The article in todays "Detroit Free Press" should be of interest to truck owners and potential owners. Fleet CAFE will go to 22.2 mpg BY 2008. No longer will companies such as Diamler be able to call the PT Cruiser a truck in order to comply with the standards. The fuel CAFE standards will apply to trucks up to 10,000GVW.
The upshot of all this is manufacturers will have to greatly expand diesel availability in their truck lines, and limit high horsepower trucks to meet these new CAFE standards.

 

i think it would be good to expand diesel availability but not to limit trucks such as the dead lightning or srt-10

 

It won't kill them it just means that they have to balance them.

 

Or hey, maybe we will get higher horsepower engines that actually get better mileage!! An inherent benifiet to efficiency is power, after all.

 

Just for "giggles" can anyone tell us how many trucks are capable of 22 mpg on the combined city/highway cycle? The four cylinder Ranger is one.

 

clap clap clap clap .....whewhoooo i love the idea and am jumping because i remember being just a little kid btw i am only 19 now.....but anyway i remember one of the long time news 20/20 60mins people interviewing the auto manufactures and ask them if it was possible to make vehicles get 50mpg and the guys reply was (i think gm) ya we have been able to do that for 10 years ....this was in 95 or so. they know how to do it but won't unless the GOV steps in and says they have too. they are in bed with the oil companies worse than the government! if i would have heard that as a president i would have said great start producing them as of next year and put 50 as the bench mark .....i thought my dad was going to break out the 410 and shoot the tv he was so Edited by Admin

 

probably just the 4 cylinder ranger and colorado/canyon for combined

if it was just highway, there would be alot more

 

this is the most likely scenerio, they already do it to get the fuel economy of cars up, an example is that the F150, or F250 have almost $7k in built in profit for the dealer but the ranger has more like $3k, and the ford focus has less than $700 they try to price the vehicles so people will buy the more effiecant cars more often cause the CAFE is actually based on total number of all vehicles sold by the manufactor, and they take the average of ALL of them the difference in this new standard is they upped the gvwr to 10,000 to include the heavy 3/4, and 1 tons and for the poster that stated that the chrysler labeling the PT as a truck to get out of this is wrong because it never had a gvwr of greater than 6000lbs so was never exempted, and was infact included in the CAFE standards plus they are only upping it from 20.1 to 22.2 so all they have to do is sell more cheapo cars,a nd less trucks
But I would really like to see an increase in diesel vehicle offerings I MIGHT even consider buying a car if they did that and had decent power in one.

 

The PT cruiser convertible was labelled as a truck to avoid the CAFE standards for cars since cars are supposed to be more fuel efficient.

What we need to see is the approach that Chevy used to get the Camaro and the Vette 30 mpgs on the highway. What that means is a bigger engine (hurricane) with a double overdrive tranny. Ford needs to put a 6 speed auto with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears underdriven, 4th gear 1:1, and 5th and 6th gear as overdrives. That would allow the power that the trucks and SUVs need as well as the fuel economy.

Keeping small engines around in large vehicles may be good for rated fuel economy, but poor for observed fuel economy as basically everyone will be hitting the gas that much harder on a small engine vehicle because it's so overworked.

 

Seriously though, how do you think that you are going to get 22+ mpg in a 6000+ pound truck? It will barely happen even if you get a diesel.

 

Well this will be a challenge for me. If I ever finish restoring my 68/69 F-100 PU, I will probably have to register it as a new truck since so many of the parts came from so many places, any old vins will not be applicable.

I guess someone will need to tell be how to squeeze as much mileage as possible out of an engine. Maybe I will have to resort to using a four-banger engine. *sigh*

Maybe a good small diesel engine, perhaps?

 

To get more city mileage, they'll have to gear things to keep the engine in its powerband. That means more gears and closer ratios.

To get more highway mileage, they'll have to put another overdrive on the tranny in order to let the engine turn fewer rpms.

They could accomplish this by using gear splitting much in the same way that a gear vendors unit works.

Aside from that, more free flowing exhausts, higher flow cats and intake, as well as perhaps direct injection to help better atomize fuel.

 

My guess is we will see more hybrid technology especially in the non work aspect truck vehicles. Go drive the escape hybrid then the V6 version. It is hard to tell them apart except at the gas station. The same can be done to any vehicle its just a question of scale. This also would allow the power band to be moved a little high because the electric motor provides all its torque when turned on. I have always tried when making a good all round motor to be just under peek torque at highway speed. Nice and responsive without the need to shift gears to pull slight grades or make a pass. Of course this is pre overdrive days.

 

with some of the power and where it is available from there is no reason to get a vehicle unloaded going 75mph and holding about 1800 rpms to get reasonable power without using so much fuel and gm's new allison auto for 06 is going to have a 2nd overdrive from what i hear. with 4th being 1 and 5th being .75 and 6th being .61