Proposed fuel-economy standards, which were released in November 2011, has the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) speaking out. NADA says these standards will stymie the growth of new-car sales and make vehicles too expensive for consumers in the future.
The White House has proposed standards that would have automakers lifting the fleet average of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon of gas by the year 2025. The current standards require automakers to raise efficiency to 35.5 mpg by 2016.
Don Chalmers, a New Mexico-based Ford Motor Company dealer and the NADA’s government relations chairman at a hearing in Detroit in mid-January, said: “I want to sell very efficient cars. But if the customer can’t get the financing for that car, then it makes no difference. Finance sources do not look at how much you are going to save in fuel economy.”
The three Detroit makers were also at the hearing along with the United Auto Workers Union President Bob King, who supports the mileage target: “Adopting the proposed rules will give an additional boost to the revival of the auto industry.”
The additional technology required on the vehicles to meet these standards, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), will run consumers $2,030 toward the price of vehicles. However, the lifetime fuel cost savings in 2025 would equal about $6,000, says the EPA and NHTSA. The NADA disagrees with this analysis, and plans on releasing their own study in February indicating that the cost of technology to meet these requirements would add $5,000 per vehicle.
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