Having grown up in Michigan during the halcyon era of huge cars, I can understand how it is easy to blame the auto companies for building inefficient cars given their hubristic management style. What is seldom mentioned is that efficient cars are repeatedly built or imported but do not sell well except in times of fuel crisis, at which time they are demanded immediately.
Average fuel economy in the U.S. light vehicle fleet peaked in 1987 and has declined and then remained stagnant ever since, despite the tremendous progress made in engineering new cars and trucks. The reason for the lack of change is not sloth on the part of the automobile manufacturers who certainly feel the hot breath of competition, but the desire for larger, more powerful (and more profitable) vehicles by the American marketplace.
The increases in per-horsepower fuel efficiency in new engine and fuel systems designs have been used to raise the average horsepower of engines in our light vehicle fleet from 137 to 223 between 1975 and 2007 while fuel economy has remained stagnant at roughly 20 miles per gallon, down from the peak of 22 mpg in 1987. Light trucks (including SUVs) are now half of the U.S. light vehicle fleet, whereas they were only 19% in 1975 and the 0 - 60mph times for the whole group have dropped from 14.1 seconds to 9.6 seconds.
In effect, we have used better engineering and new efficiencies to go bigger and to go faster rather than to go smarter, and in the end we have no one to blame but ourselves.
If Toyota and Honda who have cannily positioned themselves as companies that build small, high mpg cars that are able to meet the immediate demand for vehicles that has flourished with yet another spike in oil prices, they are to be commended for being in the right place at the right time. If oil prices were to suddenly drop, we would probably see a return to the purchase of a sea of bloated SUVs and retro-muscle cars and the hybrid and hydrogen vehicles would become a niche market yet again as has happened so often before.
That the domestic auto manufacturers often fail in their competitive ability and flexibility is well documented, but we must also give them credit for giving the american public exactly what it has demanded for many years — yet another round of inefficient wheeled dinosaurs that are as bumptious as the corporations we like to lampoon for building them to meet our strident demands.
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Figures taken from “Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2007″ Available at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fetrends.htm#1
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Originally posted as a comment to a story in the New York Times, http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/the-importance-of-mitts-rambler/#comments but after I wrote it, I kind of liked it.
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