Filed under: MPG, Legislation and Policy
Survey shows 3 out of 4 Americans favor 40 mpg by 2010
According to a survey conducted for the Civil Society Institute (CSI) and 40mpg.org more than three out of four Americans (76 percent) -- including 78 percent of 2008 voters -- want Congress to raise the mile-per-gallon (MPG) requirement sharply now to 40 mpg by 2010 rather than waiting to reach a more modest MPG goal by 2018
The survey also offers some interesting findings of the CSI/40MPG.org. One is the very little difference between Democrats, Independents or Republicans. Another interesting finding is that 53 percent said they would be more likely to support a candidate who advocated a 40 mpg fuel-efficiency standard as a way to lower global warming and reduce U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Over a quarter of Americans (28 percent) say that a 40 mpg stance would make them likely to support a candidate, and only 15 percent say it would make them less likely to back such a candidate.
This survey was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation among a sample of 1,013 adults (504 men and 509 women) aged 18 and over living in private households in the Continental United States during April 19-22, 2007.
We have mentioned a few times on how good it would be to have such cars overnight. But are Americans really willing to trade V8s and or SUVs for hybrids, smaller cars or other alternatives?
Related:
- Automakers pushing for CAFE alternatives, might call for 36 mpg car standards
- One car dealer's take on the domestic auto industry's stance on fuel mileage
- Michigan residents support 40 mpg and think auto industry in trouble
- Only two 40+ mpg models available in the U.S., 113 overseas
[Source CSI via Winding Road]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris 9:04PM (6/06/2007)
40mpg by '10 would be dam near impossible.
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Chris 9:05PM (6/06/2007)
*damn
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scappy 9:31PM (6/06/2007)
This is like having a survey if you would like to make another 10% a year in salary. Ofcourse the general public thinks 40mpg by 2010 is a good idea. Little do the public and the government understand that CAFE does not do its job too well. The government would be better off focusing on reforming the Gas Guzzler Tax.
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Mulad 9:48PM (6/06/2007)
Yeah, I think getting to 40 mpg in just three years would be quite the leap. You might barely reach that goal if all of the cars suddenly had variable valve timing, cylinder deactivation, direct injection, turbocharging, start/stop systems, intelligent alternators, and DSG-style transmissions. If you wanted to maintain the same level of performance, anyway (the shortcut is simply to reduce displacement). The technology to do it exists, but combining it into U.S.-market vehicles will take a bit of time. That said, I'd be fairly happy with 32 mpg in 2010, 35 in 2012, and 40 in 2015.
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mikeinBuilding7 10:41PM (6/06/2007)
An across the board cut of 50hp gets you 3mpg right there.
- Then there's 1-2 mpg highway for a 5 speed automatic across the board.
- Then there's 1 mpg with cylinder cut off.
- Then there's putting the high-tech of engine breathing, which the auto
industry ONLY puts into the high horsepower engines.
So, I've got 6 without breaking a sweat.
Drop the size of then engine and you can drop the size of the radiator, transmission, rear, brakes and some parts of the suspension.
On the question of will Americans give up their high horsepower V8's?
Again, to me, when Big Engines Are Not an Option BUT a Requirement in U.S. SUV's, that looks like PROTECTING Big Oil and Screwing the U.S. Consumer. All you have to do is Sit in Traffic with a 400hp engine for a day or two to realize that this is crazy.
Take an informal poll of your friends, did any of them ASK for a High Horsepower engine? I know many people who looked at the Most Fuel efficient engine when they bought their SUV. Just because you buy an SUV doesn't mean you want some stupid sized engine.
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Joseph 12:20AM (6/07/2007)
This is STUPID.
Anyone will say, "Yes, I want a high-mpg car." But then when they go to buy a car, they'll see that you can have a 50mpg 100hp car or a 25mpg 200hp car and they'll say, "But I need the bigger engine! I need the bigger car! Auto companies are bad and terrible for not providing me huge cars that don't get high-mpg. Bad, bad car companies!"
The public seems to think that with some magic technology you can have high-mpg cars all over the place. It ain't that simple. (I know I said ain't. I just like the way it sounds.)
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Todd 8:52AM (6/07/2007)
congress doesn't need to do anything to raise fuel effeciency of cars. If there was customer demand for high mpg then the auto makers would produce those cars. Right now there is only limited demand for high mpg cars, and so there are limited choices.
There are thousands of tradeoffs that are made in designing a car. You could save weight and therefore increase fuel economy by removing air bags, abs braking systems, power windows, power seats, DVD players, NAV systems, only having two speakers etc. But most people will trade the fuel economy for these features.
Remember the most effective way to make you voice heard is with your dollar.
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Scott 9:52AM (6/07/2007)
#5 - I'm calling BS on your 6mpg claims. Since when does 50hp less equate to 3mpg savings? Where's the data to support that one? If anything, as an engine gets more efficient (i.e. less frictional or heat losses) both its power and mpg will improve. What you seem to think is that by lowering hp magically mpg will improve, simply not the case. Maybe if engine SIZE went down, and indirectly hp went down with it it's marginally possible that mpg may go up, but then look at several recent examples of larger engines getting higher mpg than their smaller predecessors and you're concept is even more flawed. I do agree with higher numbers of tranny gears, that does work, as does cylinder cutoff. And come on, you really think the automakers don't engineer in high-tech engine intakes into small engines? Give me a break. Sounds like some sort of conspiracy paranoia on your part.
And again, try driving a large SUV/truck with anything other than a powerful V8 these days. You can't motivate a vehicle of that size with a small 4-cylinder, I'm sorry. Yes, most people don't need them, but to suggest that they'd be okay with much smaller engines is false. Maybe small diesels with good torque, but we don't have those yet. Besides, like I mentioned before, just because the engine is putting out 400hp instead of the 200hp a similar engine made 20years ago doesn't mean it is LESS efficient, if anything the exact opposite is true. Today's high-power engines are a direct result of INCREASED efficiency. Also, go look up the mpg of most "crossover" SUV's versus many BOF SUV's, the differences in mpg for many is negligible.
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BILL 10:28AM (6/07/2007)
It is obvious that 3 out of 4 people being surveyed do not have a clue. Getting 40 mpg can be done but not in 98% of what is being sold new today. Example - I had a 1988 Honda CRX Si with a 5 speed manual transmission. Driving very easily about 90% of the time, shifting gears around 2500 rpm, getting into 5th gear as soon as possible, really paying attention to being smooth got me 37 mpg on average for 40,000 miles. Highway mileage reached 43 mpg. The car weighed 2,000 pounds and did not have air conditioning. Automatic transmissions are not well suited to achieve high miles per gallon numbers. A well driven manual transmission will beat a well driven automatic transmission, and Americans in general have gone away from shifting their own gears.
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MikeW 1:05PM (6/07/2007)
Diesel already beats that. You can get 45mpg (diesel has 11% more energy, so 44.4 equivalency) in the '06 VW diesel DSG.
http://www.caranddriver.com/shortroadtests/11034/short-take-review-2006-volkswagen-jetta-tdi-2006-volkswagen-jetta-tdi-specs-page2.html
and that 105hp (electric power steering and front mounted intercooler raise the power from the previous 99hp) take the car easily past 100mph, but less than 125mph.
What is a high performance intake, 4 valves per cylinder-everyone has that? The homely honda R18A1 has a dual length intake manifold.
6 speed automatics should be the baseline, no more wasting fuel in an open torque converter.
If Ford wanted to, they could make a 'large' inline4 (variable intake & exhaust valve timing, the advanced balance shafts), say ~3 liters 100mm bore x 95mm stroke ~200hp@6000 200ft-lbs@4000.
That could push an Expedition, no problem, if it had a transmission (6 speed automatic or better, 8 speed auto would be nice) and correct axle ratio. It wouldn't pull a top gear of 40mph / 1000, but it could pull 25 mph/1K (borrow the 5.38 axle ratio from the superduty). So pulling a trailer/boat you wouldn't use 6th gear, you'd tootle around on the flat and level in 5th, and when you hit a hill, you downshift to 4th. and if the air filter is loaded up, and you are at altitude into a headwind, then you'd be in 3rd.
But they have their 3.5 V6, or even 4.6V8.
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PSchager 3:40PM (6/07/2007)
My '81 Rabbit Diesel still gets >40 mpg, and it runs great on biodiesel too, so almost carbon neutral. So I have little patience for an auto industry that says a quarter-century later that it's just too hard to do that, even on average cars.
What they mean is, it's not feasible consistent with their business objectives, since they placed their bets on the market where you profit by super-sizing. To shift gears and make money taking business away from the oil companies would take years, so they always ask for the game not to be changed. They're addicted to the super-size game (which Congress set them up in, under the helpful advice of their biggest contributors, the oil companies).
I've concluded that very few people think through how the market really works. Only the new car buyer sees the mpg rating in the window sticker when shopping for a car; he has the car for maybe a quarter of its life. The new car buyer is relatively well-to-do and doesn't much care, and if he does only to the extent efficiency enhancements pay back in the 4 years he typically owns the car, or less. The used car buyer hardly ever even knows what the mpg is so the market value of the efficiency enhancements is lost.
So it's perfectly natural that 3 out of 4 people would want the government to require this push up from what the market deems acceptable mpg; 3 out of 4 people take what they can get off the used market and are the ones who do care about the mpg, so it's in their interest, the only way they can get their bills down.
Used car labeling or permanent labeling of the mpg ratings on cars would greatly increase the mpg that is "feasible".
40 mpg would be easily achieved by ceasing production of the dangerous oversized SUV's that we already have too many of on the roads and by introducing plug-in hybrids, which would pull up the average a lot.
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jnaggs 3:54PM (6/07/2007)
mikew, 200 torq is no where near enough for a 6000 lbs suv. not even close. you would have to rev the heck out of the engine to be able to get anywhere. it would not be more efficient than a larger engine that produces its torque at lower rpm.
big vehicles need big engines. the idea that all else being equal, a smaller engine will get better milage, is incorrect. it takes a specific ammount of energy to accelerate a vehicle of a given weight. a small engine is efficient at producing a relativly small amount of power, a big engine is efficient at producing a larger amount of power. by putting an engine that has to struggle to move a vehicle, you have a very slow vehicle that gets worse milage than the larger engine would have been able to deliver.
engineers are smart people, they know what they are doing. this whole concept that the automakers just need a kick in the pants to produce efficient vehicles is just wrong. if it were possible to produce a ford extinction that got 40 mpg for anything close to a reasonable sum of money, they would already be doing it.
the % of americans who wish it were different is irrelivant when the laws of physics get a vote.
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MikeW 6:41PM (6/07/2007)
No, with modern variable valve timing (vane phasers on intake/exhaust) the BSFC curve has a broad trough at its minima. To Ford's credit, they don't claim that the VCT is variable valve timing, unlike GM.
Toyota 2gr-fe V6
http://www.worldcarfans.com/photos.cfm/photoid/3060316.002/pageview/photo/photo/1027/size/large/country/jcf/lexus/lexus-rx-350
So, make the stall speed is 3000rpm (and it makes 90% of max torque there-use that tumble ramp design of the 'world engines')
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/world-engine.html
say the torque converter has a 2:1 multiplication, 1st gear of the ZF 6hp21 is 4.171, the axle ratio is 5.38:1. That is ~7500ft-lbs of axle torque at move off (if need be)
So 1st gear 20mph@5000, 2nd-40mph~5650, 3rd-70mph@6150, 4th 95mph@6300, 5th-115mph@5750 6th105@4200
But Ford has their small bore, extremely undersquare 5.4. Didn't Ford say in a print ad for the F-150, 80% of peak torque @ 1000rpm. It has plenty of low end, 90% of peak power@4000.
So what ford, the F-150 doesn't have a 6 speed auto, yet.
ZF's 8 speed auto would be even better. 6th gear = 20mph / 1K
1st-20, 2nd-35, 3rd-55, 4th-75, 5th-95, 6th-120, 7th-110, 8th-95
But this is all academic.
I remember a bunch of years ago, I drove an expedition for a week. 5.4 260hp@4500 350ft-lbs@2500 (actually better bottom end than the current 5.4 24 valve) 2500 stall speed converter (fast off the line, but did it guzzle gas, 10mpg over the week) 3.73 axle ratio, 100mph in 3rd was 4000 (240hp there) Stupid 4 speed automatic.
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mikeinBuilding7 9:18PM (6/07/2007)
Hear's REAL WORLD comparison of two Honda's:
Honda Accord 3.0L V6 244hp City 20mpg
Honda Accord 2.4L 4Cyl 166hp City 24mpg
78 hp difference
4mpg difference
A DROP of 19.5 hp = an Increase of 1mpg
Roughly 20hp = 1MPG
From this you can see how easily the Auto Industry can REPEAL the effect of the Prius simply by jumping from 300hp to 400hp in their lux offerings, while at the same time selling "green" vehicles. Just as long as there is no increase in the FLEET AVERAGE they can keep those ExxonMobile Kickbacks Flowing.
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mikeinBuilding7 10:03PM (6/07/2007)
#5 what #10 is saying is you can do it with GEARS.
In general GEARS act as a MULTIPLIER of the available torque from the engine. You don't actually NEED a high horsepower V8 in these Pickup's. But, the V8 coupled with ONLY a 4 speed Automatic Transmission is the MOST EFFECTIVE way GM and Ford have found to Sell Trucks and BURN GAS for the Oil Industry/42% ownership of Auto Industry Stock.
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BC 9:02AM (6/08/2007)
Yes, I would also like to eat chocolate and ice cream at each meal and still lose weight!
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OilKills 3:26PM (6/11/2007)
The best way for automakers to produce cars that get 40mpg is for gas to hit $5 /gal.
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Bill 4:40PM (6/12/2007)
Diesel will do it.
A modern diesel V6 will move your 6000lb. SUV around just fine.
You'll be MUCH happier with the fuel cost.
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Nathan 4:20AM (7/11/2007)
Im from the UK, I don't see how hard it is to get better fueleconomy? I drive a Ford Focus 1.8 TDCI (Turbo Diesel) and I happily get 51mpg and when I put my foot down it cruises nicely up to 130mph.It has plenty of torque (184 lb-ft), it has a spacious interior, air conditioning, cruise control, full electric pack, power steering etc etc and will happily pull a caravan, trailer and another car! It can plod along for thousands of miles and be as reliable as when I first baught it!
Check it out:
http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/specs/data-detail.aspx?deriv=26189
Why do americans have to have such BIG cars and why do they have to drive 4x4 when they live in cities?? 4x4's were invented to that you can go offroad, whats the point when you dont take it off road, your just wasting money and polluting the environment.
Why do they drive 6.0 litre V8's instead of 2.0 litres? It isnt going to get you there any faster, 2.0 litres have plenty of power and if you arent going to be going faster than 125mph what does it matter??
In the UK we benefit from 40+ mpg in nearly all cars and the newer cars have 60+ mpg, I think the almighty USA has messed up somewhere along the way.
Even our 4x4's have 20-30mpg and they only usually have 2.0-3.5 litre engines not 6.0, or 7.0 etc etc!!
The simple thing is:
Reduce weight in SUV's and cars therefore reducing the engine size. (i.e. lighter materials such as carbon fibre + aluminium)
Use diesel instead engines instead of petrol
If you dont need an SUV dont get one! (our road tax for SUVs is going up to £400 per year next year thats nearly $800 per year!)
I hope I haven't offended anyone but can you understand what I am saying?
I think the Europeans have the lead on this one!
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