Declaring 30 MPG Or 35 MPG Makes Little Difference

SEARCH BLOG: MANDATES

I wrote this almost a year and a half ago. Nothing... nothing... nothing... has changed except the number which is 30 mpg... and 4 years earlier.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

35 MPG Trucks

So here is my solution. The overriding issue is moving away from petroleum fuels to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. The red herring issue is eliminating CO2 production... which we would be wise to completely ignore. Back to the overriding issue....

For any vehicle using petroleum based fuel, use the actual miles per gallon against the politically declared standard... set by President Obama and the EPA without regard to Congress or requiring any legislative debate or even questioning if it was technologically and economically feasible.

Similarly, for any vehicle that does not use petroleum based fuel, use an arbitrary miles per gallon [no actual gallons used] of 150. So, if the vehicle runs on hydrogen fuel cells or natural gas or propane or just plugs into the wall, they get the manufacturer a credit of 150 mpg per vehicle against the mandated 30 mpg in 2016, 35 mpg in 2020, 40 mpg in 2025, 50 mpg in 2030, 100 mpg in 2050. You may not have heard about all of those mpg requirements, but they are coming in President Obama's second term.

CNG vehicles are a reality [that's compressed natural gas] and the U.S. has an abundance of natural gas available that Congress will make off-limits as soon as the automobile manufacturers invest in making higher volumes of vehicles using that fuel. Regardless, it would be relatively easy to gin up production of these vehicles and home owners could invest in already-tested home fueling stations that tap off their home's natural gas supplies. Filling stations could easily have natural gas lines hooked up to CNG pumps. The infrastructure is basically there.

All it takes is a declaration by the EPA that CNG vehicles get credited for 150 petroleum-based fuel mpgs. Hey, the EPA made a declaration that trucks had to get 30 mpg by 2016 without regard to facts, so why can't they do this?

And while the Federal Government is at it, they can declare a $5,000 per vehicle tax credit for the purchase of any CNG-powered truck.

Then we all can declare ourselves holier-than-thou.

UPDATE

For those who feel this suggestion is outrageous or unethical or giving credence to unreasonable EPA mileage mandates, here is a section from the nhtsa.dot site:

How are alternative fuel vehicles treated under CAFE?

The CAFE law provides for special treatment of vehicle fuel economy calculations for dedicated alternative fuel vehicles and dual-fuel vehicles. The fuel economy of a dedicated alternative fuel vehicle is determined by dividing its fuel economy in equivalent miles per gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel by 0.15. Thus a 15 mpg dedicated alternative fuel vehicle would be rated as 100 mpg. For dual-fuel vehicles (vehicles that can use the alternative fuel and gasoline or diesel interchangeably), the rating is the average of the fuel economy on gasoline or diesel and the fuel economy on the alternative fuel vehicle divided by .15. For example, this calculation procedure turns a dual fuel vehicle that averages 25 mpg on gasoline or diesel with the above 100 mpg alternative fuel to attain the 40 mpg value for CAFE purposes. Several limitations are established for CAFE credits for dual fuel vehicles. For MYs 1993-2004, the maximum CAFE increase attributable to dual fueled vehicles in a manufacturer’s passenger car or light truck fleet is 1.2 mpg.

I would simply eliminate the last sentence and change the denominator to 0.10. That makes sense given the state of current truck hybrid technology and the short timeframe of six years.

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