And now for something completely different…

I’ve been slacking on getting proper updates to the site recently and I didn’t want to completely abandon the Mediocre fans so I’ve plagiarized an e-mail sent to me by a good friend of the Mediocre gang. Jeff is some sort of engineer type person who can commonly be seen slumming it with Alex and Steve while they work on cars and providing snarky, well educated zingers whilst the work progresses. I happen to be a pretty big fan of the way Jeff thinks so when he sent this e-mail to some friends (yours truly included) I couldn’t see any reason why not to share it on the site.

As this was an e-mail it’s obviously got some names you won’t recognize. Additionally, there weren’t any pictures so I added some because I know the majority of you can barely read a paragraph before you get bored (just kidding…You know I love you all). Otherwise, the text remains unchanged and these ideas are the products of Jeff’s noodle and not mine. All credit is due to Jeff.

Enjoy!

 

—

I was thinking about the future of fuel economy and wondered what the government will do next.  Washington state has the highest gas tax in the nation (and the highest minimum wage.  Go Socialists!), but we don’t necessarily have higher revenue as a result, because cars are trending toward higher fuel efficiencies.  Higher mileage = less gas consumed = less gas purchased = less gas tax revenue.  Knowing the government will never shrink a revenue source, I was trying to guess what they’ll come up with next.  Tolls?  Visible, but obviously very localized and easily avoidable.  Higher tabs?  Been there, lost the battle (I-695), won the war (tabs are still higher thanks to excises and other government-sponsored transportation agencies).  Here’s what they will do next.

(This is why we can’t have nice things.)

HAFE.  CAFE, or corporate average fuel economy, is a government mandate to automakers that their fleet average fuel economy must be greater than 24.1 mpg (and 30.2 mpg for passenger cars).  Automakers always respond with this economical truth: they build what the consumer wants, not what the government tells them to build.  The government/green movement always counters that consumers would appreciate 100 mpg, but the fact is that consumers are happy buying a car that gets 18 mpg combined, so where is the demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles?  HAFE.

HAFE, if you haven’t guessed, stands for household average fuel economy (I am making this all up, by the way.  Doesn’t it sound well thought-out?)  The state governments will set a fuel efficiency threshold that the average mileage of all the cars in the household must exceed.  This level will be established by the same unbiased, objective method as CAFE, tailored for the consumer.  The rated fuel efficiencies will be based on EPA data for the year, model, and driveline options of the cars registered to a particular household.  If the household average economy for all the cars registered there is less than the HAFE threshold, an extra registration fee (fine) will be assessed.

Unfair?  No.  Let’s look at some examples.  Say Cletus has only one vehicle, a 1984 Ford truck, averaging 11 mpg.  This will surely be less than the HAFE minimum, and he will pay the extra fee.  Is this unfair?  No.  This is Cletus’s only vehicle, so he does 100% of his driving with it.  Therefore he’s averaging 11 mpg for every mile he drives. 

(em pee gee’s?)

Now let’s look at Alex, who has three vehicles, a 1992 Mitsubishi 3000 GT, a 2005 Kia Spectra 5, and a 2006 Toyota Prius (Manuel chuckles).  These vehicles have combined EPA mileage estimates of 18, 25, and 46 mpg, respectively.  This makes his household vehicle mileage average 29.7 mpg.  This is less than the 30.2 CAFE minimum for 2011 passenger cars.  But unlike Cletus, Alex’s average mileage is variable depending which vehicle he drives more.  So for simplicity’s sake, the state could stick to a mile-independent rating (29.7 mpg for Alex) and just assess the HAFE registration fee based on the aggregate average, but they could take it a step further.

(Apparently this is “a step further” according to the internet. Nazi cyborg housewife?)

Knowing Alex is not driving all three vehicles at once (or say you have two drivers and two cars but one driver stays home with the kids), annual vehicle registration could also require an odometer declaration.  This would be used to calculate the actual HAFE for miles driven in combination with the EPA combined mileage rating of the vehicle.  This would reward those who drive their fuel-efficient vehicles more (the 3000 GT after all has not run on five months).  Like Alex, people in this example would have overall better/higher mileage but may have a lower-mpg specialty vehicle (farm truck, sports car, classic car, etc.).  The odometer declaration would be checked as a part of the bi-annual emissions check, or random audit.

 

(The Future!)

This is the future.  I’m sure of it.

 – Guest Editor Jeff