Oh, joy! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has decided that by 2032 all vehicles on the road shall get an average of 58 miles per gallon. There are zero combustion engines or hybrids that can achieve that requirement today. None.
As of today, there isn’t single new car available that can comply with this decree. “Comply” in italics to mark the outrageousness of the “administration” of such decrees, which no one in this “democracy” of ours ever had a chance to vote for – or against. The only car that comes close to being able to “comply” is the Toyota Prius, a small hybrid – and even it doesn’t quite get there. It averages 57 MPG.
The new number would still apply to their fleet average, so they could still sell larger vehicles if they find a way to add models that get significantly better than 58 MPG or its equivalent. Yes, they likely mean more earth wrecking, road wrecking, fire-risk emission monsters (EVs) in their fleets.
[Forbes] The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposal calls for vehicle manufacturers to start boosting their Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, target starting in 2027. It seeks an improvement of 2% per year for cars and 4% per year for light trucks. The goal is to hit a fleetwide average of 58 mpg by 2032. A final rule won’t come until after a 60-day public comment period is concluded.
and,
[The Drive.com] CAFE standards do not take drivetrains into account, meaning electrification will be helpful (if not crucial) for avoiding sharply escalating fines for falling short. Their calculation, however, is designed to reduce the effect of extreme outliers, which EVs represent, so meeting the proposed CAFE standard will still require major fuel economy gains across the rest of automakers’ lineups. That would likely require broader electrification instead of the ineffective but oft-emphasized all-EV strategy. Greater volumes of plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs, could also achieve the desired effect. (It could also tighten the belt enough on light trucks to make crossovers less economical, encouraging consumers to downsize.)
If this NHTSA thought bubble sticks the landing and DOT gets its way, automakers would need to begin to retool their businesses if they want to keep selling cars that meet the demands of the government (not the people). But automakers are not just sitting on their hands.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents GM, Toyota, Volkswagen and others has asked the EPA to soften its emissions proposal, calling it “neither reasonable nor achievable.”
I don’t think automakers care how they make their money, proof being their inability to have much effect on federal interference in their marketplace. If they have to make EVs, they will. The issue for them is the timeframe. Nine years is a long time to spend in prison, but the innovation they seek isn’t even within reach. And if it were, the infrastructure to charge all the new hybrid and EV vehicles doesn’t exist, and I think that’s the point.
Biden’s NHTSA and DOT want to push hard for charging infrastructure to make the unaffordable EVs less unappealing. If there is some arbitrary mandate that will reduce driving options, pressure will mount for local and state politicians to get involved whether they want that or not.
The appearance of progress, however, is not progress. And the goal of the Left continues to focus on forcing you into a lifestyle where individual transportation is unaffordable. Which, in turn, forces you into their preferred living environment; walkable 15-minute ghettoes of the future.
None of this was ever about saving the planet, but the war on the Right to Travel is real, and stripping future generations of any notion of at-will movement anywhere in the US, forget the world, is on their bucket list.
