American Cars and Trucks without CAFE Standards?

Delta Force

Banned
Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards were implemented in the United States following the 1973 Energy Crisis. It's generally agreed that they helped lead to the replacement of the large American car with light truck derived vehicles which faced lower fuel economy standards. However, did it play a role anywhere else? How much improvement would manufacturers have done on their own? Did it essentially act as a cap on practical performance, seeing as domestic and imported American cars eventually reached parity in fuel economy (graph from Wikipedia)?

CAFE_mpg_curve_from_NHTSA's_Summary_of_Fuel_Economy_Performance%2C_December_2014.svg
 
Any thoughts on this? Might the large American car survive without CAFE standards?

it would be more like DE CAFE. vehicles will get less MPG and they will have to change a lot to meet the safety standard. It could be a marketing tool.
 
I remember a study done that for every MPG increase mandated by the CAFE so many people died due the vehicles being made of lighter less durable materials. I'll check up on it but, you can only push engine tech so far before you have to reduce the total weight to get those GPM. So maybe without the CAFE more people would survive a crash.
 
I remember a study done that for every MPG increase mandated by the CAFE so many people died due the vehicles being made of lighter less durable materials. I'll check up on it but, you can only push engine tech so far before you have to reduce the total weight to get those GPM. So maybe without the CAFE more people would survive a crash.

bovine faecal matter

The inferior crash performance of US vehicles is well documented and has nothing to do with weight.

the simple fact is that the USDM lagged the rest of the world for decades when it comes to efficiency, build quality and crash safety ...
 
bovine faecal matter

The inferior crash performance of US vehicles is well documented and has nothing to do with weight.

the simple fact is that the USDM lagged the rest of the world for decades when it comes to efficiency, build quality and crash safety ...

Actually, weight is a factor in Crash Performance.

The energy a car, or indeed any other vehicle, carries at the moment of impact is decided primarily through its speed and its mass. The faster and/or heavier it is, the more energy it carries, and the more it needs to dissipate to come to a halt.
 
Actually, weight is a factor in Crash Performance.

The energy a car, or indeed any other vehicle, carries at the moment of impact is decided primarily through its speed and its mass. The faster and/or heavier it is, the more energy it carries, and the more it needs to dissipate to come to a halt.

i think you have missed the point there - while the energy carried into a crash is mass dependant , weight has little to do with determining the performance of a structure in a crash ...
 

Delta Force

Banned
How could the focus be placed more on safety and less on fuel efficiency? Aren't automobiles the only sector with mandated efficiency standards?
 
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