A Truck From The Past

Hello Friends,

Car Lovers Rejoice! After 50 Miserable Years, CAFE Standards Are Dead

This could be good news for car and truck buyers and the auto industry as well. Let's bring these back, shall we?

CAFE stands for corporate average fuel economy, and here is an excerpt from the article linked above.

"From the beginning, these standards were a disaster, forcing automakers to radically downsize their fleet, which research showed cost thousands of lives because, all things being equal, smaller, lighter cars are less safe than larger ones.

In fact, a 2002 National Academy of Sciences found that these fuel economy standards not only boosted the cost of cars, but may have caused as many as 2,600 more traffic fatalities just in 1993."

You know, safety first, except when it's not.

This whole thing began in order to force car manufacturers to increase fuel economy across the board. They had to meet a corporate standard or face stiff penalties.

That meant smaller cars and larger pickups. Why pickups you ask? Well as I understand it, pickups are generally less fuel efficient anyway, so to meet these new standards they had to provide the required gas mileage per cubic foot of vehicle. Thus, the super-large pickups were able to state the required gas mileage.

Have you seen the size of modern trucks? You practically need a ladder to get in or out, and the bed is as high as my head. I hope that with the demise of the CAFE standards, we can return to reasonably sized trucks.

A shout out to The Abode of McThag for sharing this article.

Until next time, stay safe and stay sane.