Make America Guzzle Again!?
 

Don't have the energy to discuss politics but the national hangover, no...sentence begins...
Trump Threatens To Repeal Fuel Economy And Emissions Regulations

Well, we can't, really... here.

But I'm planning on makin' me a dual-engine 2x 400 V8 pickup.

VW diesels, you're welcome again...

My next car's apparently going to be coal fired.

With baby harp seal upholstery.

The rollback/elimination of regulations and enforcers will be a dream come true. Just think- no more pesky speed limits or stop lights; just go for it. /s

I have a feeling that people will die- But from the stupid end
:/

If it means that I can tinker with my vehicle without fear of it being impounded because "emission controls were tampered with," then I'm all for it.

Especially when the current definition of "tampering with emissions controls" includes engine changes without swapping out every last bit of OEM electronics needed for the replacement engine to run. Or adding EGR to an existing engine.

If I had a choice between the 2 keep the economy requirements

One affects overall pollution more than the other

Kubota v2 here I come

I rather see gray market laws repealed

If you crash just leave your car there on fire, no need for police or insurance

What is the use of good fuel economy if nobody can breathe or see where they are going? :confused: That's right, we will save more fuel :eek: but fill the atmosphere with carcinogenic soot particles and eye-searing oxides of nitrogen. Self interest and no idea about the real big picture.

Simon

Thousands of times more pollution is emitted in the process of drilling and refining fuel than burning fuel.

So although your eyes don't burn, somebody else has Voc, lead,mercury , cadmium and other goodies in their water and air instead.

Perhaps your eyes burning would tell you your doing something wrong and motivate cars/semis off the road altogether in concentrated city center situations.

I'll just leave these here:

http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/...3116055205.jpg

http://america.aljazeera.com/content...8324996574.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...m_3512912b.jpg

I love my HX just the way she is.

Ecky- those look like Utopia, the almost inevitable result of the relentless pursuit of the Perpetual Growth Philosophy. Yay.

and five sideways!

EPA was started by Nixon, let's all remember that.

I casually follow the big rig industry, and everything to do with it. Even with cheap diesel we're seeing these days, the #1 cost of operating a truck is still the fuel. I kind-of doubt that even if Trump removes fuel economy requirements or reduction of sulfur emissions, that truck manufacturers will suddenly go back to making the less sophisticated engines of the past. Maybe the sulfur stuff, I could see them dumping SCR if it wasn't required, but every time I open Transport Topics or Heavy Duty Trucking I see lots of discussion of aeromods and gear ratios and transmissions and weight reduction. It looks like fuel efficiency is still important to fleets and owner-operators.

Eh, most things trend better over time. Sometimes they improve faster, sometimes slower.

Fleet fuel economy will improve over time, regardless. I'm not saying the U.S. has made a good decision concerning political leadership, but the executive branch only represents 1/3 of the federal power.

Concerning the article, it merely says that the CAFE requirements will be reviewed to see if it poses an undue burden on consumers and auto workers. This is good, since the people who make these rules don't take basic physics into consideration when they pick a target number. Just because a law is passed saying average fuel economy must be 50 MPG doesn't mean there is a technological solution to meeting that requirement. It appears to be entirely arbitrary (I'm hoping someone can cite evidence showing that MPG mandates are based on objective reasons).

Forcing auto manufacturers to meet arbitrary MPG averages is the wrong way to go about achieving the goals of reducing foreign oil consumption and reducing pollution. The right way to reduce consumption of any good is to make it more expensive. That means federal fuel taxes should be higher. It's a fair way to achieve the goal since people will be free to drive inefficient vehicles and pay everyone else for the privilege in the form of more tax paid.

I wonder how arbitrary it really was. Sure, you can see a bunch of stoners sitting around throwing numbers around, but maybe there's a chance that the numbers are based in reality. If there's a market shift towards cars and away from trucks for personal transportation, the fleet average is going to skyrocket.

Pointing at physics says a Yukon can't get 50 mpg doesn't mean that Bubba can't get 50 mpg on his solo commute.

A diesel Yukon could get "around " 50mpg at 25mph

But bubba won't drive the national speed limit in 1920 nor would he accept 15hp
That said our cars should do better at low speeds, America has jacked up priorities.

Bigger vehicles should cost enough to drive that bubba really can't have one for a solo commute.

Ah well

Just because there is going to be a regime change doesn't mean suddenly people will stop buying fuel efficient vehicles. It's already been happening.
I saw it on the news Americans have made their choice. Cars like the Chevy cruz just are not selling. GM is planning to lay off 2,000 workers in January. The hardest hit plant will be the one that produces the cruz.
I knew it was coming, dealer lots are full of these things and they can't even give them away, talking about the $100 a month lease deal they were pushing on local TV ads.
American chose to guzzle again when $3 a gallon just seemed to have lost its shock value about 2 or 3 years ago.
To me it looks like gas guzzlers have been selling fairly well for at least the last year or 2.

The future of motoring is going to be hybrid and electric drive. GM made hybrid tahoes that got decent mileage for a full size suv with a 6.0 v8. IF they actually committed to better FE, we could have a yukon with 30 mpg highway and mid 20's around town.

This new admin has both House and Senate majorities too.

Maybe the gas guzzler tax needs to apply to any vehicle that gets below the current average.;)

It's a $2,000 tax. That means it's only a difference of around $25 per month on a car payment.
Since the payment difference between a economy car and a big gas guzzler is almost double that tells us people are not at all concerned about $25 difference in a car payment.

That is why the VW L1 will have no competitors until fuel prices get dear again. All the mfgs know how to make them- there may even be prototypes under wraps- but they wait until the business case for building them can be made. Humans = rarely pro-active.

All three branches are likely to shift. :(

Good points. I'm merely pointing out our human tendancy to believe growth rates are sustainable, when in fact nothing with a rate of growth is sustainable.

The law of diminishing returns makes each incrimintal improvement to something exponentially more difficult to achieve. I immediately think of Moore's Law of transistor size in computer chips. We're just a few years away from being unable to substantially reduce the size any further. Physics has limitations, and we are running into those limitations. In the same vein, Toyota's goal of making each itteration of the Prius 10% more fuel efficient is not sustainable.

This isn't to say that improvement isn't worthwhile, just that we cannot extrapolate from previous gains what our future gains will be. For example, if battery density doubled in the past 10 years, we cannot assume that all it takes is more research to double it again in the next 10 years. Likewise, if fuel economy improved a certain percentage in the past, we cannot assume it reasonable to make the same improvement again in the future.

Each incrimental improvement is likely to be exponentially more costly, and at some point the benefit of improvement is outweighed by the substantially higher cost. This is why CAFE and EPA targets should be reviewed. Resonable people would consider the cost / benefit, but unreasonable people would simply impose demands on an industry to satisfy their religious (loosely used to refer to people who think global warming is humanities biggest threat) beliefs.

... and demonstrating 1 instance of reasonable action doesn't imply that all of a person's actions are reasonable. I'm hoping The Great Wall was just idle rhetoric to appeal to extreme voters instead of an actual foreign relations strategy.

It's not at all arbitrary. While I don't have a link to provide at the moment, the govt uses research labs to crunch all sorts of data to weigh what is feasible and what is not.

You haven't read his 100-day action plan?

"7. End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.

Not only have I not read that, I successfully avoided all TV debates and even managed to do something better with my time than vote (west coast is in no danger of voting for Trump).

If I had any political influence, I might be interested.

As Frank mentioned, I don't see Republicans controlling all branches for much longer. I'm holding optimism that our government will not make huge mistakes concerning Trumps 100 day action plan.

That's the opposite of what I meant.

Ah, you mean shift towards Executive agenda? I was thinking more in terms of the pendulum cycle of things.

I meant the Executive Branch is going R, the Legislative Branch is going even deeper R, and the Judicial Branch is sure to go R soon.

There are two or more types of truck customers. There are those who actually need a trucks for their job and those who think trucks are safer or more impressive. A diesel electric truck would be popular with farmers or those who tow. The Cruz did not get great reviews. Look at sales figures for Corolla or Sentra models. Also look at sales of micro cars. Smart consumers look at annual cost of ownership. One daughter has bought a used Impala, 30 mpg, and the other a Geo Prizm, 35 mpg.
Historically it unusual for either party to have the White House for more than 2 terms or to have both House and Senate for long. Americans believe in checks and balances on power. Hence the passionate debate over 2nd Amendment rights. Pay attention to local county races as these may have more direct bearing on how things affect our lives.

Something we might be forgetting with the CAFE standards is that they are easier to meet than the regular EPA standards. EPA vs CAFE: The Two Sides of Fuel Economy Numbers » AutoGuide.com News

Manufacturers also get extra credit towards that by being able to count electric cars they sell twice, and trucks don't have to be as efficient as passenger cars.

Most people with a truck don't actually need it. My boss, he needs his truck for the business, but he's got a small one (Ranger) and he doesn't drive very much with it. Plenty of people I know have way too much car for their actual needs. But that's the American way. Everyone has car-size-anxiety here.

I think what a lot of people don't realize is that CAFE and EPA standards are also written to benefit the existing big players. It's the same with vehicle safety standards. It's called regulatory capture - a government agency that is supposed to oversee some certain segment of industry winds up getting staffed with people from that industry, for the price of greasing some palm or other of some elected critter.

100% this.

The reality is our cars are no safer than euro, just different.

Getting graft out of the EPA would be great but still unlikely.
The new regime will likely make the regulatory capture worse based on how they want to deal with EPA.

I feel the #1 driver of change would be the elimination of reagans gray market laws.

There is simply no other way to drive excuses out of the market.

N.I.H. is a world-wide phenomenon.