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| SUV future: Technology advances will make sport-utility vehicles more efficient than today's models, like these unsold 2007
Chevy Suburbans in Denver. But will buyers accept less powerful models? David Zalubowski/AP |
New CAFE standards wouldn't push SUVs off the road
The House is poised to pass a stricter set of efficiency rules that would require automakers to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.
from the December 5, 2007 edition
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"Most consumers won't notice much of a difference in their cars, other than that they can actually afford to drive them," says David Friedman, research director of the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Boston-based environmental group. "No, you won't have a Hummer that gets 35 m.p.g., but one that gets maybe 28 or 29 m.p.g. is possible."
On average, he estimates most vehicle models will get about 10 more miles to the gallon and cost $1,000 to $1,500 more. Even so, he says the slightly higher car payment will pay for itself in lower fuel costs in two to three years.
Not everyone is happy about the deal, which could produce winners and losers in the automotive industry, Cole and other analysts say. Winners will be globally integrated automakers with a lot of high-tech advances already developed, which they can deploy quickly. Losers could be companies with most sales in the US and less technology to pull out of the vault.
Ironically, some automakers with already efficient vehicle fleets may feel more pressure to improve than those that don't. That's because the new standards will put most of the onus for mileage gains on cars and small vehicles that already get high mileage, says a high-ranking official at one automaker who asked not to be named because he did not have permission to speak publicly.
"Any standard that comes out of this process is almost assuredly going to be ... based on the size of the vehicle," he says. "So sport utilities will get less-stringent standards that will be easier to meet, and smaller vehicles will get more stringent standards."
Some sport-utility owners are more skeptical of the new standards.
"They're saying this will save a lot at the pump – but people aren't being told that all these technological improvements will have a pretty significant price tag," says Barry McCahill, president of the SUV Owners of America, a national advocacy group in Washington. "If we get smaller vehicles with less towing capacity, well, for a lot of people that's going to be a deal-breaker."
Experts agree the new standards will mean many more hybrids – and maybe new "plug-in hybrid" vehicles that can get the equivalent of 100 miles or more per gallon using electric drive and powerful new batteries.
"Who knows?" Mr. Friedman says, "If General Motors actually comes through with the Chevy Volt – [a plug-in hybrid slated for 2010 production] – maybe we will all look back on this 35 mile-per-gallon business and laugh."
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