01/20/2004: 
Criminally Absurd
Subaru Openly Mocks Congress, Common Sense
from Valley News (VT)
A new version of Subaru's Outback model coming out this spring may prove to be a big hit with American drivers, but the car also could prove a great vehicle for highlighting the utter absurdity of U.S. fuel-efficiency standards.
We refer to the model as a car because it is what, by most definitions, would be regarded as a sedan: Its storage area is an enclosed trunk, and it appears to be designed for transporting at least four adults. Indeed, the sedan model of the Outback has been labeled and sold as a standard passenger car.
The model that will become available this spring, however, will have additional clearance for its axles and body, and its rear bumper will be raised. These changes were made to indirectly accommodate engineers who wanted to make the Outback a zippier vehicle by adding a turbocharger. It's not that the turbocharger required physical changes in the car, but that it lowered the Outback's fuel efficiency and increased its tailpipe emissions. Subaru was concerned that the model might jeopardize its ability to comply with federal regulations that govern the average fuel-efficiency of the cars it sells.
So what to do? Drop the turbocharger? Introduce other efficiencies to offset the peppier but less-efficient engine? Nope: Subaru raised the vehicle to allow for about 9 inches of clearance and thereby earned the right to call the sedan-like vehicle a light truck. Under current regulations, the 2005 model year cars that Subaru and other manufacturers will sell must average 27.5 miles per gallon, while their light trucks must average 21.2 miles. And it doesn't matter what those vehicles look like or how they're used; as long as they meet the technical definition of a light truck, the less stringent rules apply.
Full text below. If you were to ask me, (which, presumably you would) I would say that the real problem here is demand driving supply. Americans like big cars damnit.
More
Model ChangesA new version of Subaru's Outback model coming out this spring may prove to be a big hit with American drivers, but the car also could prove a great vehicle for highlighting the utter absurdity of U.S. fuel-efficiency standards.
We refer to the model as a car because it is what, by most definitions, would be regarded as a sedan: Its storage area is an enclosed trunk, and it appears to be designed for transporting at least four adults. Indeed, the sedan model of the Outback has been labeled and sold as a standard passenger car.
The model that will become available this spring, however, will have additional clearance for its axles and body, and its rear bumper will be raised. These changes were made to indirectly accommodate engineers who wanted to make the Outback a zippier vehicle by adding a turbocharger. It's not that the turbocharger required physical changes in the car, but that it lowered the Outback's fuel efficiency and increased its tailpipe emissions. Subaru was concerned that the model might jeopardize its ability to comply with federal regulations that govern the average fuel-efficiency of the cars it sells.
So what to do? Drop the turbocharger? Introduce other efficiencies to offset the peppier but less-efficient engine? Nope: Subaru raised the vehicle to allow for about 9 inches of clearance and thereby earned the right to call the sedan-like vehicle a light truck. Under current regulations, the 2005 model year cars that Subaru and other manufacturers will sell must average 27.5 miles per gallon, while their light trucks must average 21.2 miles. And it doesn't matter what those vehicles look like or how they're used; as long as they meet the technical definition of a light truck, the less stringent rules apply.
Driving trucks -- proverbial ones and otherwise -- through loopholes in fuel-efficiency regulations is hardly new. Lawmakers originally allowed a lower standard for light trucks to accommodate farmers, builders and other people who actually used trucks -- the real ones - for their work. Over the years, though, car manufacturers increasingly pushed vehicles such as minivans and SUVs that were used as passenger vehicles but were categorized as light trucks. That largely explains why the average gas consumption of new vehicles is higher than it was just 20 years ago -- even though increasing concern about global warming presumably has heightened awareness of the need for improved efficiency, and technological advances have made it easier to manufacture cars that are stingy with gas.
Congress has repeatedly resisted all attempts to tighten fuel-efficiency requirements by significantly increasing the miles-per-gallon standards or by changing the vehicle-categorization system that invites evasion. Even the war on terrorism, which has highlighted the foolishness of remaining dependent on imports from oil sheikdoms, has not prodded it to act.
Now that car manufacturers are openly mocking the system by calling cars trucks, perhaps Congress will feel sufficiently insulted to make changes. It's hard to fathom why lawmakers remain hostile to something that makes so much sense from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint.
