U.S. Raises Standards on Mileage
The Transportation Department announced new fuel economy standards Wednesday for sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and minivans that will make some of them go farther on a gallon of gasoline than the average car does, and will apply to many of the biggest S.U.V.'s for the first time.
But the overall fuel savings, 8.1 percent when the rule is fully phased in, were characterized as too modest by many conservation advocates, who also noted that the biggest pick-up trucks will still be unregulated. Remarks by auto manufacturers were restrained.
The transportation secretary, Norman Y. Mineta, speaking on the fifth-floor walkway at a football stadium, said that the cost of the new rule would be justified by the fuel saved, but that more than economics was involved.
"Saving fuel is as important to our national security and economic viability as it is to preserving our environment," he said, a tangle of highways in the background.
The final rule that Mr. Mineta announced on Wednesday was slightly tougher than the one his department proposed last summer. He said this was partly because of the president's commitment in the State of the Union address in January to reduce the nation's "addiction" to imported oil. But oil consumption would continue to rise under the new rule, he acknowledged.
The rule covers "light trucks" in the model years from 2008 to 2011. The current rules cover vehicles weighing up to 8,500 pounds. But the new one will cover S.U.V.'s that weigh up to 10,000 pounds. That includes the heavier variants of the Chevy Suburban and the Hummer H2. (The H1 is over 10,000 pounds and still exempt.)
The rule does not cover heavy pickup trucks, like the Ford F-250, on the theory that those are used mostly in agriculture or business. While many of the vehicles covered under the new rule are used primarily for personal transportation, often with a single person inside, Mr. Mineta said that the people of Baltimore and the rest of the nation understood how important light trucks were "to maintaining our way of life."
The rule will save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles in those model years, the department estimated. Currently, the United States uses that much gasoline in less than a month.
Transportation officials estimated that the rule would cost vehicle manufacturers about $6.7 billion, a big number even by the standards of federal rule-making, and would add about $200 to the cost of the average vehicle. But owners would save that much within four years, officials said, based on a fuel price of $2 a gallon at the beginning of the period, rising to $2.39 over the vehicle's lifetime. In fact, average gasoline prices are already slightly above the second figure.
The standard is 21.6 miles a gallon for the current model year; it would rise to about 24 miles a gallon in 2011, the last year of the rule, but it would be calculated differently. The new rule sets a fuel economy standard based on the vehicle's "footprint," or how far apart the wheels are. Actual fuel economy will depend on the mix of vehicles sold.
The smallest S.U.V.'s, like the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the Jeep Wrangler, would have to meet a standard of 28.6 miles per gallon. The car standard is 27.5 miles per gallon.
Changing the rules to take into account the size of each vehicle has another effect: it puts pressure on all the companies that sell vehicles in the category, and not just those that sell the biggest, thirstiest vehicles.
Stephen R. Kratzke, the associate administrator for rule-making at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that the current standard was irrelevant to companies that built only small S.U.V.'s and pickups, because their fleet average was within acceptable limits even if their vehicles were not particularly fuel efficient for their size.
American manufacturers had complained that the current system burdened them but made no difference to Asian makers that sold few or no vehicles at the top end of the range.
Mr. Kratzke said that manufacturers would more widely deploy technologies that are already in limited use. Those include six-speed automatic transmissions, power steering systems that run on electricity instead of a belt that draws power from the engine, hybrid-electric drive trains and superchargers. Aluminum might be more widely used as an alternative to steel, but composite materials are still too costly, he said.
At the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents all the major manufacturers but Honda, Eron Shosteck, a spokesman, said, "It is going to be a challenge for automakers, but automakers are committed to meeting it."
Sherrie Childers Arb, a spokeswoman at General Motors, said that when her company analyzed the rule as proposed last year, engineers found it "challenging but achievable." This one will be tougher, but the company has not finished analyzing it, she said.
Others were more critical. Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert, a New York Republican who is the chairman of the House Science Committee, said the Bush administration had missed an opportunity. "It's remarkable to me how long we keep making the same mistake over and over," he said. "Nothing is preventing us from making our nation more prosperous and more secure except political failure of will."
At Environmental Defense, a nonprofit advocacy group, Eric Haxthausen, an economist and expert on cars, said the expansion from 8,500 to 10,000 pounds in vehicle weight should have covered pickups, which make up 80 percent of the category, and the whole standard should have been more aggressive.
"We have to credit them with some modest steps forward," he said. "But given the urgency of the global warming issue and oil dependency issue, this is not the bold step that is called for."
But Ron DeFore, a spokesman for a group run by industry lobbyists called the S.U.V. Owners of America, said, "With the manufacturers, even tenths of a mile per gallon are hard to eke out." He said 20 million Americans have "something that's towable," from a trailer to a boat, and need powerful engines. And, he added, "in an era when we're at $2.50 a gallon plus, the real question is why you need a rule like this anyway." Economic self-interest will make people buy higher-mileage vehicles, he said.
TheNewYorkTimes
But the overall fuel savings, 8.1 percent when the rule is fully phased in, were characterized as too modest by many conservation advocates, who also noted that the biggest pick-up trucks will still be unregulated. Remarks by auto manufacturers were restrained.
The transportation secretary, Norman Y. Mineta, speaking on the fifth-floor walkway at a football stadium, said that the cost of the new rule would be justified by the fuel saved, but that more than economics was involved.
"Saving fuel is as important to our national security and economic viability as it is to preserving our environment," he said, a tangle of highways in the background.
The final rule that Mr. Mineta announced on Wednesday was slightly tougher than the one his department proposed last summer. He said this was partly because of the president's commitment in the State of the Union address in January to reduce the nation's "addiction" to imported oil. But oil consumption would continue to rise under the new rule, he acknowledged.
The rule covers "light trucks" in the model years from 2008 to 2011. The current rules cover vehicles weighing up to 8,500 pounds. But the new one will cover S.U.V.'s that weigh up to 10,000 pounds. That includes the heavier variants of the Chevy Suburban and the Hummer H2. (The H1 is over 10,000 pounds and still exempt.)
The rule does not cover heavy pickup trucks, like the Ford F-250, on the theory that those are used mostly in agriculture or business. While many of the vehicles covered under the new rule are used primarily for personal transportation, often with a single person inside, Mr. Mineta said that the people of Baltimore and the rest of the nation understood how important light trucks were "to maintaining our way of life."
The rule will save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles in those model years, the department estimated. Currently, the United States uses that much gasoline in less than a month.
Transportation officials estimated that the rule would cost vehicle manufacturers about $6.7 billion, a big number even by the standards of federal rule-making, and would add about $200 to the cost of the average vehicle. But owners would save that much within four years, officials said, based on a fuel price of $2 a gallon at the beginning of the period, rising to $2.39 over the vehicle's lifetime. In fact, average gasoline prices are already slightly above the second figure.
The standard is 21.6 miles a gallon for the current model year; it would rise to about 24 miles a gallon in 2011, the last year of the rule, but it would be calculated differently. The new rule sets a fuel economy standard based on the vehicle's "footprint," or how far apart the wheels are. Actual fuel economy will depend on the mix of vehicles sold.
The smallest S.U.V.'s, like the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the Jeep Wrangler, would have to meet a standard of 28.6 miles per gallon. The car standard is 27.5 miles per gallon.
Changing the rules to take into account the size of each vehicle has another effect: it puts pressure on all the companies that sell vehicles in the category, and not just those that sell the biggest, thirstiest vehicles.
Stephen R. Kratzke, the associate administrator for rule-making at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that the current standard was irrelevant to companies that built only small S.U.V.'s and pickups, because their fleet average was within acceptable limits even if their vehicles were not particularly fuel efficient for their size.
American manufacturers had complained that the current system burdened them but made no difference to Asian makers that sold few or no vehicles at the top end of the range.
Mr. Kratzke said that manufacturers would more widely deploy technologies that are already in limited use. Those include six-speed automatic transmissions, power steering systems that run on electricity instead of a belt that draws power from the engine, hybrid-electric drive trains and superchargers. Aluminum might be more widely used as an alternative to steel, but composite materials are still too costly, he said.
At the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents all the major manufacturers but Honda, Eron Shosteck, a spokesman, said, "It is going to be a challenge for automakers, but automakers are committed to meeting it."
Sherrie Childers Arb, a spokeswoman at General Motors, said that when her company analyzed the rule as proposed last year, engineers found it "challenging but achievable." This one will be tougher, but the company has not finished analyzing it, she said.
Others were more critical. Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert, a New York Republican who is the chairman of the House Science Committee, said the Bush administration had missed an opportunity. "It's remarkable to me how long we keep making the same mistake over and over," he said. "Nothing is preventing us from making our nation more prosperous and more secure except political failure of will."
At Environmental Defense, a nonprofit advocacy group, Eric Haxthausen, an economist and expert on cars, said the expansion from 8,500 to 10,000 pounds in vehicle weight should have covered pickups, which make up 80 percent of the category, and the whole standard should have been more aggressive.
"We have to credit them with some modest steps forward," he said. "But given the urgency of the global warming issue and oil dependency issue, this is not the bold step that is called for."
But Ron DeFore, a spokesman for a group run by industry lobbyists called the S.U.V. Owners of America, said, "With the manufacturers, even tenths of a mile per gallon are hard to eke out." He said 20 million Americans have "something that's towable," from a trailer to a boat, and need powerful engines. And, he added, "in an era when we're at $2.50 a gallon plus, the real question is why you need a rule like this anyway." Economic self-interest will make people buy higher-mileage vehicles, he said.
TheNewYorkTimes
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