chickensevil
Active Member
Good points all around. I would just be happy to see fleet average hitting closer to 50MPG
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Good points all around. I would just be happy to see fleet average hitting closer to 50MPG
Very well then, Chicken: if the tide were to turn in the direction Rob't.B just elaborated, then in very short order the fleet average would tend toward or exceed your desired 50mpg. To illustrate, take a look at the Norwegian model as just given. Can a Norwegian tell us what the 2014 sales fleet fuel consumption average was, or what the nation's on-road fleet average is?
For elucidation of the Europeans, 50 mpg <===> 4.7l/110km (formula is 235.2 / miles per US gallon = l/100km)
For elucidation of the Europeans, 50 mpg <===> 4.7l/110km (formula is 235.2 / miles per US gallon = l/100km)
jhm
Well-Known Member
Best Selling Cars USA December 2014: Sales surge 10% on falling fuel prices
This has a nice map of gas tax rates by state. It would be nice to see how fleet fuel efficiency correlates is gas tax levels. Also I wonder how it may correlate with EV sales per capital.
So if the tax in Texas went from 38.4 cents to 68.4 cents, would the love affair with bloated trucks end? Or is the low gas tax a result of this concupiscence?
This has a nice map of gas tax rates by state. It would be nice to see how fleet fuel efficiency correlates is gas tax levels. Also I wonder how it may correlate with EV sales per capital.
So if the tax in Texas went from 38.4 cents to 68.4 cents, would the love affair with bloated trucks end? Or is the low gas tax a result of this concupiscence?
If you think a little more about that, I believe you'd realize there's a zippidy-do-dingle correlation: consumers pay for "fuel", not "THIS much for the gas...THIS much for the state tax...THIS much for the F.E.T."
So while there likely is some correlation between overall pump prices and fleet make-up, even that is going to be very thin. And, as Chicken has pointed out with his anecdote, we could see a classic case of a negatively sloped demand curve here - à la the supposed price of potatoes during Ireland's Great Famine.
As follows:
The bottom end of the income bracket has no ability to pay the higher price that a newer, more fuel efficient vehicle commands. Instead, as pump prices rise and they are ever-more squeezed, they resort to purchasing cheaper and cheaper gas-guzzling rust buckets. So, the more that gasoline price rises, the more consumption increases.
Now, that would be a fine case study in Supply & Demand! But it could occur.
Looking here: Sales 2014 it seems like average fuel consumption for new cars in 2014 in Norway was 110g CO2/km which seems to translate to 49.6mpg. Of course that is using the very unrealistic European driving cycle.
Cobos
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if Texas has the discipline to align gas tax revenue with road maintenance costs, then 'bloated trucks' keep the gas rate low.
why
road damage is related to axle weight to the 4th power
ie a 10 tonne axle causes 10^4 damage compared to a 1 tonne axle.
so the light vehicles that Americans call trucks, don't cause all that much damage compared to the fuel they use (and the tax they pay.)
the real damage comes from commercial vehicles like 18 wheelers, garbage trucks, buses, concrete trucks etc.
the corollary is
as vehicles get heavier (for safety) and more fuel efficient, the less sustainable the gas tax is.
consider this
Machine mimics man: Automakers fight car obesity, weight wins - Daily Kanban
Hondas have increased weight from 2000 pounds to 3500 pounds over the past 35 years. Thats an 9.3 fold increase in road damage per Honda car.
yet an additional 150 pound individual going onto a bus can cause 4x more damage than an entire car on the road.
in summary
commercial trucks cause road damage, but passenger vehicles pay for the damage, so less fuel efficient passenger vehicles help to subsidize the damage caused by commercial vehicles.
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