Exactly right.

I said a long time ago that the car companies should stop whining about a 35 mpg CAFE in 2020. Anybody who can’t make that will cease to exist long before then.

Find the weighted mean mpg for all vehicles. Any owner of a vehicle getting less than the mean number is taxed annually by $100 per mile for every mile less than the average. If the average is 23 and your vehicle gets 19, then you pay an annual tax of $400 for the privilege of driving that fuel inefficient vehicle.

If you buy a vehicle that gets 40 mpg, then you as the owner of that vehicle would get a $1,700 per year tax refund. Since it is revenue neutral the politicians shouldn’t have a beef. It will also provide buyers an incentive to buy new technology that provides higher standards and it gives them the extra cash needed to pay for the initial higher cost of this new technology.

Put this in the hands of the people and watch the auto companies scramble to get on board the green bandwagon. And they will because if they can’t sell the old inefficient gas guzzling technology, then they won’t build it.

pressure = REACTIVE

mandate = PROACTIVE

There’s a huge difference. Penalties are much higher if you delay. Some of us are tired of the status quo, tired of waiting… knowing just how long it actually takes for acceptance even after the first becomes available.

It has already been 10 years.

JOHN

That is, pressure from consumers for affordable to fuel vehicles will be the biggest driver to higher fleet averages, not CAFE mandates.

I have my order in at a dealer for the Chevy Volt. When I talk about this car to friends I tell them it gets 40 miles on a charge and that when the battery runs low and the flex fuel engine kicks in it will give me an additional range of 600 miles. I then tell them that this equates to 50 mpg. I inform them that by using E-85 I will cut my gasoline consumption by over 90% since I will only have to fill up once every two months instead of once per week. They relate well to the idea that my commute is less than 40 miles per day and that I may only have to use the flex-fuel engine on the weekends.

Thus Rashiid’s idea of keeping it simple to 40 miles per charge and 50 mpg city when engaging the engine will help people to quickly accept this vehicle concept.

Traveling 600 miles using 12 gallons = MPG.

Most likely will leave the “EV” stuff out of the CAFE equation.

Geoff, good point. That didn’t occur to me.
But thinking about that, I think I would rather know how far I can go on a single charge. What if I was clueless about KWH but knew I had to plug my car in overnight. I would want to know how far I can go on that full charge.

I think both ways of showing distance would be helpful.

#19 john1701a, I’ve heard that the fact that the USA uses MPG vs. the rest of the world’s L/100 km is a statement about American psychology.

The rest of the world thinks “I need to go to such-and-such town, how much gas do I need to get there” whereas an American would ask “I have 15 gallons of fuel, how far can I go?”

That’s why most of the rest of the world uses “liters / 100 km” as a basis to measure efficiency instead.

At first, the two seem to be the same. But when considering how much easier it is to introduce other forms of energy into the distance equation, like electricity, it makes more sense. That type of calculation is clearly a better choice. Future estimates from the EPA will factor consumption that way, with respect to a standardized distance. After all, the same problem exists when trying to figure out efficiency rates of various blends of ethanol. That’s the case for cold climate operation too. DISTANCE is the key.

They may translate it into a MPG equivalent for those that don’t readily accept change. But the underlying equation will have a basis centered around the purpose to travel a specific distance, not gallons.

JOHN