58 MPG by 2032

[ljjhouser]

I saw a video presented by Ford (about 2 years ago, I think) of an interview with some Ford engineers. The issue of mpg came up. The engineers all agreed that mileage could improve into that range, but the cost to the customer would drastically increase and would have a negative impact on sales. They indicated that the equipment needed to be installed on the vehicle to do that range of MPG would be very expensive and the customer would not be happy.

I don't know if they were referring to gas alone or included EV. This seems like another anti-tailpipe law to move to EV. I am not sure EV can survive in a market WITHOUT constant government incentives and intervention. Especially if the cost of roads and taxes are no longer paid by the use of gas and become attached to an already overloaded electric grid.

 

[CliffordK]

How many vehicles get 58 mpg now? Will electric vehicles somehow get factored into that. Between this new standard and all the standards on all the home appliances things will get expensive.

The 2023 Insight is listed as 55 City, 49 Highway, 52 Combined. It does reasonably well if one doesn't lead foot it, and one drives a lot in the 30 to 50 MPH range.
The 2023 Prius doesn't take as big of a hit on highway MPG, and is rated as 57 City, 56 Highway, and 57 Combined.

It isn't uncommon for drivers to hit 60 MPG on those hybrids.

I'm seeing the Smart Diesel listed at about 3.4 l/100km (69 MPG US) about a decade ago.

Of course, the decision was made not to bring the Smart Diesel to the USA, along with avoiding a number of other small diesels.

As far as things getting expensive... GAS and DIESEL will get Expensive!!!

I would expect the Prius and Insight to have a rated 60 MPG by the end of the next decade.

Other brands are significantly lower. Surely an American company could reverse engineer a Japanese car. Even choose an early one to avoid patent issues.

Achieving the fleet average may include both plug-in hybrids and all electric vehicles. Excluding pickups?

 

[charlessenf]

". . . we will be in the middle of 1776-2 by 2032 . . ."

And who do you see as the royal monarch in this scenario?

We had home grown insurrectionists attempt to overthrown our government - the deadliest (in terms of American lives sacrificed) of all our (other) wars combined. We went through reconstruction, the KKK and strange fruit down south and survived. We passed Voting Rights and Civil Rights in the 1960's causing Southern Democrats to switch parties and raise insurrectionist flags in state houses and county buildings. We saw them at Charlottesville waving Neo **** flags screaming 'Jews will not replace us!" in order to protest the removal of a statute honoring the insurrection euphemistically called the "civil war.'

White boys and girls - mostly white boys who blame Jews and immigrants and blacks and Hispanics for their personal failure to launch in spite of all the doors opened to them and their parents.

We saw them at the Capital Steps and bursting through police lines rioting in the very halls of congress "1776-1" was fought to establish. Attempting with violence what they could not achieve at the ballot box.

Willing, as it were, to disregard our constitutional processes and throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

And, save Pence, none of the 'leaders' in the grand old party (save a Mitch moment) stood to oppose it, decry or condemn it - even as they literally ran for their lives.

Partisan politics has gone too far. Partisan redistricting may not be illegal under the U.S. Constitution, but it has proven itself unethical, immoral as well as counter-productive to a society and a republic where each citizen's vote is equal and consensus is the ideal of a truly free society.

 

[Gator6x4]

I have driven cars and trucks since the early fifties. The vehicles had different size engines from 4 cylinder to the Super Boss Cobra Jet 429. The 427 Chevrolet Engine, the 351 Cleveland Ford Engine and the 454 Chevrolet monster.

The best gas mileage I have ever received in a vehicle I have owned with the tire pressure properly maintained and the exterior clean and waxed to reduce drag and obeying the posted speed limit was 28 miles per gallon.

A group of us one time tried to get a gentlemen who was supposedly driving 70-80 miles per hour and getting 30 plus miles per gallon to let us have a mechanic install theses two devices on his vehicle, a pickup truck and would bet him that if he drove the truck at 70-80 as he claimed he would not get 20 mpg. He refused.

Amazon.com : mileage trackers for cars

 

[scootr]

Many vehicles of the last 10 yrs have a real time MPG display. You can see when you are getting 9 or 59 mpg.
People just need to drive like their mpg was more important than shaving 1 minute off a 15 minute trip

 

[5030]

How many vehicles get 58 mpg now? Will electric vehicles somehow get factored into that. Between this new standard and all the standards on all the home appliances things will get expensive.

Already expensive and getting more expensive every day. Just read in a reliable source that it's costing the average family (whatever that is), an additional 700 bucks a year to just maintain their level of living, that don't include cars or trucks or eating out or vacations, just the food on the table and necessities like toilet paper.

 

[5030]

Many vehicles of the last 10 yrs have a real time MPG display. You can see when you are getting 9 or 59 mpg.
People just need to drive like their mpg was more important than shaving 1 minute off a 15 minute trip

The issue with on board fuel mileage devices is, most are very inaccurate.

I will say the high dollar Garmin automotive GPS I bought about a month ago (My Focus don't have one built into the dash display but my wife's burb does), the Garmin can be programmed to give accurate mileage it uses those pesky satellites to triangulate your location and no subscription fee required. In fact I had a Magellan and it took a crap so now I have this one and it also has lifetime map updates, no fee either. Pretty slick unit. Built in wireless backup cam, red light notification, speed trap notification too and of course the irritating female voice that does the turn by turn announcements.

 

[nickfank]

A few observations after scanning this entertaining thread:

1. Partisan politics appear to be the main form of entertainment for many folks... Even those who have the option to be outside on a tractor enjoying life. That's weird and sad.
2. The laws of physics don't care about politics. It's getting hotter, and buying a republican thermometer or a democrat thermometer won't change that.
3. Math doesn't care about politics. Whether you're a libertarian or a socialist, 23+114+120 divided by 3 = 85 2/3. (See below for why I chose those numbers.)
4. If you're a person who claims to value personal freedom, it's bizarre to also be a shill for the fossil fuel industry. The fact of the matter is that you are dependent on them every day of your life. Worse, the (global) fossil fuel companies buy the politicians and the politicians spend your tax money to support them... But at the end of the day, you pay whatever price they agree on on to fuel your vehicles & equipment, and **you have no other option**. Unless you own an oil well and a refinery, you're not a free person.
5. However, if you actually want to be an independent and free person, you *can* own a solar array or windmill & electric vehicles.
6. The up-front cost to use electric vehicles is steep, but in the long run it's cheaper... And more importantly, you're no longer controlled by the government or fuel companies. (That's why they're working so hard to get you all angry about electric cars and renewables... If renewables weren't already a cheaper and more viable alternative, they'd have no reason to fight so hard. Use your common sense and this becomes obvious.)

On my barn is a 16Kw solar array. Two of my three vehicles are electric. Yes, they were expensive, but when I charge them off the barn array, they cost $0.02 per mile to operate. Even if I have to completely replace the batteries at 100K miles, I've still saved money. Inflation? I don't care... my 2 cent/mile cost is locked in for the next 30+ years because I own the fuel source. That's actual personal freedom, no politics involved.

Getting back to the original post, when I average the mpg on the gas car (23) and the equivalent mpg on the EVs (120 & 114), I'm already at 85mpg average. I didn't do that because a politician required me to, I did it because I can do math and I value freedom.

This conversation would make a lot more sense if everyone would put away their obsession with politics and just do the math.

**Edit: When someone posted about the road-use taxes included in gas & diesel, I realized that I had not included taxes in my 2 cents/mile. I should have included that to make the comparison fair, since everyone else pays road-use tax as part of their fuel expense. In Ohio, EVs pay a $200 annual surcharge at registration to replace the revenue that they would have gotten from the per-gallon tax on gas or diesel. I'm a typical driver with about 15,000 miles/year, so that brings my "fuel" cost up to $0.033/mile including the road tax.

 

[nickfank]

How many vehicles get 58 mpg now? Will electric vehicles somehow get factored into that. Between this new standard and all the standards on all the home appliances things will get expensive.

Yes, EVs are factored in, and most are rated at over 100 eMPG. (e= equivalent. They get that by figuring out how many watts you get by burning a gallon of gasoline. Then they divide that into the wattage used to move an EV and get an equivalent for how much gas would be used if gas was the power source.)

There's probably no way to achieve this average without EVs factored in.

 

[nickfank]

Fleet averages..so they will be forced to make more EVs to boost the averages for everything else. A Prius Prime gets about 133MPG all in and 54 with just the gas. If a Prime is the average, we will not have enough electricity production to meet those standards.

What's your source for that? The 40' X 30' solar array on my barn powers our house, the barn, and 2 cars. "we" didn't have to add any capacity to the grid to power those two cars. It's not only possible, but easy. I know this because I did it.