a midway bikelog

Arboretum: Lask drink at the CAFE, pt. II: This CAFE sucks
(via OIFS)

An interesting discussion about CAFE standards and ideas for increasing efficiency. Scot is right on about automakers playing games with CAFE and why there are more and more SUVs coming to market. Subaru has been my favorite target over this, as almost their entire lineup has slid over the line into the truck category, thereby skating outside the CAFE mileage standards. He’s also right about the low-hanging fruit of the marketplace. It’s a bit silly to be worrying over hydrogen cars and hybrids when people are driving Hummers and Navigators that get mileage in the same neighborhood as a city bus.

The obvious solution is that people need to buy smaller cars. Why don’t they? It’s fairly complicated, i think, having something to do with wealth and status, but also convenience and perceptions of safety. The idea that bigger is safer is ridiculous, just read some of the crash tests. The average SUV isn’t as utilitarian as the average minivan, yet minivan drivers are stigmitized as uncool. The status part is hard too – i’ve seen a family have its house foreclosed on, yet they continued to drive their Escalade. What percentage of a mortgage payment does it take to feed that thing?

Ok, so if the market won’t do it themselves, what about the government? CAFE standards are a joke when manufacturers have no incentive to actually sell more efficient cars. CAFE should be a formula tied to the actual numbers of cars sold. Even if that average number came up a few points, overall efficiency would improve. If the marketplace didn’t do it, manufacturers would have to either create shortages of the least efficient models to push sales elsewhere or create more efficient versions of them.

And no more CAFE exemptions for trucks. Farmers and plumbers will squawk, but there should be tax exemptions for business use. Libertarians will squawk, but they can just keep their current monstrosity if they insist on blowing money out a tailpipe.

There is no perceptible will to actually change this in congress, but there ougta be. This is at least as important a homeland security issue as is terrorist defense, and something that can actually produce results for a change.

This isn’t an entirely academic issue for us, as we contemplate replacing our current car (a Golf) in the next few years. It’s small and reasonably efficient, but nowhere near diesel or hybrid territory. As our family grows we’ll want something larger, so it’ll be a wagon or small van, yet I also want it to be MORE efficient than what we have now (25mpg). I don’t have a problem with the SUV format, just the poor efficiency, yet only hybrid SUVs around (Ford, Toyota) have taken the “more power” approach to the hybrid, so they’re still getting middling mileage. They’re better than other SUVs, but that isn’t saying much. VW and others already have efficient vans, but they are only sold in Europe.

What i want (and probably a lot of other people want) is a small van with a clean diesel or hybrid engine that gets a solid 35-40mpg or better, seating for 5 and some cargo space in back (removeable seats too). Bonus points for having an econo version without all the leather and electronic crap that gets piled on. I’ll even roll my own windows up again, though i’m sure the soccer mom crowd will want to keep all that plus the in-flight entertainment system that minvans & SUVs have nowadays. Whoever can their act together on this will get a guaranteed sale from me, but so far, i’m not holding out hope to see anything like that in the next 5 years.