Full Title: Do Low Oil Prices Undermine US Passenger Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards?
Author(s): Benjamin Leard, Joshua Linn, and Virginia McConnell
Publisher(s): Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy
Publication Date: July 1, 2016
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Fuel economy standards lie at the center of US efforts to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) set standards for model years 2012 through 2016. The fuel economy requirement that manufacturers have to achieve depends on the size of the vehicles they sell, whereas previous standards set uniform requirements for cars and light trucks. Because of the new structure, the level of fuel economy required by the standards depends on the proportion of cars to light trucks sold, as well as the size of those vehicles. If sales shift from smaller to larger vehicles, the required level of fuel economy decreases. In addition, because manufacturers achieve an average level of fuel economy across their eet, the fuel economy of a speci c vehicle can differ from its standard. Changes in sales mix can, therefore, affect the level of fuel economy required from the standards differently from the level of fuel economy that consumers choose.