Q&A on new fuel-economy rules
Automakers are fully behind the Obama administration’s new set of fuel-economy rules unveiled Tuesday. But make no mistake — these regulations will not be easy for them to meet.
Here are some questions and answers about what the automakers will need to do to achieve the standards.
How big a challenge will this be for the industry?
To get an idea of how far away the auto industry is from the new benchmarks, consider this: Only six vehicles on sale today offer fuel economy of at least 35.5 miles per gallon, according to the auto website Edmunds.com. They include the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight, the Honda Civic hybrid, the Ford Fusion hybrid and the Smart fortwo microcar.
So what are they going to do to meet these requirements?
For starters, manufacturers have vehicles in the pipeline that will help them clear the new hurdles, and they will likely be announcing more.
Ford is bringing fuel-efficient small cars such as the Fiesta to North America in the coming years and is planning on putting fully electric cars in showrooms by 2011. General Motors Corp. still plans to debut its Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric car next year — provided it isn’t derailed by bankruptcy.
Chrysler LLC also has plans to introduce its own electric cars and small cars from Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA. Toyota and Honda also will be ramping up hybrid and plug-in vehicle production in the coming years.
Are there other technologies that will help automakers meet the new regulations?
Besides more conventional hybrids and extended-range plug-ins such as the Volt, expect to see so-called clean diesel cars such as the Volkswagen Jetta TDI high quality business cards.
Extended-range plug-ins rely on a rechargeable battery for short distances, then a combination of gas and electric power for longer trips. Clean diesels use technology that filters out particulate matter and offers better fuel economy.
Automakers also are planning to introduce more exclusively electric vehicles. Meanwhile, GM and Honda have long been experimenting with hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, though the cars remain a long way off.
When assessing a manufacturer’s fuel-economy rating, how will mpg be calculated for vehicles like plug-in hybrids, which can be driven without using a drop of fuel as long as they don’t travel too far at a time?
That isn’t yet known. The EPA has said it is working on how to measure the fuel economy for these sorts of vehicles, and for pure electric cars and vehicles with other exotic powertrains.
Could there be some unintended side effects of the new policy in terms of what the manufacturers produce and sell?
For cars, one easy way to boost fuel economy is to make them smaller. But that could raise questions about vehicle safety, Anwyl said.