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On Fuel Economy Efforts, U.S. Faces an Elusive Target
On Fuel Economy Efforts, U.S. Faces an Elusive Target
One of President Obama’s signature achievements on climate has been strict new standards aimed at improving fuel efficiency to nearly 55 miles per gallon by 2025. But credits and loopholes, coupled with low gas prices, may mean the U.S. will fall well short of this ambitious goal.
Five years ago, flanked by auto industry executives at a Washington, D.C. auto show, President Obama announced a historic agreement to increase fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for cars and light-duty trucks. “By 2025,” the President said, “the average fuel economy of their vehicles will nearly double to almost 55 miles per gallon.” The White House predicted the new rules would save car buyers about $1.7 trillion at the pump and eliminate about 6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the program. That’s more than a year’s worth of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide.
If only it were so simple. But nothing is simple about the government’s sweeping attempt to curb climate emissions and oil imports by requiring auto companies to sell cars that are cleaner and more efficient.
Start with that frequently quoted 54.5 mile-per-gallon projection, which is not even close to the miles-per-gallon estimates pasted on the windows of new cars in dealer showrooms today, let alone the fuel economy that drivers would experience on the road in 2025. The government’s calculations take into account a dizzying array of adjustments and credits, for everything from electric cars, flex-fuel vehicles, energy-efficient air conditioning, and rooftop solar panels. Automakers also get credits for outperforming the standards in the years before they took effect in 2012.
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Cheating, No Problem: Automakers Win Again in Europe
Cheating, No Problem: Automakers Win Again in Europe
They run the show.
Brussels, Europe: A more wretched hive of corporate lobbyists, law firms, and money-grubbing apparatchiks you will struggle to find. The latest example of lobbying influence is one of the most egregious yet, since it will affect the quality (or lack thereof) of the air breathed by millions of Europeans for the foreseeable future.
Tough Talking
From September 1, 2017, new car models will have to pass a new emissions test before they can be put on the market. According to many headlines, the new tests are much tougher than the previous ones. “EU Car Emissions: Tough New Tests Backed,” proclaims the BBC. “EU Parliament Takes ToughStance on Emissions Tests,” thunders the trade journal Automotive News Europe.
The word “tough” normally evokes the idea of strength or resolution, something that is not easily broken or made weaker or defeated. Not so in this case. In the EU’s “tough” new tests, car models sold after September 2017 will not be allowed to “exceed nitrogen oxide emission levels by more than twice the technical limit,” reports the BBC.
Put another way, cars will be allowed to spew out twice the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) – or as a matter of fact, more than that (110%) – until 2020, and by up to 50% more from then on. The EU has just dramatically raised the emission limit instead of lowering it. So much for toughness.
The really funny thing (in the classic “if you don’t laugh, you have to cry” sort of way) is that the main purpose of the new rules is to regain public trust and confidence in Europe’s car industry.
“Public trust and consumer protection are at stake,” the European Union’s industrial policy chief, Elzbieta Bienkowska, told a business audience in Brussels on Oct. 22. “The only way in which we will restore public confidence is by acting quickly, collectively, coherently, and effectively. National authorities must play their role and work as active partners.”
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