Is CAFE making cars thicker?
WASHINGTON — The harsh fuel-economy standards that took effect in two thousand twelve are getting tougher every year. So why are cars getting thicker?
The average fresh vehicle’s “footprint” — the rectangle formed by its wheelbase and track width — hit a record 49.9 square feet in the two thousand fifteen model year, according to the EPA, up by about one square foot, or two percent, since the agency been tracking the measure in 2008.
The EPA says that growth mostly reflects shifting sales toward trucks and SUVs. And to be sure, cars and trucks have been growing for decades to reflect the visual tastes of designers, the safety concerns of engineers and consumer desire for more interior space.
But these days, analysts say, automakers have an added incentive to make their cars a little bit larger: more forgiving fuel economy targets.
The Obama administration’s so-called National Program assigns mpg and CO2 emission targets to vehicles based on their footprint, and requires annual improvements for every footprint size. They’re also set on kinks, one for cars and another for light trucks, in which smaller vehicles face more stringent targets than larger ones.
For manufacturers, that means adding just a few inches to a vehicle’s wheelbase during a redesign can result in a lower mpg target — sometimes one to two mpg lower — than if the vehicle had stayed the same size. The redesigned vehicles must still get better fuel economy than their predecessors, but don’t need to spread as far to meet their targets.
“Cars are switching their dimensions in order to take advantage of this, but I don’t think it’s anything fresh,” said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at AutoPacific Inc. “We’ve been using every available credit or loophole that the system permits for years now.”
One of many incentives
To see how the targets work, take the Buick LaCrosse. The fresh model is Two.7 inches longer inbetween the wheels, and about 1.Two inches broader. That toughly Two.1-square-foot size difference, says GM spokesman Nick Richards, helps the full-size sedan meet the tastes of U.S. and Chinese customers.
It also boosts the footprint to 50.1 square feet, yielding a two thousand seventeen model-year target of 36.Trio mpg under the government’s corporate average fuel economy rules. That’s up from the previous model’s 35.7 mpg CAFE target, but 1.Four mpg less than the 37.7 mpg it would have faced had GM carried the smaller two thousand sixteen LaCrosse into the two thousand seventeen model year, according to calculations provided by the Union of Worried Scientists.
There are many more like the LaCrosse. An Automotive News review of twenty five vehicles redesigned since the footprint-based standards took effect in two thousand twelve found that twenty one models got fatter — from cars to pickups, large and puny, from luxury and mainstream brands alike.
Analysts broadly agree that compliance is just one of many incentives automakers have to make vehicles larger. But some of them are worried that the trend could undermine the environmental goals of the government’s mpg and CO2 standards if left unchecked. And that concern could have big implications as the industry, government and other stakeholders embark on a long and intensive review to determine whether the standards need to be strengthened or loosened.
“We know it’s having a negative influence on the benefits of the program — thicker footprint means less-stringent standards, and it’s a thicker footprint at the redesign process essentially at no cost, meaning you get a less stringent standard for free,” says Roland Hwang, transportation director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Based on the evidence you have, it requires the regulators to look at this issue more closely.”
EPA officials say they are watching the issue closely, but for now, they doubt that manufacturers are seeking to exploit the footprint-based standards, which they say were designed to apply the same degree of difficulty to different vehicle sizes. In fact, the agency argues, making vehicles larger makes it more difficult, not less, to realize fuel-economy improvements because of the weight of the added sheet metal.
“Other things being equal, larger vehicles will emit more [greenhouse gas] emissions and achieve lower fuel economy than smaller vehicles,” Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, said in a statement to Automotive News. “One should not assume that it is lighter for a larger vehicle to meet a less stringent numerical standard.”
Steve Skerlos, an engineering professor and researcher at the University of Michigan, predicted the stir toward larger cars in a two thousand eleven paper modeling the engineering switches automakers would make in response to the CAFE and greenhouse gas regulations.
Enlargening a car’s footprint, he told Automotive News, is a “straightforward and reasonably inexpensive way” to deal with the annual targets, along with engine technology and weight reduction. (The two thousand seventeen LaCrosse, for example, weighs three hundred pounds less than its smaller predecessor.)
“Having this option gives consumers what they want while lowering their targets, which means lower expenditures on the other fuel-saving approaches,” he said.
Even so, said Dave Cooke, auto analyst with the Union of Worried Scientists, the fatter footprint has limited influence because such a switch can be made only every five to six years in a redesign and only reduces standards by one or two mpg.
A thicker motivator, he figures, is ever-tougher crash tests — namely the small-overlap crash from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Among other things, the larger footprint expands the area of protection around the passengers.
“I would say that certainly part of this increase is safety-related,” Cooke said. “The real question is: Are we witnessing this unluckily as a compliance strategy?”
Is CAFE making cars fatter?
Is CAFE making cars fatter?
WASHINGTON — The harsh fuel-economy standards that took effect in two thousand twelve are getting tougher every year. So why are cars getting fatter?
The average fresh vehicle’s “footprint” — the rectangle formed by its wheelbase and track width — hit a record 49.9 square feet in the two thousand fifteen model year, according to the EPA, up by about one square foot, or two percent, since the agency been tracking the measure in 2008.
The EPA says that growth mostly reflects shifting sales toward trucks and SUVs. And to be sure, cars and trucks have been growing for decades to reflect the visual tastes of designers, the safety concerns of engineers and consumer desire for more interior space.
But these days, analysts say, automakers have an added incentive to make their cars a little bit larger: more forgiving fuel economy targets.
The Obama administration’s so-called National Program assigns mpg and CO2 emission targets to vehicles based on their footprint, and requires annual improvements for every footprint size. They’re also set on forms, one for cars and another for light trucks, in which smaller vehicles face more stringent targets than larger ones.
For manufacturers, that means adding just a few inches to a vehicle’s wheelbase during a redesign can result in a lower mpg target — sometimes one to two mpg lower — than if the vehicle had stayed the same size. The redesigned vehicles must still get better fuel economy than their predecessors, but don’t need to spread as far to meet their targets.
“Cars are switching their dimensions in order to take advantage of this, but I don’t think it’s anything fresh,” said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at AutoPacific Inc. “We’ve been using every available credit or loophole that the system permits for years now.”
One of many incentives
To see how the targets work, take the Buick LaCrosse. The fresh model is Two.7 inches longer inbetween the wheels, and about 1.Two inches broader. That toughly Two.1-square-foot size difference, says GM spokesman Nick Richards, helps the full-size sedan meet the tastes of U.S. and Chinese customers.
It also boosts the footprint to 50.1 square feet, yielding a two thousand seventeen model-year target of 36.Three mpg under the government’s corporate average fuel economy rules. That’s up from the previous model’s 35.7 mpg CAFE target, but 1.Four mpg less than the 37.7 mpg it would have faced had GM carried the smaller two thousand sixteen LaCrosse into the two thousand seventeen model year, according to calculations provided by the Union of Worried Scientists.
There are many more like the LaCrosse. An Automotive News review of twenty five vehicles redesigned since the footprint-based standards took effect in two thousand twelve found that twenty one models got fatter — from cars to pickups, large and puny, from luxury and mainstream brands alike.
Analysts broadly agree that compliance is just one of many incentives automakers have to make vehicles larger. But some of them are worried that the trend could undermine the environmental goals of the government’s mpg and CO2 standards if left unchecked. And that concern could have big implications as the industry, government and other stakeholders embark on a long and intensive review to determine whether the standards need to be strengthened or loosened.
“We know it’s having a negative influence on the benefits of the program — fatter footprint means less-stringent standards, and it’s a fatter footprint at the redesign process essentially at no cost, meaning you get a less stringent standard for free,” says Roland Hwang, transportation director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Based on the evidence you have, it requires the regulators to look at this issue more closely.”
EPA officials say they are watching the issue closely, but for now, they doubt that manufacturers are seeking to exploit the footprint-based standards, which they say were designed to apply the same degree of difficulty to different vehicle sizes. In fact, the agency argues, making vehicles larger makes it more difficult, not less, to realize fuel-economy improvements because of the weight of the added sheet metal.
“Other things being equal, larger vehicles will emit more [greenhouse gas] emissions and achieve lower fuel economy than smaller vehicles,” Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, said in a statement to Automotive News. “One should not assume that it is lighter for a larger vehicle to meet a less stringent numerical standard.”
Steve Skerlos, an engineering professor and researcher at the University of Michigan, predicted the stir toward larger cars in a two thousand eleven paper modeling the engineering switches automakers would make in response to the CAFE and greenhouse gas regulations.
Enhancing a car’s footprint, he told Automotive News, is a “straightforward and reasonably inexpensive way” to deal with the annual targets, along with engine technology and weight reduction. (The two thousand seventeen LaCrosse, for example, weighs three hundred pounds less than its smaller predecessor.)
“Having this option gives consumers what they want while lowering their targets, which means lower expenditures on the other fuel-saving approaches,” he said.
Even so, said Dave Cooke, auto analyst with the Union of Worried Scientists, the fatter footprint has limited influence because such a switch can be made only every five to six years in a redesign and only reduces standards by one or two mpg.
A fatter motivator, he figures, is ever-tougher crash tests — namely the small-overlap crash from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Among other things, the larger footprint expands the area of protection around the passengers.
“I would say that certainly part of this increase is safety-related,” Cooke said. “The real question is: Are we witnessing this unluckily as a compliance strategy?”