As of 1985, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard of 27.5 mpg (fleet average) for passenger cars has been in effect. Fleet averages for light trucks and SUV’s must be at least 20.7 miles per gallon.
At an April town hall in Wilkes Barre, PA, Obama said:
“If we increase fuel efficiency standards on cars to 40 miles per gallon, we would save the equivalent of all the oil we import from the Persian Gulf. And imagine what that would do to gas prices if we reduced our consumption by that much. That’s something we can accomplish right here and right now.”
The official energy statistics from the US government show that approximately 9 million barrels per day are consumed for gasoline for transportation.
Let us assume that the fleet is composed of:
- 48.7% cars
- 51.3% light trucks (vans, SUVs, pickups, recreational)
fleet average fuel economy = .487 * 27.5 mpg + .513 * 20.7 mpg = 24.01 mpg
Increasing the fleet average to 40 mpg, assuming the miles driven and all other factors remain unchanged, the number of barrels of oil consumed for gasoline would be reduced to 5,402,250 barrels per day. This is a reduction of 3,597,750 barrels per day.
The US crude oil imports from the Persian Gulf are 2,518,419 barrels per day (using March 2008 numbers).
In fact, it would be impossible to achieve this goal any time soon, because of the time required to replace the installed base of vehicles in service today. If 40 mpg vehicles became available today, it would probably take over a decade to completely replace every passenger car, light truck, and SUV on the road. To achieve this fuel economy, vehicles will have to be built lighter and with smaller engines. The American penchant for large, high powered SUVs will need to be radically altered to buy small, under powered passenger cars. Even Obama, who drives a Chrysler 300 at 340 hp and 390 lb-ft with a fuel economy of 17 mpg city and 25 mpg highway demonstrates a taste for a big powerful vehicle that is antithetical to his rhetoric.
