What was the cafe standard for cars in 2000

Two sets of standards were established: those for passenger cars and for light trucks. The latter category included vehicles of gross vehicle weight rating GVWR from 6, to 8, lbs, such as pickup trucks, minivans, or SUVs. In the initial years, separate standards existed for 2-wheel and 4-wheel drive LDTs, which were later replaced by one combined standard. Alternative Fueled Vehicles. The CAFE fuel economy of an alternative fueled vehicle was calculated by dividing its real fuel economy by a factor of 0.

For instance, a 15 mpg natural gas vehicle would be rated as a mpg gasoline vehicle. For bi-fuel vehicles, this calculation was applied to the expected percentage of alternative fuel use. Light- truck standards required only a 50 percent increase: from In part, the difference was intentional, reflecting the be- lief that light trucks function more as utility vehicles and face more demanding load-carrying and towing require- ments.

It was also due to the different mechanisms Congress established for setting the standards. Congress itself wrote the The result of this process was that passenger cars were required to make a significantly greater percentage improve- ment in fuel economy. However, by that number had dropped to , members, according to the annual report filed by the UAW with the Department of Labor. The loss of market share to foreign manufacturers, including some 35, assembly jobs in foreign-owned assembly plants in the United States, improvements in productivity in domestic plants, and a shift of parts production to Mexico as well as to nonunion foreign-owned parts plants in the United States resulted in the loss of unionized automotive jobs in the United States.

Workers in this country have proven that they can compete successfully with workers overseas in all seg- ments of the market, from the smallest cars to the largest trucks. The NRC report found that the provision of the CAFE law that created a distinction between domestic and foreign fleets led to distortions in the locations at which ve- hicles or parts are produced, with no apparent advantage NRC, , p.

The absence of negative effects of this action on employ- ment in U. Other Regulations Affecting CAFE The gas guzzler tax, which first took effect in , speci- fies a sliding tax scale for new passenger cars getting very low gas mileage. There is no comparable tax for light trucks. The level at which the tax takes effect increased from Today, the tax on a new passenger car achieving between 22 and In , 80 percent of new cars sold achieved less than 21 mpg and 10 percent achieved less than 12 mpg.

In , only 1 percent of all cars sold achieved less than The tax, which applies only to new automo- biles, has undoubtedly reinforced the disincentive to pro- duce inefficient automobiles and probably played a role, as did the CAFE standards, in the downsizing of the passenger car fleet.

The absence of a similar tax for light trucks has almost certainly exacerbated the disparities between the two vehicle types. Emissions Since the passage of the CAFE law in , pollutant emissions standards for passenger cars and light trucks have been tightened.

For example, hydrocarbon, carbon monox- ide CO , and nitrogen oxide NOx federal standards were 1. Moreover, the period for which new vehicles must be certified to perform effec- tively was doubled.

The CAFE standards did not interfere with the implementation of emissions control standards. However, emissions standards have so far prevented key fuel economy technologies, such as the lean-burn gaso- line engine or the diesel engine, from achieving significant market shares in U. Safety Since , many new passenger car and light-truck safety regulations have been implemented. It was estimated that these regulations added several hundred pounds to the average vehicle for example, air bags and improved impact protection.

However, the actual number may now be less there have not been any follow-up studies to determine if improved designs and technological progress have reduced the weight of those components. Nonetheless, the CAFE regulations, have not impeded the implementation of safety. Examination of the data shows little evidence of a dramatic impact of fuel economy regulations. General economic conditions, and es- pecially the globalization of the automobile industry, seem to have been far more important than fuel economy regula- tions in determining the profitability and employment shares of the domestic automakers and their competitors.

In there were eight foreign-owned plants in the United States pro- ducing 1. By , foreign companies assembled 2. Organized labor has lost nearly half of its representation in the automobile industry since In that year, the United Auto Workers union had 1.

The job losses have been offset by about 35, jobs in foreign-owned, nonunion assembly plants in the United States; growth in white collar employment in foreign com- panies as they expanded distribution; and the establishment of foreign-owned parts and component operations.

Like profitability, two measures of productivity show no obvious impact of fuel economy improvements. The number of light-duty vehicles produced per worker Figure has fluctuated with the business cycle falling during recessions and since the mids appears to have trended slightly upward despite increased production of light trucks and more complex cars.

The sales value of cars produced per worker also shown in Figure increased substantially during the to period, particularly after Even before the CAFE standards were established, the automotive market was becoming a global one.

In the s imported vehicles made significant inroads in the United States. With their small cars and their reputation for superior quality, Japanese producers probably found the CAFE stan- dards only one source of competitive advantage in U. The size of this advantage is difficult to determine, however NRC, The industry experienced se- vere losses in and again in in response to the drop in vehicle demand, a competitive pricing environment, and loss of market share to foreign producers.

After that, the in- dustry enjoyed a powerful rebound in earnings. SUV sales increased from fewer than 1 million units in to 3 million in ; large SUVs were the fast- est-growing segment and by accounted for nearly one-third of all SUVs sold.

Sales of large pickup trucks nearly doubled in the s. These vehicles for example, the Toyota RAV-4 and the Honda CRV , first introduced by Japanese companies several years ago to serve de- mand for recreational vehicles, also found markets in the United States. Light trucks today account for about 50 percent of GM sales, 60 percent of Ford sales, and 73 percent of Daimler- Chrysler sales and even greater shares of the profits of all three companies.

In the mid- to late s, the average profit on a light truck was three to four times as great as that on a passenger sedan.

Since the second half of , however, GM and Ford have recorded sharply lower profits, and the Chrysler divi- sion of DaimlerChrysler suffered significant losses. A slow- ing economy, which necessitated production cuts as well as purchase incentives rebates and discounted loan rates, for example to defend market share, underlies the downturn in industry profitability.

With at least , units of additional capacity of light- truck production coming onstream over the next 3 years, however, margins on these vehicles could remain under pres- sure for the foreseeable future.

To recoup their investments in truck capacity, manufacturers will continue to use incen- tives to drive sales, even at the cost of lower unit profits. Better incentives have made these vehicles more affordable, which probably explains some of their continuing popularity in the face of higher fuel prices.

Too steep an im- position of the standards would be reflected in unusually high rates of both investments. There does appear to have been a sudden increase in retooling investments by all three manufacturers in , but they returned to normal levels within 5 years see Figure These investments may have been prompted as much by changes in U. Since then, they have generally increased, regardless of whether the CAFE requirements were increasing or con- stant Figure NRC, Principally, this debate has centered on the role of vehicle mass and size in improving fuel economy.

For a given power train, transportation fuel requirements depend in part on how much mass is moved over what distance, at what speed, and against what resistance. The mass of the vehicle is critical because it determines the amount of force that is, power and fuel necessary to accelerate the vehicle to a given speed or propel it up a hill.

Size is important because it influences mass larger vehicles usually weigh more and, secondarily, because it can influence the aerodynamics of the vehicle and, therefore, the amount of power necessary to keep it moving at a given speed.

As discussed above, fuel economy improved dramatically for cars during the late s and early s, without much change since see Figure and Figure That in- crease in fuel economy was accompanied by a decline in average car weight see Figure and in average wheel- base length a common measure of car size.

Thus, a signifi- cant part of the increased fuel economy of the fleet in compared with is attributable to the downsizing of the vehicle fleet. Since , new cars have increased in weight see Figure and the fuel economy has suffered accord- ingly see Figure , although increasing mass is not the only reason for this decline in fuel economy.

The potential problem for motor vehicle safety is that ve- hicle mass and size vary inversely not only with fuel economy, but also with risk of crash injuries. When a heavy vehicle strikes an object, it is more likely to move or deform the object than is a light vehicle. Vehicle size also is important. Larger crush zones outside the occupant compartment increase the distance over which the vehicle and its restrained occupants are decelerated.

These basic relationships between vehicle mass, size, and safety are dis- cussed in greater detail in Chapter 4. Given these concerns about vehicle size, mass, and safety, it is imperative to ask about the safety effect of the vehicle downsizing and downweighting that occurred in association with the improvement in fuel economy during the s and s.

There are basically two approaches to this question. Some analysts have concluded that the safety effect of fleet downsizing and downweighting has been negligible because the injury and fatality experience per vehicle mile of travel has declined steadily during these changes in the fleet.

The General Accounting Office GAO championed this view in a report, arguing that vehicle downweighting and downsizing to that time had resulted in no safety conse- quences, as engineers had been able to offset any potential risks Chelimsky, According to this argument, the fact that vehicle downsizing and downweighting have not led to a large increase in real-world crash injuries indicates that there need not be a safety penalty associated with downsizing, despite any theoretical or empirical relation- ships among the size, weight, and safety of vehicles at a given time.

The reduced risk of motor vehicle travel during the past decade is part of a long-term historical trend, going back to at least Fig- ure On the one hand, improved vehicle designs, reduced incidence of alcohol-impaired driving, increased rates of safety belt use, and improved road designs are re- ducing crash injury risk; on the other, higher speed limits, increased horsepower, and increasing licensure of teenagers and other risky drivers, among other factors, are increasing crash injury risk.

In short, the historical trend in motor ve- hicle injury and fatality rates is too broad a measure, affected by too many variables, to indicate whether vehicle down- sizing and downweighting have increased or decreased mo- tor vehicle travel safety. Recognizing this general historical trend, the appropriate question is not whether crash injury risk has continued to decline in the face of vehicle downsizing and down- weighting, but rather whether motor vehicle travel in the downsized fleet is less safe than it would have been other- wise.

That is, the level of safety knowledge and technology in use at the time is independent of the size and weight of the vehicle fleet. Accordingly, the question for evaluating the safety effects of constraints on vehicle size and weight asks how much injury risk would change if consumers were to purchase larger, heavier vehicles of the generation currently available to them.

The NRC report noted significant evidence that the improvement in motor vehicle travel safety to that time could have been even greater had vehicles not been downweighted and downsized.

In another study cited by the re- port, Crandall and Graham estimated that fatality rates in car models were 14 to 27 percent higher be- cause of the lb of weight reduction attributed by those authors to CAFE requirements.

These safety costs had been hidden from public view by the generally improv- ing safety of the motor vehicle environment. It should be noted that the terms downsizing and down- weighting are used interchangeably here because of the very high correlation between these physical attributes of motor vehicles.

Although the effects of size and mass appear quite separate in the theoretical discussion above, in reality most heavy cars are large and most large cars are heavy.

As a result of this correlation, the NRC report was unable to sepa- rate the different effects of vehicle mass and size in account- ing for the changes in safety.

The report questioned to what extent the increased fatalities due to downweighting could have been prevented had vehicles retained their initial size. The current committee concurs with that conclusion. Societal Versus Individual Safety The NRC report also questioned the relationship between risk to the individual occupant of downsized ve- hicles and risk to society as a whole.

In other words, larger mass means greater protection for the occupants of the vehicle with greater mass but greater risk for other road us- ers in crashes.

Some of the increased risk for individuals shifting to smaller, lighter cars would be offset by decreased risk for individuals already in such cars. However, the report noted that there was insufficient information about the ef- fects on all road users of changes in fleet size and weight distributions.

It also noted that increasing sales of light trucks, which tend to be larger, heavier, and less fuel effi- cient than cars, was a factor increasing the problem of crash incompatibility. NHTSA was urged to conduct a study to develop more complete information on the overall safety impact of increased fuel economy and to incorporate more information about the safety impact of light-truck sales.

A dash indicates the estimated effect was statistically insignificant. For the fatality analysis, the starred entries were not statistically significant. In the new NHTSA research, the effect on fatalities and injuries of an average lb reduction in the weight of cars or in the weight of light trucks was estimated. Follow- ing the recommendation of the NRC report, the fatality analysis included fatalities occurring to nearly all road users in crashes of cars and light trucks; excluded were only those fatalities occurring in crashes involving more than two ve- hicles and other rare events.

The injury analysis was more limited, including only those injuries occurring to occupants of the cars and light trucks. The analyses also included statistical controls for driver age, driver gender, and urban-rural location, as well as other po- tentially confounding factors.

The NHTSA fatality analyses indicate that a reduction in mass of the passenger car fleet by lb with no change in the light-truck fleet would be expected to increase fatalities in the crashes of cars by 1.

That increase in risk would have resulted in about standard error of 44 addi- tional fatalities in A comparable reduction in mass of the light-truck fleet, with no change in cars, would result in a net reduction in fatalities of 0.

NHTSA attributed this difference in effect to the fact that the light-truck fleet is on average lb heavier than the passenger car fleet.

As a result, the increased risk to light-truck occupants in some crashes as a result of downweighting is offset by the de- creased risk to the occupants of other vehicles involved in collisions with them, most of which are much lighter.

The results of the separate hypothetical analyses for cars and light trucks are roughly additive, so that a uniform reduction in mass of lb for both cars and light trucks in would be estimated to have resulted in about additional fatali- ties. Conversely, a uniform increase in mass of lb for both cars and light trucks would be estimated to result in about lives saved. The April NHTSA analyses allow the committee to reestimate the approximate effect of downsizing the fleet between the mids and In , cars were about lb heavier than in ; light trucks were about lb heavier, on average.

The net effect is an estimated 2, fewer fatalities in , if cars and light trucks weighed the same as in The 95 percent confidence interval for this esti- mate suggests that there was only a small chance that the safety cost was smaller than 1, lives or greater than 2, lives.

This figure is comparable to the earlier NHTSA esti- mates of the effect of downsizing since the early s. In short, even after considering effects on all road users and after adjusting the results for a number of factors known to correlate with both fatal crash risk and vehicle usage pat- terns, the downsizing and downweighting of the vehicle fleet that occurred during the s and early s still appear to have imposed a substantial safety penalty in terms of lost lives and additional injuries.

It must be noted that the application of the NHTSA analyses to the questions before this committee is not with- out controversy. Their reservations are detailed in a dissent that forms Appendix A of this report.

The majority of the committee shares these concerns to an extent, and the committee is unanimous in its agreement that further study of the relationship between size, weight, and safety is warranted. The committee notes that many of the points raised in the dissent for ex- ample, the dependence of the NHTSA results on specific estimates of age, sex, aggressive driving, and urban vs.

The estimated relationship between mass and safety were remarkably robust in response to changes in the estimated effects of these parameters.

The committee also 5The average weights of cars and light trucks registered for use on the road in were, respectively, 3, lb and 3, lb; in , 2, lb and 3, lb. Polk files for vehicle registration in those years and institute files on vehicle weights. This consistency over time and methodology provides further evidence of the robustness of the adverse safety effects of vehicle size and weight reduction.

Thus, the majority of this committee believes that the evi- dence is clear that past downweighting and downsizing of the light-duty vehicle fleet, while resulting in significant fuel savings, has also resulted in a safety penalty.

In , it would appear that the safety penalty included between 1, and 2, motor vehicle crash deaths that would not have occurred had vehicles been as large and heavy as in Changes in the Fleet Since As noted earlier, vehicle weights have climbed slightly in recent years, with some regressive effects on vehicle fuel economy.

The committee sought to estimate the effect of these later changes on motor vehicle safety, as well. First, it is possible that the safety effects of size and weight will change as vehicle designs change; for example, it is possible that substitution of lighter-weight structural materials could allow vehicles to re- duce weight while maintaining protective size to a greater extent than in the past.

Second, the effects of vehicle size and weight vary for different crash types, as noted in Table , and the frequency distribution of these crash types can vary from year to year for reasons other than vehicle size and weight. Historical Relationships Between Size or Weight and Occupant Protection Whether the safety effects of size and weight change as vehicles are redesigned can ultimately be determined defini- tively only by replication of NHTSA analyses Kahane, However, a review of the historical relationship be- tween size, weight, and occupant protection indicates that the risk reduction associated with larger size and weight has been reasonably stable over the past 20 years.

For example, Table shows occupant death rates in different light-duty vehicle classes for , , and the last year for which federal data on fatalities are available. The single exception has been among small utility vehicles, where there was dramatic improvement in the rollover fatal- ity risk between and Polk Company for the relevant years.

Thus, the majority of the committee believes that it is reasonable to use the quantitative relationships developed by NHTSA Kahane, and shown in Table to estimate the safety effects of vehicle size and weight changes in other years. Distribution of Crash Types in the Future While there appears to be some justification for expecting relationships among weight, size, and safety to remain much the same in the future, the committee observed that, between and , the last year for which complete data on fatal crashes are available, there were several shifts in fatal crash experience, the most notable being an increase in the num- ber of light-duty truck involvements consistent with their increasing sales and a decrease in crashes fatal to non- occupants pedestrians and cyclists; see Table Between and , the average weight of new pas- senger cars increased about lb, and that of new light trucks increased about lb.

The net result is an estimated fewer deaths in motor vehicle crashes of cars and light trucks or between 10 and with 95 percent confidence. Thus, the indications are that recent increases in vehicle weight, though detrimental to fuel economy, have saved lives in return. The preceding discussion has acknowledged some uncer- tainty associated with the safety analyses that were reviewed in the preparation of this chapter. These improvements would come in two phases.

The first would be enforced through and would require manufacturers to meet an average industry fleet-wide fuel economy basis of The second conditional standard based on current best estimates of maximum levels of stringency will require an average fuel economy of Add us to your site. Today in Energy. August 3, Fuel economy standards have affected vehicle efficiency Source: U. Energy Information Administration, based on U.

Cars and station wagons fall under the category of passenger cars while all pickups, vans and sport-utility vehicles SUVs are classified as light-duty trucks. The compliance-tested estimate is an MPG value for all vehicle classes which is sales-weighted and includes earned CAFE trading credits. Source: U.