Gas Mileage Standards Were Never Meant to Fix Climate Change
Ford’s decision to focus on making the bigger vehicles people want shows why the current rules are a terrible way to regulate emissions.
What drivers want.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Meanwhile, the Donald Trump administration looks likely to roll back the Corporate Average Fuel Economy targets set by its predecessor’s Environmental Protection Agency. The Barack Obama administration’s CAFE standards require each automaker’s fleet to average 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025. (Carmakers can lower their targets by earning — or buying from their competitors — credits for adopting EPA-approved technologies such as energy-conserving air conditioning or making electric cars.) Environmentalists, and states like California that love them, are up in arms.
But the administration has a point — if not the courage to do better. CAFE standards are an absurdly indirect way to regulate emissions. And Ford’s decision demonstrates why.