A 40mpg fleet average means that for every 50mpg Prius, an automaker would be allowed to sell one 34mpg Camry Hybrid.

To be allowed to sell one 25mpg Highlander Hybrid, the automaker would have to sell one 100mpg vehicle (that does not exist yet).

Current technology, including hybrids, cannot get you to a 40mpg fleet average. The cars for sale in 2020 will be carrying expensive 1st and 2nd gen technology to meet fuel economy targets yet still retain some level of utility. At those prices, car sales will suffer greatly.

I guarantee that more than half the cars on the road in 2020 will be built pre-2010. And they will not be replaced with government-mandated fuel-sippers at a rate that has any measurable effect on fuel consumption or emissions.

The only thing that will EVER have an impact on how much oil Americans use is the price of gas.

What has not been said, however, is the detrimental effect that a higher gas tax would have on the overall economy. In the USA, where 2/3 of our economy is based on consumption, higher gas prices would mean less to spend on other goods and services. The more I have to pay at the pump the less I’m going to eat out, or buy clothes or go on a cruise. It happened only months ago that this cause and effect was in plain view and yet some morons around are calling on government mandated gas price floors.

Brilliant. How many overpaid Ivy League graduates did it take to come up with this idea?

All of their premises, all of them, are based on fallacies. Global warming is a myth and I’ll do nothing to *combat it*. Dependence on foreign oil will never end as long as theirs is cheaper than ours. And real economic impact will always trump pie in the sky future rewards (CA’s CARB is going to mandate costly retrofitting of diesel engines which they argue will save lives over the long run [won't someone please think of the children?!])

Ronald Reagan said it best: government is not the solution, government is the problem.

What is your evidence for this? Have you ever read the Science Times on Tuesdays? Can you explain String Theory to us?

They forgot to say that the 40 mpg figure also means that cars run on unicorn farts.

Companies violate it all the time, and the result is a fairly small fine, all things considered. That fine is then just priced into the cost of the cars sold by the company.

But as your linked articles note, only six automakers paid the fine, Daimler (from the imported Mercedes), VW (for light trucks), Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati, and the tiny Saleen. As the study in the pdf notes, the CAFE standards appear to be binding for US domestic manufacturers, as they produce right at the CAFE level and tend not to pay fines. (Sometimes they don’t quite meet the standard, but get credits from other years.) This is perhaps, as the study notes, because they wish to avoid the bad press that would come with ignoring CAFE. The D3 would rather lose money on producing small cars designed to satisfy CAFE rather than man up and pay the tax like the Euros.

At the same time, one can argue that private motorists systematically miss the mark when calculating, at the time they enter the market to purchase a car, what outcomes are most likely and what courses of action will really get them to where they need or want to go, over the life of the purchase.

You could, but like you I’d like more evidence. In any case, the evidence from an increase (and then decrease) in short-term gas prices (and long-term expectations) was dramatic in both vehicle miles traveled and in car sales. Even if people consistently under-estimate their calculations, they still respond in the correct direction to a gas tax, and so a proper level of a gas tax would still result in the optimal result under such assumptions.

“If the coal industry doesn’t clean up – ILL BANKRUPT THEM”

replace coal with the word “automotive” now !

Most ultra secret bill is in the works to make it illegal to repair your own vehicle unless you are certified or purchase a license to do repairs. That license must be renewed annually at 250 clams. When will this come to pass . . . Omama?

Get it on two wheels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unlike some sort of Stalinist dystopia, where I suppose a factory manager might get shot for not producing according to the plan, the CAFE “mandate” is really just a moderate gas-guzzler tax. Companies violate it all the time, and the result is a fairly small fine, all things considered. That fine is then just priced into the cost of the cars sold by the company.

The exact formula for determining the CAFE fine is explained here, and it gets pretty complicated when you have to figure out available offsetting credits, and the like. But the basic cost is $5.50 per car per 0.1 mpg that the fleet average is below the standard. In a simple hypothetical, then, imagine a small car company has one model which violates the CAFE standard by 10 mpg. That company is then fined $550 per car that it sells, which is a fairly modest markup.

I personally agree with the contention that a gas tax is a better way to encourage conservation. It does not discriminate between a motorist who conserves by driving less (even if he keeps his gas guzzler) and the motorist who conserves by driving the same distance in a more efficient car. This non-discrimination allows people the freedom to achieve the desired result in the most flexible and efficient manner they can devise.

At the same time, one can argue that private motorists systematically miss the mark when calculating, at the time they enter the market to purchase a car, what outcomes are most likely and what courses of action will really get them to where they need or want to go, over the life of the purchase. This can be a tendency to underestimate the amount of driving they’ll do, the economy they’ll get under their normal driving conditions, or even the degree of variability of motoring costs over the years, and the extent to which that variability will hurt them. Under such circumstances, it is reasonable for the government to give consumers a bit of a nudge to help them correct for their bad calculations or estimations. Personally, I would like to see good evidence of a tendency of people to mis-calculate in a predictably wrong direction before endorsing an mpg tax, though.

Oddly enough, the process worked in the 1970s and 80s. Government mandated ever increasing fuel economy for new vehicles. Most of the industry predicted carmageddon. Instead, fuel economy improved and the industry did fine. The plot was lost in the 1990s when industry succeeded in getting further improvements put on ice. Then, carmageddon did eventually happen!

First of all, “did eventually happen” is a bad argument for anything. Cars bought, like miles driven, go down in times of high gas prices or a poor economy anyway.

Secondly, one might note that fuel prices went up dramatically in the 1970s and early 1980s, and then declined in the 1990s. That had a lot more to do with fuel economy than the mandates.

Not quite. It was the light-truck loophole (and the seemingly insatiable consumer demand for same) that had a lot to do with it, as did the “deduct 100% of your monster SUV for ‘business purposes’” tax regulation.

But some people do need trucks and other work vehicles that can haul things for business. That’s precisely why mandates like CAFE don’t work– those “loopholes” are fundamentally necessary because some people do need work vehicles. If you only want people who really need those vehicles to buy them, then you must raise the gasoline tax. Only that will cause people for whom light trucks are a luxury to stop buying them, while people who need them will continue to do so. (But complain, of course.)

Otherwise you expect Congress and the IRS and the rest of the government to somehow determine who really needs a work vehicle, and who should be allocated that portion of the fleet set aside for those vehicles. The compliance and regulatory costs are ridiculous.

CAFE is a stupid answer to the problem.

The success of China economically over the past couple of decades is a result of Deng Xiaoping relaxing state control into the economy, and institutionalizing that effort in the CCCP.

People don’t remember, but Guangdong used to be a “Special Economic Zone.” It was a pilot project of Deng’s which allowed foreign direct investment, 100-year leases, and no central planning or quota figures on output. Did the same thing with farms. It was a huge risk, but its outrageous success made it a pillar that was unassailable by the still-strong Maoists in the Central Commission, who never wanted any such social development.

China improved its lot by moving towards Adam Smith type principles, relative to where it had been before. If you want to see state-planning Chinese style, check out the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution.

Uh, no. Burning less fuel means creating less CO2.

Chemistry 101:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/d/f/4/df4ef2f0549d1e46f1bb03d0a7bbd979.png

An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations;
By Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. of London And Edinburgh;
Formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University Of Glasgow;
Edinburgh: 1776

BOOK II. Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment Of Stock.

CHAPTER III. Of the Accumulation of Capital, Or Of Productive and Unproductive Labour.

But though the profusion of government must, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is, undoubtedly, much greater at present than it was either at the Restoration or at the Revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewise be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement in almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.

Oddly enough, the process worked in the 1970s and 80s. Government mandated ever increasing fuel economy for new vehicles. Most of the industry predicted carmageddon. Instead, fuel economy improved and the industry did fine. The plot was lost in the 1990s when industry succeeded in getting further improvements put on ice. Then, carmageddon did eventually happen!

A CAFE standard with flex fuel credits and separate standards for SUVs is a bad joke. When it comes to improving fuel efficiency, stick with the KISS principal (keep it simple, stupid).

So what are we going through all this trouble for? Europe and China are building coal plants at a record pace and nations are fighting wars over energy resources.

All the while, we in the U.S. throw billions of dollars at unviable energy sources and have an entire industry devoted to litigating any attempts to reach the supply of our own resources.

Those in the higher-income brackets may be “rah-rah”-ing higher gasoline prices, but the fact is that they will be a devastation to lower-income and rural folks.

Higher energy prices equal less production, which is an absolute roadblock to having a stable economy.

Not quite. It was the light-truck loophole (and the seemingly insatiable consumer demand for same) that had a lot to do with it, as did the “deduct 100% of your monster SUV for ‘business purposes’” tax regulation.

And there’s the rub. Either go completely free-market (no government mandates and let the market sort it out) or go with mandates without giant loopholes. It’s this two-faced sort of regulation that creates unnatural market imbalances.

I believe ther is a place for everything (I wouldn’t want a diesel dirt bike and don’t want to trade for an oil burner for my Corvette, but my daily Fiesta or BMW are just fine~!