Photo by Laffy4k. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

There's already a lot of calculation needed to figure out how efficient a vehicle is. Here in the U.S., the government tries to help by publishing official MPG numbers of the various models offered for sale. But these numbers just muddy things up, say two management professors - Richard Larrick and Jack Soll - over at Duke University. Thinking in terms of miles per gallon doesn't give people a good understanding of a vehicle's real efficiency when compared to other vehicles.

In Europe, for example, mileage figures are given in liters per kilometers. There are online calculators we can use to figure out what the MPG equivalents are, but the Duke profs think we should be moving to a gallons per mile model here in the U.S. That way, people might begin to see that trading a 14mpg SUV for a 21mpg hybrid version, for example, saves more fuel than trading in a 35mpg sedan for a 50mpg Prius. Right now, very few consumers realize this when they're out debating which car to buy. Sure, a Prius burns less fuel than a SUV hybrid over the same distance, no question, but there's something to be said for the seemingly mediocre fuel economy improvements made in the low-mpg segments. From the pres release pasted after the jump:

• Most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50 mpg as saving more gas over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28 mpg, even though the latter saves twice as much gas. (Going from 34 to 50 mpg saves 94 gallons; but from 18 to 28 mpg saves 198 gallons).

This is something we've pointed out on AutoblogGreen before, but we're glad to have some research on public (mis-)understanding of the numbers to refer back to in the future. The main point is that we need to prioritize getting the most inefficient vehicles off the road, not trying to get everyone into a hyper-efficient hybrid. You can listen to a three-minute interview with Richard Larrick on NPR.

The average cost for Detroit's Big Three automakers to meet the proposed fuel efficiency targets of 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015 has been pegged at $30.6 billion. In contrast, the average cost for the Japanese automakers sits at less than half that amount at "only" $14.85 billion. These numbers come courtesy of a recent study by Global Insight. In a real shocker, General Motors alone is expected to pay out $15 billion alone. Why the disparity? Simple: the Japanese brands already offer more fuel efficient models. With that reasoning, it seems unlikely that the U.S. companies will get much sympathy from the buying public.

Global Insight also predicts that many new technologies which are just beginning to make a dent in sales today will make up a huger percentage of sales by 2015. These new developments include direct injection, turbocharging and diesel engines. Hybrids, the current darling of the fuel efficient crowd, will continue to gain market share, especially as more new models are rolled out which feature the hybrid drivetrain as an option or as standard equipment.

There is a glimmer of hope out there for automakers which are finding it tough to move vehicles in today's troubled climate. Global Insight predicts that there will be a pent-up demand for the replacement of aging models which owners have clung to in the face of high gas prices and a poor U.S. economy sometime around the year 2015.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

While his former employer and their competitors have been rolling in record profits for yet another quarter, Sir Mark Moody-Stewart thinks things need to change. Moody-Stewart was the former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell until his retirement in 2005. In an editorial posted on the BBC web site, the former oil company exectutive makes it clear that he feels the way energy drives the world's economy needs to change. According to Moody-Stewart, the sources of energy need to change radically. At a minimum, at least half of of the carbon content in our energy supplies needs to be eliminated in the future, and the amount of energy needed to produce every unit of GDP also needs to be halved.

While Moody-Stewart believes in consumer choice and market forces, he also acknowledges that they both tend to lead to short-term thinking. People will tend to make the decisions that benefit themselves now, rather than years into the future. Some degree of government regulation is necessary in order to channel those forces so that people are encouraged to make decisions that will lead to better outcomes. It's definitely a refreshing change from a long-time oil company executive. With world energy requirements expected to increase 70 percent by 2030 from 2006 levels, it's clear that simply changing the sources of energy won't be enough. At the same time, because of the time and development that needs to happen, the transition needs to start happening now before the cost of fossil fuels becomes so high that economies are destroyed.

[Source: BBC]