mac davis wrote:
On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:54:52 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:



One doesn't have to be rich to afford an SUV, and SUVs have to meet
the same emission laws as any other vehicle, so if they are
"spewing
insane amounts of sickening fumes" then so are little econoboxes.
In
California they are now putting emission controls on motorcycles
and
I understand that lawn mowers are going to be next--they've reached
the point of diminishing returns with cars, SUVs, and trucks.

AFAIK, the Federal emissions laws for vehicle manufacturers still
have a sliding scale for fuel economy and if they make enough 30 mpg
cars they can make "X" number of 10 mpg trucks and SUV's..

The "sliding scale for fuel economy" is called "Corporate Average Fuel
Economy" or "CAFE" and it is a tax law. The only relation to
emissions laws is that the EPA is charged with calculating the fuel
economy on which the tax is based. There is no sliding standard for
_emissions_ that I am aware of . The deal is that the automakers are
taxed on the _average_ fuel economy of all cars they sell. There is
no prohibition on large cars, but if they sell too many of them their
taxes go up.

And trucks and SUVs are _exempt_ from CAFE as are most other
"commercial vehicles". This is the main reason that the car
manufacturers are selling so many of them--station wagons and large
sedans are _not_ exempt so they've cut way back on those and instead
are selling SUVs in the same niches.

Then, California puts stuff in the unleaded fuel that's supposed to
make it burn cleaner..

CT does that too but only in the winter.

2 results from that are that they found out that the additives were
poisoning the ground water and that you got less mpg with the
"cleaner" fuel, so you needed to burn more gas and make more
emissions to go the same distance...

Glad we're out of all that craziness now...


mac

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