President Obama has ordered the auto industry to make cars that average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This is after his 2009 order directing the industry to make cars that average 34.5 miles per gallon by 2016.
As a free-market advocate, I should be outraged that Obama is ordering private enterprise around like a petty dictator. But actually I feel schadenfreude for all the anti-auto environmentalists who will now have an even more difficult time claiming we need to invest in transit and intercity trains to save energy.
As shown in the above chart, under Obama’s 2009 direction, the average auto on the road would use about 2,700 British Thermal Units per passenger mile in 2025 (about 29 mpg). But under the new direction, the average auto will use 2,400 BTUs per passenger mile (32.5 mpg), declining still further to a bit over 2,000 by 2030 (38.0 mpg). Obama’s orders and these averages apply to all autos, including pick-ups and SUVs, and not just “passenger cars.”
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These calculations assume an average occupancy of 1.6 people per vehicle; today’s average auto gets about 21 mpg and new cars get 27; the auto fleet turns over every 18 years; improvements in new-car energy efficiency follow a straight line to Obama’s targets; and no improvements are made after the target dates. I also conservatively assumed that autos taken off the road in any given year were of average energy efficiency for that year; if–as seems more likely–autos that are junked are of less than average efficiency, then the average energy consumptions will be even lower.
For comparison, Amtrak uses about 2,700 BTUs per passenger mile, while transit in the New York metro area–the most energy-efficient transit system in America–uses a little over 2,600 BTUs per passenger mile. While a few commuter-rail lines use less than 2,000 BTUs per passenger mile, almost all light-rail and heavy-rail systems use well over 2,000 BTUs per passenger mile. While transit energy efficiencies may improve, the turnover rate for rail equipment is a lot lower than for autos, which means any improvements will take longer to implement.
Can automakers meet the targets? They have met most if not all EPA targets up to now. MIT researchers concluded that markets alone will boost the energy efficiency of the average new car to 42 mpg by 2030, and modest regulation or subsidies promoting light-weight materials such as aluminum could easily boost this to 69 mpg. Replacing gasoline with Diesel engines, the study found, could push it even further to 85 mpg.
One danger is that achieving the goal forces automakers to increase the price of their products by enough to reduce the turnover rate from the current 18 years to 20 or more, which would reduce the energy efficiency of the average auto. But if energy prices stay high, Americans will pay to save fuel; if they don’t stay high, then Obama’s targets will prove unnecessary in any case. In any case, anyone advocating rail transit, intercity rail, or compact development will have to take Obama’s targets into account when considering the potential energy savings from their proposals.
Scott:
As usual, with you, a red herring:
Do you want to shop by walking from your home or a transit stop? That entails much less choice & higher prices.
If the transit network is designed correctly, it should give you a choice of shopping destinations, not just around the transit stop you live near. This is exactly the point of having a network in the first place!
Paul:
Yes, in the mountains most Swiss live along the valleys, which are natural corridors. However, most of the Swiss live in the northern plain of the country, which extends in an arc from Geneva to Lausanne, to Berne, Zurich and St. Gallen. Much of this area is hilly but also there are much wider valleys than farther south in the Alps.
If you look at a map of the S.F. Bay Area, you’ll see most of the population lives along linear corridors. In most urban areas, there are usually well-defined travel corridors, even in the most dispersed.
A major reason I get annoyed at blanket assertions that rail “isn’t feasible” is that rail critics tend not to offer any criteria where they think rail IS feasible, other than vague statements about how it “works” in places like New York City, but no specifics about ridership or economic thresholds. In contrast, the Japanese, Germans and a few others HAVE established minimum criteria, which I referenced in an earlier post.
And no, I don’t think rail is justified in every case. Hardly!
Contrary to the assertions of Scott, I am generally opposed to wasteful expenditures that are grossly out of line compared to likely ridership. An excellent example of a bad project is the $6-$7 billion BART extension to San Jose compared to the several hundred million needed to upgrade existing Capitol Corridor services. BART might carry somewhat more riders, but not commensurate with its extremely high cost.
I also wished that transit operators would go to the trouble of building up their bus networks first before jumping into rail. In the Twin Cities for example, there is a very strong case for LRT along University Avenue between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis due to the very heavy ridership there, as opposed to say, that stub line in Norfolk, where the transit operator has not previously built the bus ridership. With the latter, meeting ridership projections is much more a crap shoot than the former.
Paul:
As for the Zurich case you quote, the same sort of situation exists in relatively attractive U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Boston and New York (well, Manhattan). In fact, the price of housing is a huge problem in the entire S.F. West Bay, from Marin in the north to Santa Clara County in the south. But if your friend had been commuting from any distance by car or train, he might have been inclined to take the job in Zurich.
Such is the very high demand for urban living in attractive cities–something a number of people on this blog don’t seem to get–or the fact that the U.S. has a huge shortage of such areas compared to the proven demand.
msetty, somehow you misunderstood:
I referred to shopping via walking [around home area] OR transit stops.
C’mon! That’s obvious. Regardless of your missing the grammatical structure, why would I mention transit if it was about the “only” walking home area?
Why would one use transit near home to walk in the area?
You walk into the train or bus & get off immediately, then walk & shop?
The whole concept of a ~10 minute walk (< 1/4 sq.mi. area) from any transit station is not just not about your home, but locations where one gets off & the access to jobs & such.
I thought you knew that?
You have avoided many other points & questions, such as:
inconvenience for shopping & carrying products by transit & walking (5-15 minutes) & the higher prices; the advancements by using petroleum, of which transit use 75%+ as the energy source, & the per passenger-mile traveled per energy use, which is not an advantage (varies).
I did not expect any direct answers.
I do not really expect much intellectual discussion from those wanting to change: behavior, wants, spatial layouts & such, while having much hypocrisy, & disassociation from economics. And, for which they wish their goals by gov coercion & taxpayers.
The normal responses are to: distract, avoid points, change the subject, etc.
That is typical for most of Those: being lefties, big-gov types, lacking knowledge & ability, who cannot logically support their principles, unable to distinguish between conditions, etc.
The SF & Oakland (close-in, w/nearby suburbs) areas have plenty of density & transit — even across the bridges or by fairy [sic].
You should be able to meet your needs.
Not on a BART stop? Bad choice.
Problem w/TODs & that most residents have cars too (+ earning above the mean)?
And limited expensive retail choices?
Convince us.
Familiar w/Hong Kong & the Tokyo UA?
Many differences.
If you have been to Switzerland, this is all understandable. It is basically the Alps mountain range between France, Italy, and Austria. The population has to live in the limited flat valley bottoms, and thus must be dense with huge uninhabited mountains in between. The major highways and trains have very limited corridors to run up the valleys, and thus are side by side.
In general, I think it is hard to make a good argument with comparisons of the US to the small and unique European countries like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, etc.
One other point. Often San Francisco, NYC, and Zurich are used as examples.
Just keep in mind that they are all huge financial centers that make huge amounts of money without any factories or brick-and-mortar infrastructure. They have highly limited living space due to being located on a peninsula, island, or in a mountain valley. And they are “chic” places to live (which might be the same as being huge global financial centers).