The real CAFE numbers: automakers call recent CAFE proposals "radical;" lawmakers claim the industry is "sandbagging." Both sides need a reality check - Cover Story - motor vehicle emissions regulation

Automotive Industries, May, 2002 by Gerry Kobe

When Senators John Kerry, (D-Mass.) and John McCain, (R-Ariz.) proposed raising CAFE standards, the auto industry went on full alert. When the proposal called for combining car and truck averages and raising them by 50 percent, carmakers came unglued. In the ensuing weeks, automakers enlisted the help of their supply base to lobby against the new standard before it was voted on the Senate floor. Washington responded with scathing criticism from groups like Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council, backed up with a smear campaign from the National Environmental Trust.

The proposed standard that would have raised CAFE numbers to require a fleet average of 36 mpg by 2015 ultimately failed on the Senate floor, but a subsequent amendment to CAFE that passed, authored by Senators Carl Levin, (D-Mich.) and Christopher Bond, (R-Mo.), appointed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)as the final arbiter for fuel economy decisions.

The issue of CAFE is not dead, just postponed.

The irony of the name calling by both sides is that each had a legitimate point to make, and ironically, each used excerpts from a recently completed study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to bolster their case for their respective positions. The study, now a matter of public record and available online at www.nap.edu/catalog/10172.html, paints a complex but realistic picture of the social, economic, technical, safety and political issues that have become interwoyen with the CAFE standard in the 27 years since its inception.

Because the report is open to interpretation, automakers claim it supports their position that raising CAFE arbitrarily will have grave economic consequence on the domestic auto industry, have little effect on actual fuel consumption and that higher mileage numbers are not technologically practical without market incentive. Lawmakers hone in on the report's list of promising technologies, concluding that workable technology exists that can boost economy by 50 percent.

NHTSA is now in the delicate position of deciphering the matrix that CAFE has become, using the NAS report holistically as a roadmap. And the language of the law that gives NHTSA authority to establish new standards, also calls for it to take action within 15, months, or Congress will be empowered to set CAFE. standards. That means NHTSA has to act quickly and therein lies the danger.

The risk is that in trying to oversimplify CAFE for the sake of expedience, it will continue to be just numbers rather than a foundation from which to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The NAS study could change all that, but only if its words are understood.

Dissecting CAFE's Numbers

FEV President and CEO, Gary Rogers gives AI an exclusive inside look at why a year-long study only scratched the surface of the complex CAFE numbers puzzle.

Q. What was the mission of the CAFE study and do you think it achieved its objectives?

A. Our mission was to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of CAFE and to identify possible changes or alternatives. We spent an incredibly short five months preparing an initial draft and then a few months reviewing issues raised by interested parties. What we learned and attempted to communicate in our report was the enormity and complexity of this issue. Our study cites and my personal opinion supports that we don't have a definitive answer or final solution. If we did, we would have put it in the report. However, I strongly believe we identified all the important issues and hot buttons that must be addressed as this extremely complex issue is passed on to the DOT or some other governmental agency to determine what the right course of action should be.

Q. Based on your research do you think it is possible to raise CAFE standards by 25 or even 50 percent as Senators Kerry and McCain proposed?

A. That gets back to the complexity issue. If you look on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis one could conclude theoretically that it might be possible to improve the fuel economy of a particular vehicle -- depending on how bad it is to start with -- by 25 percent or more. But CAFE doesn't work that way. You don't calculate fuel economy based on a particular vehicle, you calculate it based on a sales weighted average of all vehicles sold by a manufacturer. This sales mix can have a far greater impact than the effect of individual improvement.

Q. What's the difference if the technology exists to do it?

A. If you are a full-line vehicle manufacturer and you have to go from an average of 24 mpg across the entire fleet of vehicles sold to 36 mpg -- a 50 percent increase -- in a short period of time by auto industry standards, say 10 years, it would require simultaneously redesigning all vehicles, all engines and all powertrains. Not even GM has the resources to begin that kind of work. The cost would be astronomical and in my opinion would bring this nation to its knees from an economic perspective.

Q. But the Senator's proposals didn't begin until 2007 and took full effect by 2015.