On Mileage Standards

The recently approved Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards have the automotive world in a bit of a dither. There are some that say the standards are set too high , that we'll end up with tiny (read fragile) cars, or that we'll sacrifice consumer choice.

I don't see it quite that way. For one, the positive news in this set of standards is that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) can no longer, until 2016 at least, apply a more 'difficult' standard than the federal CAFE standard. That is the prize for the automakers. They no longer have to treat California as if it were a foreign market.

As far as the mix of cars are concerned, I suspect that yes, we will see more A and B-class cars (we already have quite a few showing up, the Smart, Yaris, Fit, and Versa, to name a few). Ford will bring in a B-class (Fiesta?) and Chevy is already selling the Aveo. Heck even Cadillac has a well built little car called a BTS that they toyed with selling in Europe.

But while small cars may be the focus of the press and the yammering classes (both left and right), the real effort will go into producing hybrid powertrains in existing C and D-class cars as well as trucks. The cost of cars will go up (of course). But hybridization coupled with newer engine technology (direct fuel injection being a biggee for gasoline engines), will do the trick. There are also some new high strength steels coming into play that will allow weight savings while still providing requisite crash protection. The standards may be a stretch, but are not impossible.

In the 1970s when CAFE was introduced, most piston-heads donned sackcloth and ashes and took to the streets with signs decrying the end of the performance car. Well - it didn't die - it took about twenty plus years to sort things out, but we now have an array of high performance cars that make the '60s era muscle cars look like slugs.

The other thing we learned along the way is that as fuel economy improved the miles driven went up also. That leads me to believe there's another shoe to drop in this process. That 'shoe' will be a 'floor', or threshold price for fuel (fossil fuels only, I suspect) artificially established through taxation. Look for that floor to be in the neighborhood of $3.50 to $4.00 a gallon for regular un-leaded gasoline. Ouch . . .