Quote:
Originally Posted by California98Civic
Yeah, I take your point. But to be fair ... I only said a "Fit sized" vehicle, not "the Fit" itself. A return of a small chassis does not have to be the same drive train. The 1990 Civic Wagon didn't have v-tec, but the Fit did. There was a brief experiment with a Fit EV. CAFE standards could bring the little car back, or a market shift. The Fit came to the USA in Fall 2007, I think, which was before the fuel price run up set in and before the ~2010 CAFE standard increases.
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Not unless CAFE standards change. Today they are based on footprint (wheelbase x track) and type of car (car or light truck). The smaller the footprint the higher the CAFE standard for that vehicle. Every vehicle has their own CAFE standard and every manufacturer gets their own CAFE standard calculated based on the actually mix of vehicles they sell. What that means in the real world is manufacturers don't have to make small cars or really any cars anymore. A company could make only full-size trucks and meet CAFE.
The "footprint" idea came out of the Bush era and was first implemented as a NHTSA rule in 2006, overturned in court, passed into law in 2007, and went into effect in 2011.
Today Honda pays CAFE fines on every Fit they sell because it doesn't meet the 2020 standard of 37 mpg combined. (It is only rated at 34 mpg)
The "Fit-sized" vehicle replacing the Fit is the HR-V. It is a CUV and therefore a "light truck" so it only needs to get 29 mpg combined to meet 2020 CAFE standards.