As gas prices continue to hover between “Aww I guess I won’t get dessert with dinner on Friday” and, “Aww I guess my kids can pay for college themselves or become street performers,” more people in the United States are finally coming around to the notion that it’s slightly damaging, to the environment and (most important to them) their wallets, to drive around in a gargantuan truck or mock military vehicle getting 13 miles to the gallon when the only “precious cargo” they’ll ever need to carry is their double chocolate ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Bit of a cynical intro? Maybe. But the point remains that cars with better fuel efficiency are soaring in popularity in the present day. There are a few pertinent reasons for why this is happening.

The most important reason why more fuel efficient cars are being spit out of US factories today is simple: because the government is requiring them to. Former President George W. Bush’s administration, not exactly known by reputation for its green thumb, raised the fuel efficiency standards of US automakers back in 2007. Current President Barack Obama just raised them even higher in 2012, shooting for a rather optimistic goal of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Obama’s hopeful increase will be easily the largest mandate for fuel economy since the government started measuring fuel economy in 1970.

US car company executives were infuriated to a point of “camp-out on the Washington lawn” protests back in 2007/2008, but the new increase in standards faced extremely little resistance from producers. This could be partially due to the nearly $80 billion dollar bailout that president Obama orchestrated for General Motors and Chrysler (including their parts suppliers) between 2008 and 2010. That kind of handout money will make companies tolerate a whole lot of new mandates. However that likely isn’t the only reason executives don’t mind adhering to the new law.

The second big reason car companies in America don’t mind pumping out new better fuel efficient cars is that they are becoming more and more profitable by the year. When at one time, “the Detroit automakers lost money on most of their small cars, which they built mainly to push up their fleetwide mileage ratings,” it is now becoming possible to turn a large profit on smaller more fuel efficient cars. Companies can make cars more fuel efficient while at the same time keeping their cars on the cutting edge of technology, and conveniently enough the two endeavors are often achievable hand-in-hand. For instance, “Ford now offers a V-6 “ecoboost” engine on its F-150 pickup truck that generates more horsepower and torque than a V-8 that’s available—with slightly better mileage.” There is concern that the new technologies will cost consumers more when buying a car, but the hope is that mileage increases will save consumers enough at the pump annually to balance out the increased costs.

This mandated increase in efficiency is great for consumers, it seems to be great for car manufacturers who are recovering soundly from their near collapse just a few years ago, and most importantly it is good for the planet. The White House touched on how the mandate will reduce our thirst for oil significantly, saying, “these programs will dramatically reduce our reliance on foreign oil, saving a total of 12 billion barrels of oil and reducing oil consumption by more than 2 million barrels a day by 2025 — as much as half of the oil we import from OPEC each day.” More fuel efficiency also means less carbon emissions and a change in a more positive direction in regards to addressing the climate change issue. The government has claimed that “The mileage rules will cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks in half by 2025.”

I think it’s a wonderful thing that we’re seeing a dwindling amount of Hummers on the road and an increasing amount of Priuses and Chevy Volts. While more people driving more efficient vehicles will not come close to completely erasing the decades of neglect when it came to what our cars were shooting out of their exhaust pipes, it is definitely a change for the better. The government mandating this increase in efficiency seems to be a rare occasion where the government stepped in to make a fix for something and didn’t completely screw one part of society over; everyone wins here!

Sources:

Rick Newman – US News.com, August 27th, 2012 – http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/08/27/tough-government-gas-mileage-rules-good-for-drivers-auto-industry

CBS/Associated Press – CBS News, August 28th, 2012 – http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57501765/new-fuel-standards-aim-to-double-gas-mileage/

Bill Vlasic – NY Times, July 18th, 2011 – http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/business/carmakers-back-strict-new-rules-for-gas-mileage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0