overall fuel efficiency is going to go up" (Handley, 2012) . And
that’s good news. Increased fuel economy and reducing emissions all while
saving Americans money sounds like regulations are working in our favor here.
References
Handley, M.
(2012, 8 29). 54.5 MPG For All Cars by 2025 With New CAFE Standards? Not
Exactly . Retrieved 8 5, 2014, from US NEWS:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/08/29/545-miles-per-gallon-for-all-cars-by-2025-not-exactly
House, W. (2012, 8 28). Obama Administration Finalizes Historic 54.5
MPG Fuel Efficiency Standards. Retrieved 8 5, 2014, from White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/28/obama-administration-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel-efficiency-standard
Ohnsman, A. (2014, 1 15). Toyota Pledges to Top U.S. Push to Double
Fuel Economy by 2025 . Retrieved 8 5, 2014, from Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-15/toyota-vows-to-exceed-u-s-push-to-double-fuel-economy-by-2025.html
Toyota. (2014, 1 14). Worldwide Sales of Toyota Hybrids Top 6 Million
Units. Retrieved 8 5, 2014, from Toyota:
http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/worldwide+toyota+hybrid+sales+top+6+million.htm
Vlasic, B. (2012, 8 28). U.S. Sets Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards.
Retrieved 8 5, 2014, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/business/energy-environment/obama-unveils-tighter-fuel-efficiency-standards.html?_r=0 .
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