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Don't worry, we'll just get even larger trucks that nobody actually wants to bypass these standards.
The larger truck exist b/c of the standards. It's more economical to change the weight class of a vehicle than it is to make the vehicle more environmentally friendly.
Edit: "more economical" -> "more environmentally friendly"
I'm 70% sure that the larger truck exists because exceptions have literally been made to the law on purpose due to lobbying, which is why every company pivoted to them.
As far as I am aware, current fuel economy standards are primarily determined by the size of the wheel base. Some years ago, the EPA went from a reasonably managed chart to a specific formula that gets a little extreme on the ends.
So you end up with craziness like a 95 ranger required to have 60mpg to meet the standard, and a 2024 f35 super mega ultra cab long bed to have like 3mpg to meet standards. (Numbers are made up, but that is the main idea as I understand it)
Large trucks exist because of wheel base allowance. Small, slow, borderline useless cars exist to keep fleet average low.
Supposedly they want us all in EVs, but American manufacturers aren’t producing shit except for Tesla which are safety hazards, and they effectively banned Chinese competition that could have actually accomplished it. US car manufacturers will likely ignore these new standards by pushing more “light trucks” that are exempt.
Light trucks aren't exempt, but have a different standard. The article posted lacks a lot of detail. First off, 50 mpg is just the expected average given the mix of "light trucks" and cars. The actual standards are 65 mpg for cars and 45 mpg for "light trucks."
The new standards require American automakers to increase fuel economy so that, across their product lines, their passenger cars would average 65 miles per gallon by 2031, up from 48.7 miles today. The average mileage for light trucks, including pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, would have to reach 45 miles per gallon, up from 35.1 miles per gallon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/climate/biden-mileage-electric-vehicles.html
So actually the light truck standard isn't far off of the 50 mpg figure this article inexplicably comes up with even though that's not the standard for either cars or light trucks under the new rules.
Heavy trucks and vans also are included in the policy with a greater percent increase than for cars and light trucks (though beginning from a lower floor).
Aptera, baybeeee.
Also, ev prices are way down and their efficiency is going to keep going up.
https://electrek.co/2024/04/18/ev-prices-down-18-last-year-drastic-price-cuts/
GM has the Bolt, and now the Silverado, Ford has the MachE and the Lightning, Dodge is catching up, mostly with Jeep of all brands.
The Jeep wrangler PHEV is the top selling hybrid. The bolt and MachE are pretty great and can be found on the used market with decent miles for an affordable amount. The Lightning is a fantastic truck, better in almost every way that matters than the cyber truck. The Silverado EV is just launching but seems very capable.
Ford is the number 2 EV seller behind Tesla. If you think American manufacturer aren’t producing shit, you’re just not looking.
And pickup trucks will be the size of a Mack truck.
Will be? I've seen literal Mack trucks smaller than some of today's "regular" pickups...
I miss S10 sized trucks.
I’d love a truck like that little B-series Mazda had when I was in high school in the 80s. Or the little Toyotas. I just need something with a bed that gets decent mileage. Not something with 6 tires, needs a step ladder to get into, and enough room for 8 people. My penis is big enough already. 😂
I went with the Maverick for a work truck and I’m very happy with the choice. 30mpg and I don’t have to climb up to get a ladder. Ford is an idiot for not making this a plug-in, I’d buy 2 more on the spot.
if it doesnt apply to suv's then it is useless
it is slightly less strict on SUVs but it does apply to them. Smaller cars are going to require a 10% increase by 2031 but SUVs and pickups will only require 6%
The fuel savings translate into about $600 less in gas costs over the life of a new vehicle, NHTSA projects.
I don't understand this. Let's be extra safe and say I currently drive a car that gets 30 mpg 15k miles per year and the average fuel price was $3.60. If I switched to a vehicle that got 50 mpg, my savings per year alone would be $720.
15,000 mi / 30 mi/g x $3.60/gal = $1,800
15,000 mi / 50 mi/g x $3.60/gal = $1,080
$1,800/yr - $1,080/yr = $720/yr
Still being extra safe, let's assume the car only makes it 100k miles, that's a savings of ~$4,800 for the life of the vehicle.
100,000 mi / 15,000 mi/yr = 6.67 yr
6.67 yr x $720/yr = $4,802.40
$4,800 > $600
Again, this is being safe with a car that is fuel efficient, a person that travels a relatively short amount, and with low fuel prices. What am I misunderstanding??
Maybe that is compared to the current fuel efficiency standard? The current standard for cars is 46 mpg.
It also assumes gas prices don’t go up!
Stupid EPA laws sacrificed all the cool lightweight sports cars and utility trucks for giant hunks of useless metal which people use exclusively to drive on the highway.
Big 3 already deleted all their compact car production teams, they make all their bank from SUVs and mega sized trucks.
This will change basically nothing.
I'm a little confused, how is the EPA responsible for vehicle size increasing?
I've posted about this before so I'm just going to copy it here
No, vehicles have gotten larger because of the same problem as most of the issues in the United States: politics!
You see automobile manufacturers have to meet an average fuel economy across their entire fleet under the CAFE (Corporate average fuel economy) act of 1975. CAFE was a good idea as it forced the auto industry into actually improving on fuel economy year after year throughout their entire fleet or be met with steep fines for ever 0.1mpg off the target.
In 2011 CAFE was changed which directly caused the auto market we have today. See in 2011 the formula on how you'd calculate your fleet's avarage MPG got changed to now factor in vehicle footprint as a variable which auto manufactures quickly caught on to mean the larger a vehicle is the smaller their entire fleet's MPG has to be.
On top of that in 2012 "medium-duty trucks" was added as their own category with a lower MPG requirement meaning if your truck or SUV fell into that category then you would have a smaller MPG target for your entire fleet.
Now put yourself into the shoes of an early 2010s auto manufacture, would you rather design small and light vehicles that require you to meet a pretty high fuel economy level across your entire product range or would you inflate the size of your vehicles and move all R&D into finding ways to get your entire fleet classified as a medium-duty truck/SUV with a smaller MPG requirement? Of course you are going to take the latter.
The changes to CAFE in the 2010s killed small vehicles as we knew it. Ensured light duty trucks stayed dead domestically built or chicken tax be dammed. Caused the explosion of crossover SUVs to flood the market. All while making vehicles more dangerous and worse for the environment.
My understanding of the current situation is that EPA Guidelines give a lot of wiggle room / outright don't control vehicles above a certain size. Therefore manufacturers are reducing the vehicles that actually get regulated by those guidelines in favor of monster trucks for grocery getters.
Ah, right, that's correct there are regulations in place for "passenger cars."
Regular cars are hit by the regulations, but trucks are exempt.
My old Geo Metro could do that.
My mom said the same thing. She also said that 4 moderately strong people could move her geo metro if it was parked in the wrong spot.
the Geo was both awesome and shitty. I wish 2 seat cars became more of a thing. I hardly ever use the back seat, and it's not like anyone can afford to have kids anyway.
Why don’t politicians ever set these targets in their own terms?
This is six years away from when he’ll get back in, effectively punting the problem to the next president.
R&D, engineering, manufacturing process changes, supply chain changes (I think this pretty much requires hybrid) all the way from mining, etc takes time. The world can't change on a dime.
What targets exactly? Should every policy be limited to just their term? That completely removes the possibility of any target that takes a long time to reach. It would be a waste of time and resources to do smaller increments and then revisit them.
Almost every policy put into place will have effects that future presidents have to deal with. Do you actually care about this in principle or do you just not like this policy?
Not sure why this is news. The current economy standard is 46 mpg.
Keeping on the right path is still a good thing. Also, it's news because it's new. That's what that word means.
I like the idea in principle, but hasn't the market already said that it cannot produce more efficient ICE vehicles? We can legislate better cars, but can we actually build such cars and sell these? This sounds off (hybrids exist), but bear with me and let me explain.
As another commentator wrote, it's much more cost effective to simply sell larger cars to go around the rules. Why is it better to sell much larger, much more expensive cars? Maybe it's because there is not a good, cost effective solution in this problem space. Many consumers don't want to buy electric cars due to lack of infrastructure, and it's a complete non-starter if you can't charge at home such as if living in an apartment. Right now, the EV market is seeing trouble moving inventory. Automakers prefer not to produce or sell smaller cars because it doesn't make sense for some reason, and part of that reason could be an impracticality of a small, low cost, mass market, yet efficient car that people will actually buy. Maybe a small hybrid that meets this goal is still too expensive for enough of the consumers who want to buy a compact car. The trend to larger cars might be telling us something.
Overall, I think I favor the legislation, but I'm concerned that we're not thinking this through enough. We can legislate the requirement. Are we also taking steps to expand charging access and have a plan to make such cars with consumer appeal outside of the premium segment?
Automakers prefer not to produce or sell smaller cars because it doesn't make sense for some reason
it's mainly two things:
automakers and their dealers make significantly more profits off of big cars and trucks,
and then also the typical buyer mindset that 'bigger is better'.
Iirc, the original target was supposed to be something like 58 mpg; he's lowered it. We're fucking doomed, all of us, because a bunch of rich boomers don't like change.