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Trump Will Announce New Fuel Economy Rules For Automakers, Expect Lax Ones

America’s new administration will review the CAFE standards approved by the Environmental Protection Agency just before the current U.S. President’s inauguration.
Dual exhaust tips on Mercedes-AMG 1 photo
Photo: Pixabay user dgozgozz
Donald Trump, the current POTUS, will announce the results of the review, and some experts in the field believe that a new set of standards will be proposed.

The criteria in the discussion are EPA-mandated Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules, which have been described as “not economically feasible” by their critics.

The Trump administration is expected to open the door to lower fuel economy requirements, and the measures could involve less strict controls on carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions than the ones that were initially adopted.

It is no secret that several automakers have contacted the Trump administration after the inauguration ceremony, and those companies requested that the rules get reviewed and possibly changed before they come into effect. The review we are referring to was solicited last month by a group of 18 automakers, which range from Aston Martin to Ford and General Motors.

As CNN notes, the rules were not a surprise to anyone, as they were announced back in 2012 by the Obama administration. At that time, the Presidential Administration wanted to get automakers to achieve a Corporate Average Fuel Economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

In real life, those vehicles would reach about 42 mpg on average, which would be an improvement when compared to most new cars sold in the USA. However, automakers have complained that cheap gas is affecting their possibility of reaching fuel economy goals, mostly because customers tend to buy gas guzzlers when fuel is cheaper.

Evidently, if gas would have been more expensive in the USA, automakers would have probably struggled to sell the gas guzzlers they were referring, while the eco-friendly and frugal models would be their most successful products.

Instead of asking the government to hike gas prices, automakers have explained that it is difficult for them to raise fuel economy average values to the required levels, and those changes involve serious investments. Those investments will be absorbed by increasing the price of new cars, which will lead to more expenses brought on consumers, automakers have claimed.

Interestingly, environmental groups say that the declarations made by automakers are untrue, as cars with increased fuel economy have not been more expensive than their predecessors.

If consumers do not get more efficient vehicles in their hands, the potential spike in gas prices in the future could hit those people hard if they drove cars without improved fuel economy.

The latter has happened before, if you recall recent years, so do not go running to buy a car that you may not afford to drive if gas becomes more expensive in the future.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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