as the cars they produced were on a truck platform.
counted in CAFE.
efficiency was castigated.
Some of the "really big" vehicles do pretty well. My '04 Silverado 2500 Duramax diesel (6500 lbs) gets 21 mpg highway at 75mph and 14.5 mpg towing a 10,000 lb 5th wheel at 65 mph.
Damn. My '01 F250 PowerStroke (6500+ lbs) would make a whopping 18 if I kept it at 65 all day. My pard's '96 Dodge Cummins (now with over 300k and a 3.55 rear end) gets 23at that speed - damn it.
Dave in Houston
What's the criteria for "pretty well"? A smaller vehicle could get twice that mileage on the highway (but of course couldn't pull the 5th wheel).
Chris
They had to be. If you base CAFE on vehicles that have to carry tons of cargo then you defeat the purpose.
If they were carrying on as before then they would still be producting vehicles such as my '76 Lincoln and would not be producing vehicles such as the Ford Focus. Perhaps you do not remember the Falcon, which would today be mid-size but in the late '50s was about as small as Detroit made. Even the large sedans are smaller now.
What of it? All the manufacturers were making SUVs long before CAFE and AWD was an Audi innovation first introduced in a small sedan.
As for Hummer, the Hummer was _never_ produced by a big three auto maker until GM bought the product line in 1998 and started rebadging other vehicles as Hummers, all of which are smaller and lighter and more fuel efficient than the original, non-big-three produced Hummer. If you don't like the Hummer you need to blame the Army for writing the specification.
Do you also remember mini-vans?
As the car manufacturers downsized their sedans and dropped station wagons from the product line, people needing such vehicles had no choice but to go to SUV or mini-vans and for some reason people don't like mini-vans. And CAFE is what killed the station wagon. Or do you really think that high gas mileage station wagons that do what station wagons are supposed to do can be built without a breakthrough in engine technology?
Volvos?
Bite who? If you're being bitten by it then you must have bought one.
You're welcome to think whatever you want to but you clearly aren't familiar with the product lines of any domestic auto manufacturer. There are many kinds of car in production that are not SUVs. You are acting as if Detroit just stopped producing cars entirely and started producing SUVs exclusively.
But how much smaller does it have to be to get twice that mileage on the highway?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The economy is better now and the deisel is even better than gas.
I remember a 74 Merc wagon that gave me 12.5 mpg whether or not I was = towing. Gas was cheap then.
Last fall I took an 08 Silverado 4X4 with the big gas motor (6.5?, 7.5?) = from Oshawa to Lucan (maybe 150 miles) for a dealer. Started out with a = full tank and had to add more in St Marys so I could get back. That = thing sucked fuel faster than I could put it in :) To top that all off, = the truck acted like a dog - no getup and no go.
Would you believe that truck was not what the dealer ordered so it had = to go back. Took it back and got another that had the big blown diesel. = Same 4X4 as the other one but for the motor. This one was a real = pleasure - great off the line and still had real punch at 80 mph. To top it all, started with 3/4 tank and still had some left when I got = home.
That said, we are still paying for the big 3 greed in circumventing the = thrust of CAFE. And now we are going to have to bail them out???
P D Q
Remember the Falcon?? I remember the Nash Metropolitan of that era. It = had a really nice A50 to pull it and it gave even better mileage than = the Falcon.
What of it? This was when they really started to tout these vehicles = and a truck went from some $1200 (I paid that for one I got new) to what = it is today - (supply and demand) They sold us a wonderful bill of = goods, duded it up with all manner of luxe and created in us a demand = for more goodies. No where was there a thought for CAFE just bottom = line. Any improvement in economy was because we griped about the = miniscule mileage (and some of us did).
No problem with Army Specs - just the thought of this "Go anywhere - = Intimidate all" attitude tha6t was transferred to the highways. Even = Arnie has caved in and replaced his Hummer.
They had to think of something to overcome their dismal motor = performance.
Beyond that, seems you have conveniently forgotten all the hype about = what vehicles could best survive a crash and thus protect your "precious = cargoe".
There sure are - and they all come under CAFE.
This is probably why my Monte Carlo gets about 32 mpg on the highway and = some 26.7 overall instead of the 12.5 my old Merc got.
P D Q
While you were googling all this bullshit did you happen to google the standards? If you had you would have found that light trucks have been subject to CAFE since 1978. And the Ford F series pickup has been the most popular vehicle in America for more than 30 years.
You just don't seem to be able to get past the notion that Americans, dogs, and elderly Japanese gentlemen love trucks.
Well, actually in 1978 light trucks were required to average 17 mpg. They are now required to average better than 23. At one time the standards were lower for AWD, but that has not been the case for at least a decade (incidentally, Audi discovered that AWD actually gave _better_ gas mileage in the original Quattro--had something to do with some fine point of tire dynamics IIRC).
Shame that it wasn't transferred to Iraq. The "insurgents" don't seem intimidated at all. In any case, since the real Hummer was never produced by any Big Three automaker it remains irrelevant to any discussion of their attitudes toward fuel economy. I find 18-wheelers to be much, much more intimidating than Hummers, but then my normal daily transporation is such that I lose in a collision with a Pinto.
Who, Volvo?
I don't remember any such "hype" coming from anybody but Volvo and Saab and occasionally Mercedes. Ford tried it once and it hurt their sales.
Further, the SUVs come under CAFE as well.
Ainsi soit il.
I shall leave you with this:
CAFE, as originally enacted excluded vehicles based on a truck platform.
This caused the rise of SUV et al as a basic means of people transport.
At some future date subsequent to 1978 the act was amended to include = the light truck platform.
This is about the time that the big 3 again began to complain about = their inability to attain the newly mandated efficiency and Congress, in = its wisdom, gave extentions.
How interesting it is to note that everything comes back to politics and = big business.
Adieu.
P D Q
That's not allowed on the Internet!
It creams the 14-15 MPG mileage of my 6 cylinder Jeep Wrangler!
It's possible. I saw similar idiocy at Xerox and Tektronix.
Seems like a question that pretty well answers itself.
CAFE, as originally enacted excluded vehicles based on a truck platform.
This caused the rise of SUV et al as a basic means of people transport.
At some future date subsequent to 1978 the act was amended to include the light truck platform.
This is about the time that the big 3 again began to complain about their inability to attain the newly mandated efficiency and Congress, in its wisdom, gave extentions.
How interesting it is to note that everything comes back to politics and big business.
Adieu.
P D Q =================
Am I being too much of a pedant to point out that it's the buyer, not the lawmakers or manufacturers, who values the "truckness" of the trucks used in personal transportation roles? In the way back time machine, I recall my high school buddies pissing and moaning about the emissions crap burying the engine; the mandatory catalytic converters; the truck chassis on the Blazers and Jimmies. As far as I can tell, none of those attitudes have changed in the intervening 35 years. (In that sense, it's your parent's fault. Your relevant attitudes were already entrenched before you were even presented with the choice.)
Yeah, and we Pittsburghers are worried to death some football billionaire is going to buy Ben Roethlisberger's contract and stick him on a bench to nowhere so some loser can play. You guys kill me...
You mean the carburetor that runs on plain old water isn't real? I guess some oil billionaire tycoon bought the rights and buried it, or did they hire some spook to do him in...
Damn, I HATE when that happens...
You mean they wouldn't have him snuffed or buy the rights to the worlds greatest engine and bury it so they could continue competing with the rest of the engine makers on a level playing field? How surprising...
A well to do friend of mine always drove Beamers, then one day he bought a Porsche... he HATED it. I told him it had to be better than those Beamers he always drove. He took me for a ride and no shit, the thing road worse than my first car, a 49 dodge pick up truck, except the Porsche had more road noise and a slightly rougher ride...
One day he drove it off the road and bent two rims... $700 a piece for rims...
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