Date:         Fri, 27 Mar 2015 09:45:59 -0700
Reply-To:     Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      (Friday NVC) I was wrong about the CAFE standards
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

VW should sell their vans here, though they would likely need to make them
in the US or Mexico, even with the euro at parity.  According to an article
in Business Week, it's advantageous to have "big footprint" vehicles in the
product mix. The CAFE standards changed in 2011:



"Now, automakers' mileage targets vary depending on the "footprints" of the
vehicles they sell-the area between the four wheels. Cars and trucks are
still regulated separately, but within each class, fuel efficiency
requirements drop as vehicles grow. That means automakers whose sales mix is
weighted toward bigger vehicles have lower fuel-economy targets to meet.
They no longer have to offset their big gas guzzlers with sales of small gas
sippers to bring up the fuel-economy averages. As a result, there's nothing
anymore to hold them back from selling lots of big trucks, which drive
profits. Ford gets half its U.S. profit from large pickups, and General
Motors gets about 35 percent, says Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson."



Full article here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/bigger-pickups-are-result-
of-change-in-fuel-standards



Stuart