Skip to footer

Will fuel economy standards have to be relaxed starting in 2021?

A report found that carmakers are technologically capable of meeting national fuel economy standards, but that a combination of low gas prices and high SUV sales might cause them to miss the mark.

|
Gene J. Puskar/AP
A customer re-fuels her car at a Costco in Robinson Township, Pa.

Last month, regulators released a "Technical Assessment Report" on how well automakers have done thus far in meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

The report indicated that carmakers might fall short of the goal of an average 54.5 mpg (or about 38 mpg on window stickers) for vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2025.

It found that carmakers are technologically capable of meeting the 54.5-mpg goal, but that a combination of low gas prices and high SUV sales might cause them to miss the mark.

The report set the stage for what will likely be a huge battle over whether CAFE standards for 2022-2025 should be lowered.

That battle will ultimately lead to a relaxation of CAFE standards after 2020, says energy analyst Michael Lynch in a recent Forbes piece.

CAFE standards were politically attractive when high gas prices drove many consumers for more fuel-efficient cars anyway, Lynch argues.

But that is no longer the case, he suggests, now that there is a split between consumer demand for SUVs and the need for automakers to build efficiency-focused cars to meet the standards.

He also argues that the standards put U.S. carmakers—with their lineups of large SUVs and pickup trucks—at a disadvantage, and that the country's politicians will want to lower the CAFE bar to protect them.

So far, though, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is standing its ground on CAFE.

At the recent CAR Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Michigan, Christopher Grundler—director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the EPA—said the standards won't force carmakers to build vehicles consumers don't want, calling that notion "wrong."

In addition, in order to meet carbon-reduction targets for the global climate agreement signed in Paris last year, the EPA may need to enact tougher standards beyond 2025, Grundler said in a recent interview with Bloomberg.

Grundler said these goals might not be met solely by more-efficient cars, but also by the deployment of self-driving cars, and decreased car ownership by Millennials.

The EPA maintains that carmakers still have the technology to meet the 54.5-mpg standard for 2025.

But automakers are likely to continue to fight to get the standards lowered, using what they claim is consumer disinterest in more-efficient vehicles as an argument.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Will fuel economy standards have to be relaxed starting in 2021?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2016/0824/Will-fuel-economy-standards-have-to-be-relaxed-starting-in-2021
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe