White House Buckles To Industry Pressure, Reduces 2025 CAFE Goal to 54.5 MPG

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Over a month ago now, I was told by several people who should know that the 2025 CAFE standard “number” would fall between 60 MPG and 50 MPG. When I pressed for details, the only answer I got was “at or slightly under 55 MPG.” So when the Obama Administration opened the haggling at 56.2 MPG, I wasn’t sure if he would stand fast by that number or come down a little. Certainly the auto industry and its allies have been portraying the 56.2 MPG proposal in apocalyptic terms, running attack ads against it like this one hosted at the Freep [ MP3]. And apparently the opposition paid off, as the WSJ [sub] reports that the Obama Administration has caved, reducing its proposal from 56.2 MPG to 54.5 MPG… and that’s not all. According to the report

The plan calls for a 5% average annual increase in fuel economy for cars and a 3.5% increase for light trucks through 2021. After 2021, both cars and trucks face a 5% annual increase… Included in the plan are credits for hybrid vehicles—including large trucks —and measures that will give big pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles more leeway in meeting the target.

We’ll have to wait to see the proposal in detail before we know for sure what happened here, but it seems that the industry has largely gotten what it asked for. Not only is the overall number decreased, but truck compliance has been slowed and “ advanced technology creditloopholes appear to have been expanded. This is fantastic news if you sell a lot of trucks and SUVs, and not so fantastic if you care a lot about dramatically reducing fuel consumption over the next 10 to 15 years. But again, we’ll just have to see what specific proposals are included in the new deal, and how automakers react before we jump to too many conclusions.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Mcarr Mcarr on Jul 26, 2011

    56.2 down to 54.5 is "caving"???

    • See 1 previous
    • Steven02 Steven02 on Jul 27, 2011

      @Edward Niedermeyer Could it be that the truck phase in is something that is required for vehicles that size unless we want them running around with very small engines that can't move them or tow anything? Besides, from what I am reading it is only a delay. They will have to hit much higher numbers than they are hitting today.

  • Beefmalone Beefmalone on Jul 26, 2011

    Caved? Seriously? 35mpg is caving. 54.5mpg is stroking the consumer right up the butt.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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