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The Big Predictions for the Future have begun. This is the numbers game where eye-popping numerical targets start being thrown around before we’ve come anywhere close to achieving the eyebrow raising targets that are still 14 years away. According to Margo Oge at the EPA, the CAFE standard will need to jump to 75-MPG by the 2030s to meet greenhouse targets.

There is, somewhere, a “widely backed scientific-community proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 80 percent by 2050 from 2000 levels.” Based on current realities, the EPA has reckoned that the fleet average for fuel economy would need to more than double from the 2020 target of 35 mpg in about 15 or so years in order to achieve even the minimum standard.

The EPA is looking at a variety of alternative fuel options as a way to make the plan work. Yet we have no idea whether this is being looked at as a serious long term plan, or whether grand pronouncements are being made because it’s the thing to do right now. While we freely admit that the world of cars could use some cleaning up, we do wonder… is any other industry going to be on the hook for reducing greenhouse gasses?
[Source: Detroit News]

At the SAE Congress this week, the director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, Margo Oge, said that in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent compared to 2000 levels (something the Detroit News called a proposal that is “widely backed” in the scientific community), a new CAFE standard of 75 mpg would need to be implemented. And you thought you heard a howl when the 35 mpg by 2020 limit was imposed late last year. How could cars reach that goal? Oge suggests improvements in both engines and fuels. Glad that was figured out.

While 75 mpg is a fanciful fight we’ll leave for another day, this line jumped out at me in the Detroit News piece: “Oge said the auto industry should be able to meet the 35 mpg standard by 2018 with the same size fleet, with cost-effective technology improvements, based on an internal EPA study.” By 2018? Cool. Where’s the pressure to move the CAFE law’s implementation up two years?

[Source: Detroit News]

The Big Predictions for the Future have begun. This is the numbers game where eye-popping numerical targets start being thrown around before we’ve come anywhere close to achieving the eyebrow raising targets that are still 14 years away. According to Margo Oge at the EPA, the CAFE standard will need to jump to 75-MPG by the 2030s to meet greenhouse targets.

There is, somewhere, a “widely backed scientific-community proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 80 percent by 2050 from 2000 levels.” Based on current realities, the EPA has reckoned that the fleet average for fuel economy would need to more than double from the 2020 target of 35 mpg in about 15 or so years in order to achieve even the minimum standard.

The EPA is looking at a variety of alternative fuel options as a way to make the plan work. Yet we have no idea whether this is being looked at as a serious long term plan, or whether grand pronouncements are being made because it’s the thing to do right now. While we freely admit that the world of cars could use some cleaning up, we do wonder… is any other industry going to be on the hook for reducing greenhouse gasses?

[Source: Detroit News]