230 MPG or Whatever

Rumor has it that the Chevy Volt will get a 230 mile per gallon rating from the EPA. I'm calling BS on this one.

Without other energy input there is no way a Chevy Volt will be able to go 230 miles on one gallon of gasoline. I've gone into detail about this before here.

These types of claims are damaging to the nascent EV and hybrid vehicle industry. There's already too much hype and vaporware out there, the last thing that's needed is for a major company and the government to exacerbate the situation.

This is a prime example of regulations lagging technology. A clear way of defining energy efficiency for vehicles that don't run exclusively on liquid fuel has not been established by EPA. There's also the specter of government ownership in the company (GM) leading to self-serving circumstances.

One Nationwide Fuel Economy Standard

Finally, something rational is being attempted. All along industry has been telling the regulators there needs to be one nationwide standard for emissions and fuel economy. Having multiple standards would be shortsighted and just plain senseless.

The states cannot go off and set their own standards because that will result in a far greater compliance and administrative burden with no clear benefits. Air doesn't stay within state or national borders.

Automotive News and the NY Times (among others) reports that tomorrow the EPA will announce that there will be a single national standard in place for the years 2012-2016. Granted it comes with tough fuel economy standards (basically California's standards - kind of a trojan horse-esque move) but at least everyone will know the rules and be able to get on with the job of actually building cars. Expect a fleet average of 35 mpg in 2016.

The CAFE program is fundamentally flawed (I promise I'll eventually get around to that topic) but this development at least provides some concrete targets for the next several years.

States Shouldn’t Regulate Vehicle Emissions

The new Obama administration has decided to direct the EPA to review whether states such as California should be permitted to enact tougher fuel economy standards on auto manufacturers to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. While reducing GHG emissions and oil consumption is a great goal, letting states do so is not the way to go about it.

If anything, EPA should handle it. There should be Federal preemption on all emissions regulations for mobile sources. Unless cars never cross state lines, letting states regulate them is a huge potential regulatory burden and an impediment to interstate commerce without any clear benefits.

In the long term increasing the CAFE figure (regulated by NHTSA) is good. Requiring a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2020 is not that high of a hurdle. It’s going to get a lot of needlessly excessive vehicles off the road. But that doesn’t come without a price. The cost of the technology will increase vehicle prices, manufacturers will have to redirect and commit extra R&D funds, and there will be a steep learning curve where new cars may not live up to expectations. Regulation tends to disrupt “business as usual” and leads to (sometimes ungainly) innovation. But it happens over time. Trying to compress it into too short a time is going to result in a lot more unintended outcomes and drive up the cost.

Also, the unrealistic concept of changing the regulations for 2011 is akin to rulemaking after the fact. The specifications for new models to be launched then are already frozen. Some will be launched in 2010. And that doesn’t include vehicles that are already in production that will still be in production then. It’s less than two years away. No matter what the rules say, it isn’t going to happen. I suspect this part of it is posturing for negotiations about the 2015 time-frame and beyond.

My recommendation would be to only allow the Federal government to regulate mobile emissions and accelerate the CAFE requirements starting around 2015 by etching the requirements in stone for the period of 2015-2025 by the end of 2009 so that manufacturers have the assurance of regulatory stability and can commit to investing toward those goals.