New efficiency standards in the US for medium- and heavy-duty trucks

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Yesterday's political news seemed to be all about Rand Paul, so you'd be forgiven for not noticing that the White House adopted a new fuel efficiency standard yesterday for medium- and heavy-duty trucks.



Info from the speech:

Previous recently enacted efficiency memorandum:

Increases efficiency for cars and light trucks to 35.5 mpg over five years
Saves $3000 over life of vehicle
Reduces dependence by 1.8 billion barrels
Equivalent of taking 50 million cars off the road

Today's announced memorandum:

Will apply to medium and heavy-duty trucks
Starts in 2014
First time to have such a standard

Standard from before goes until 2016, today's announcement goes from 2017 and beyond
Eventual goal: to have vehicles use half the fuel in 20 years compared to today


This article has a lot of info on what yesterday's announcement means, including the fact that Canada will be following along, important because not only is it essential to have a national standard in order to avoid differing rules by state but also one between the US and Canada as well. The more unified the standard, the easier it is for car manufacturers to comply.

It also mentioned a bit about improving infrastructure for electric cars, but details are a bit short on that. More interesting in the electric car world is probably this announcement that Toyota will invest $50 million in Tesla.

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