Public Citizen | Auto Safety Group | Auto Safety - Comments of Public Citizen Regarding: Light Truck Average Fuel Economy Standard, Model Year 2004

DOT Docket No. NHTSA 2001-11048
Docket Management
U.S. Department of Transportation
Room PL-401
400 Seventh Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590

Public Citizen is deeply disappointed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) proposal to leave Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards unchanged at 20.7 mpg for the light truck fleet in model year 2004, as stated in NHTSA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2002. This decision abdicates the agency’s duty under existing law to give full consideration to available technology, manufacturer capabilities, and environmental concerns, and ignores relevant foreign policy goals. It would be shameful to waste this opportunity for NHTSA to raise light truck fleet fuel economy.

Congress prohibited NHTSA from spending any money for research or the promulgation of new light truck standards from 1995 until December 2001. Congress lifted the ban in the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) appropriations bill for fiscal year 2002 (HR 2299), allowing NHTSA to independently set light truck fleet standards once again.

NHTSA cites this six-year ban on spending as the basis for their failure to increase standards to the level prescribed by Title 49, Section 32902(a) of the United States Code (USC), which states in part: "Each standard shall be the maximum feasible average fuel economy level that the Secretary decides the manufacturers can achieve in that model year."

The agency’s NPRM suggests that this requirement cannot be met, and that therefore no new standard will be adopted by the agency:

As the agency was unable, from 1995 to mid-December 2001, to spend any funds for the collection and analysis of data relating to CAFE levels, it has not been able to lay the factual or analytical foundation necessary to develop a proposed standard other than one at 20.7 mpg, the level of the MY 1996-2003 standards.

It is unfortunate that the automotive industry has been able to use the Congressional appropriations process to deny the agency resources for CAFE. However, this does not justify the agency’s timidity in setting standards for the future as it is now permitted to do. Due to the many years of lax requirements, much more can be done by automakers than the agency’s inaction would suggest.

The auto industry has the capacity to sell a fleet with an average fuel economy well above the current standard, even within the time constraints imposed by the rulemaking process. Industry comments, independent analyses of automotive technology, and recent product announcements all point to the feasibility of better short-term performance.

In July 2000, Ford pledged to improve the fuel economy of their sport utility vehicles (SUVs) by 25 percent by 2005. General Motors and Daimler-Chrysler quickly echoed this pledge with promises not to be outdone by Ford.

This gamesmanship over light truck fuel economy performance demonstrates that the industry recognizes its own unrealized short-term potential in this area.

The industry is well aware that their light truck fleets are disproportionately responsible for oil consumption in the United States, and that they have the means to reduce the impact these vehicles have on our oil imports, environment and foreign relations. In May of 2000, Ford Motor Company released a Corporate Citizenship report, "Connecting With Society," which admitted that:

With a few exceptions, [Ford’s] products are not industry leading in fuel economy. In addition, although consumer research shows that fuel economy is not a significant buying criterion in most segments of the North American market, it also shows that customers in Europe and North America alike would prefer the fuel economy of their vehicles improved.

As reported by Keith Bradsher of The New York Times, Ford’s report admits that SUVs have "contributed more than cars to global warming, emitted more smog-causing pollution and endangered other motorists." Bradsher noted that the company faced an "awkward situation" because "its most profitable products do not meet its goals for social responsibility."

Ford’s Corporate Citizenship report also quoted a Sierra Club document stating that "the gas-guzzling SUV is a rolling monument to environmental destruction." Admissions like these would only be made if the auto companies knew they could do better – and indeed they can.

The auto industry has consistently improved fuel efficiency over the years, but has not used these savings for better fuel economy performance

Fuel efficiency, or the measure of how much gas a vehicle uses to propel itself given a set of vehicle characteristics, has been improved by an average of 1.5 percent each year since 1987, and an average of 2 percent each year since 1977.(1) Honda Motor Company and DaimlerChrysler cited these statistics to demonstrate the auto industry’s capacity to reduce fuel consumption for their customers.

But, nearly all of the gains they have made in fuel efficiency have been used to increase vehicle weight and add energy-inefficient accessories to the vehicle. In testimony beefore the Senate Commerce Committee in January 2002, Honda stated that "if the current car fleet were still at 1981 performance, weight, and transmission levels, the passenger car CAFE would be almost 36 mpg," a 28 percent increase over today’s performance.(3)

If automakers were to apply one year’s worth of these gains to improve the fleet fuel economy of their 2004 vehicles, they could increase fleet performance by .2 mpg and could increase fuel economy by 1 mpg over 5 years with little effort. This may be a small amount, but it is still less than what NHTSA is asking of them. If they combined this gain with weight reduction in their heaviest vehicles, fleet fuel economy could be substantially increased, even without significant expenditures.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out in "Drilling in Detroit," a report released in 2001, that today’s vehicles could become more fuel efficient at a price that would easily be made up in savings on fuel costs, and the necessary changes would have no negative impact on safety. Technologies currently used in portions of today’s fleet, if adopted fleetwide, could make vehicles more streamlined, less fuel intensive, and more efficient. A partial list of these technologies includes the following:

Aerodynamic improvements – reducing vehicle drag by reducing their profiles;
Rolling resistance improvements – changing tread designs and rubber quality on tires;
Safety enhancing mass reduction – increasing the use of plastics, aluminum and high strength steel;
Accessory load reduction – using more energy efficient electric accessories that draw less power from the battery;
Variable valve control engines – used in Honda’s VTEC engine, allowing valves to be adjusted for better engine performance;
Stoichiometric burn gasoline direct injection engines – introducing fuel directly to the engine cylinder;
Integrated starter generators – allowing engines to turn off rather than idling when the car is not in use;
5- and 6- speed automatic transmissions – increasing opportunities for engines to run at their efficiency "sweet spot;"
5-speed motorized gearshift transmissions – mimicking the performance of a manual with the ease of an automatic;
Optimized shift schedules – using electronics and sensors to improve automatic transmission performance;
Continuously variable transmissions – providing complete control over the relationship between engine speed and vehicle speed.(4)

The UCS has not limited their research to the hypothetical realm. With technologies currently used in mass production by at least one company, and basing their design on the current Ford Explorer, the UCS designed a new vehicle that increased the real world fuel economy of the Explorer by 50 percent while improving zero to sixty performance by 1.7 seconds and saving 4 percent ($1,577 in gasoline costs) over the lifetime cost of the unimproved vehicle (See Table 1). Adding technologies currently entering the market to their design, they were able to improve fuel economy by 75 percent, creating a vehicle that would test at 34.1 mpg and save 6 percent ($2,163) over the lifetime cost.(5)

Ford’s Explorer currently fails to meet the very modest 20.7 mpg CAFE standard for light trucks, getting just 19 mpg. With the improvements implemented by the UCS using currently available technology, the same vehicle surpassed the current 27 mpg CAFE standard for passenger cars. Since currently available technology could dramatically raise fuel economy performance, it stands to reason that minor adjustments could raise fuel economy by more modest amounts in the short-run.

Automakers are planning to launch light trucks with greatly improved fuel economy performance

Ford announced in August of 2000 that they would release a hybrid SUV, the Ford Escape, in 2003. The Escape is projected to deliver city fuel economy performance of 40 mpg, compared with highway performance of 28 mpg in the gas-powered version due out later this year. DaimlerChrysler quickly jumped on board, announcing that they would release a hybrid Dodge Durango in 2003. GM made similar pronouncements about adding hybrid technology to their light trucks, though their claims were considerably more general than those of the other two manufacturers.

All of the Big 3 automakers have products in production that will greatly surpass the fuel economy performance of today’s fleet. Including them in the 2004 sales mix will raise the average manufacturer’s performance considerably. NHTSA has an opportunity to encourage innovation among the manufacturers and prevent them from offsetting these gains by selling more guzzlers. It should take advantage of this opportunity.

NHTSA is required under 49 USC 32902(f) to consider four criteria when setting fuel economy standards: technological feasibility, economic practicability, the effect of other motor vehicle standards of the government on fuel economy, and the needs of the United States to conserve energy. The work done by the UCS and the admissions of the automakers (both described above) demonstrate that raising CAFE standards for light trucks is both technologically feasible and economically practical.

Since no major government standards have recently been enacted that would affect fuel economy, the only remaining criteria for the agency should be the conservation needs of the United States. At this time, those needs are greater than ever. The administration has emphasized the importance of reducing America’s energy consumption and reliance on foreign oil, so it is perplexing that NHTSA is failing to act in accordance with the administration’s stated goals. As the National Energy Policy Development Group stated in its May 2001 report, "America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargoes of the 1970s"

Our nation’s foreign policy compromises in the Middle East have been brought into sharp focus by the events of the past six months. Ninety-three percent of Americans believe the United States should require cars to get better gas mileage to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,(6) and 61 percent believe that greater conservation of energy supplies is an important piece of the solution to our energy problems.(7) Slowing the flow of foreign oil into this country is an important national policy objective. NHTSA has an opportunity and a statutory obligation to assist our nation in meeting this objective; letting this opportunity pass will only delay the day when we must reckon with our deadly addiction to petroleum from abroad.

It is unfortunate that NHTSA does not believe it has the necessary information to raise light truck fuel economy standards for 2004. While the agency has been hamstrung by Congress in previous years, all the evidence cited above suggests that manufacturers could certainly meet the goals of a modest short-run elevation of the standard. Since the standard first reached its current level in 1985, the auto manufacturers have made great strides in improving the fuel efficiency of their vehicles. Independent observers agree that there are further gains to come each year for the foreseeable future.

Public Citizen proposes that the agency use the promise made by Ford to increase the fuel economy of its SUVs by 25 percent by 2005 as a baseline for what the industry’s capacity for non-disruptive improvement might be. Because this announcement was followed by copycat statements from GM and DaimlerChrysler, it can be assumed that Ford’s target is indicative of broader industry capabilities.

An example of how this would work: Improving SUV fuel economy by 25 percent would increase the total fuel economy of Ford’s light truck fleet by approximately 7 percent in 2005, given the product mix of that fleet. NHTSA should hold automakers to these pledges by requiring that they meet a substantial portion of this target by 2004 – a 4 percent increase would result in a light truck CAFE standard of 21.5 mpg. Even if manufacturers did not meet the 2004 standard, they could then outperform the 2005 standard and use their accumulated credits to cover their earlier failure to comply.

The final standard would require more detailed analysis by the agency, but no more than would be possible by their April deadline for issuing the standard.

At a minimum, NHTSA should be confident that manufacturers could easily meet a 2004 CAFE standard of 20.9 mpg, or .2 mpg above the current standard that first went into effect in 1985. This number would reflect the historic ability of manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency by 1.5 percent each year and would even leave some room to use fuel efficiency gains on other aspects of the vehicle.

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