How to Increase Fuel Efficiency
March 14th, 2005Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Nancy Johnson (R-CT) and 24 bipartisan co-sponsors have introduced a bill in Congress that calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to improve the accuracy of its protocol for estimation of vehicle fuel economy (i.e., as measured in miles-per-gallon, mpg). According to a press release issued by Representative Johnson’s office,
““America’s car buyers deserve truth-in-advertising when they buy a new car,” said Johnson, who introduced the bill with Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and over two dozen bipartisan co-sponsors. “The current EPA tests clearly mislead car buyers. Car buyers think they’re getting better mileage on the road and a better deal at the pump than they really are. This common-sense bill requires the EPA to update its 30-year-old tests to reflect today’s driving conditions.” The tests used by the EPA to measure fuel economy – the city/highway gas mileage figures that appear on a new car’s sticker – are 30-years-old and are based on car technology from the late 1970s and 1980s. According to government and auto industry experts, the tests produce gas mileage rates that are inflated from anywhere between 10% and 30%. The inflated rates mislead consumers into thinking they are getting better mileage on the road, and a better deal at the gas pump, than they really are.”
Data should be accurate, who is going to argue with that?
If the bill becomes law it may lead to profound effects on actual fuel economy and a political battle waged through EPA estimates of fuel economy. The reason for this is that the government has in place policies governing what is called “corporate average fuel economy” or CAFE standards. Here is how the CAFE program describes it: “Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year.” For passenger cars the current standards are 27.5 mpg and for light trucks 21,0 mpg (for details go here.).
And here is the part of the CAFE program that is most important with respect to Rep. Johnson’s proposed bill, “Fuel economy is defined as the average mileage traveled by an automobile per gallon of gasoline (or equivalent amount of other fuel) consumed as measured in accordance with the testing and evaluation protocol set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).” The Department of Transportation (DOT) does claim to verify the EPA estimates. Even though Rep. Johnson says that her bill does not “alter or change Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements,” it could have very significant implications for the auto industry under CAFE.
If it turns out that EPA’s estimates of fuel economy are off by, say, 30% industry-wide, and this is reflected as well in the DOT CAFE program verification of those estimates, then this means that present guidelines of 27.5 mpg and 21.0 mpg are really only leading to fuel efficiency levels of 19.25 mpg and 14.7 mpg! Any changes resulting from Representative Johnson’s bill of the EPA/DOT protocols for estimating fuel efficiency that lead to a downward revision in fuel efficiency estimates will necessarily have the effect of compelling automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets under CAFE.
If Rep. Johnson’s bill becomes law we will undoubtedly see a vigorous battle over the EPA protocol used to estimate fuel efficiency and a corresponding mapping of political debate over fuel efficiencies onto the technical methods used to calculate them.
March 14th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
Based on the press release, Rep. Johnson’s bill appears to be a very clever bit of diversion.
The Federal Test Procedures (FTP) for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards can be found at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/stds-ld.htm. They are complicated. Because these tests have serious financial consequences, manufacturers can be expected to try very hard to get the highest numbers they can. Like high school students trying to game the SAT, this may mean pushing the allowed environmental and engineering limits and looking for loopholes. No one who has slowed down in deference to a known speed trap should be the least bit surprised..
The purpose of the FTP is not to inform consumers about gas mileage. Consumers have plenty of reliable information readily available from Consumers Union and many others, including automotive magazines. (Consumers cannot, however, obtain reliable information from manufacturers, who are prohibited from advertising anything other than the results of the Federal Test Procedure.)
The clear purpose of the bill is to increase average fuel economy without having to budge Congress from its annual refusal to permit CAFÉ to be increased. If we stipulate the alleged fact (“the FTP yields values 30% higher than actual mileage”), then changes to the FTP that would eliminate this bias have the indirect effect of making fuel economy standards 30% more stringent. Of course, if the actual bias is smaller the 30% figure provides a convenient basis for advocates of higher CAFÉ standards to object to any changes in the FTP that would achieve lesser increases in effective stringency.
This is entirely consistent with the policy objectives of at least two of the three stakeholders said to be supporting Rep. Johnson’s bill. Both the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/cars_and_suvs/page.cfm?pageID=221. and the Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/cleancars/cafe/index.asp. are environmental activist groups that have long supported major increases in fuel economy standards, yet neither has a significant reputation for involvement in consumer protection matters. Still, majorities within these organizations quite likely agree with the policy position their leaders are taking.
But the American Automobile Association’s support is more difficult to explain. A press release that offers little insight is at http://www.aaanewsroom.net/Articles.asp?ArticleID=357&CategoryID=4&SectionID=1&. It goes without saying that only a handful of AAA’s 47 million reported members were actually consulted. That handful may represent the sum total of drivers who belong to AAA for political advocacy rather than discounts, Tour Books and emergency road service.
Clearly, any regulatory battle that could increase CAFÉ by 30% would be deeply contentious and bitterly adversarial. Rep. Johnson’s bill is thus an extremely clever tactic to secure what Congress has persistently refused to do transparently. Legislation is not needed to assure that consumers obtain reliable fuel economy information from nongovernmental sources. If there is a genuine problem of consumer misunderstanding, it arises because the government requires FTP results to be emblazoned on every window sticker and included in every automotive advertisement in which fuel economy is touted as a vehicle attribute.
A final irony: Consumers can achieve 30% increases in fuel economy just by slowing down. But we don’t. As much as we complain about the price of gasoline, we complain a lot more when congestion slows the flow of traffic to the #%&*! speed limit.
March 14th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
For reasons unknown to me, my previous post lacked my email address for correspondence.
March 17th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
It’s interesting that the inaccuracy in the EPA tests didn’t become an issue until it affected hybrids, the darlings of the environmental movement. The same people thought it was fine that mileage estimates were unrealistically low and forced buyers to to pay gas guzzler taxes for a diffent class of cars….high performance vehicles. The same test protocol (long periods immobile) that results in the hybrid engines shutting down and burning no fuel results in large unproductive fuel flows in vehicles with high power engines. Various car clubs have protested the results for years.
I’ve owned four of these (1979 Firebird Trans Am, 1985 Porsche 928, 1997 Mitsubishi 3000GT and 2002 Porsche 996) and not one failed to deliver more than 20% higher mileage than the EPA estimates. They have vastly different engine designs with but one thing in common…they were tuned for power. This never bothered the government or environmentalists since in their definition these cars are “bad”, but now they’re worried since “good” cars are not getting the gas mileage they trumpeted in an effort to make the rest of us feel guilty about not driving hybrid or electric vehicles.
March 18th, 2005 at 7:03 am
New Energy Currents: 2005-03-18
Kyoto is one month old, and we’re no closer to figuring out a masterplan to solve the world’s ginormous energy problems – not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, at this point. With all the…
March 28th, 2005 at 10:16 am
My 1991 BMW 318i is EPA rated at 19 mpg city, 25 highway.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/7640.shtml
I get about 26 city, and maybe 29 highway (hardly ever do highway driving).
So that puts my actual city mileage about 37 percent higher than the EPA estimate.