16/23: The most important plug-in vehicle in America
The most important vehicle in America?
Change this, change America
The Chevy Volt and plug-in vehicles have captured a good chunk of automotive press this week, but is the Volt really just a distraction from reality? Seriously, what is the point of the Volt and plug-in vehicles?
Ending oil dependence? Reducing CO2 emissions? Advancing battery technologies? All of the above?
Regardless, pickup trucks are the most important and popular vehicles in America, as well as the most oil guzzling and CO2 emitting. Consequently, aren’t pickup trucks both the real problem and the key to the solution?
When the new Ford F150 pickup truck – the best selling vehicle in America, well, forever – hits dealerships, it will be the most fuel efficient pickup truck in its class, offering up 16 mpg in the city and 23 mpg on the highway.
While Ford deserves kudos for producing the most fuel efficient pickup, it’s still just 19/20 mpg combined.
Effective change
I once read somewhere the most effective and successful people share a tendency. They make a list of things that need to be done that day. Then they focus on the most important one first. Then the next most important.
Ineffective people, on the other hand, focus on the easy ones first.
If America were truly serious about reducing oil dependence and emissions, wouldn’t pickup trucks be the focus of our attention?
There is a move in Congress, for instance, to not only uncap plug-in tax credits, but to increase the amount of the plug-in tax credit from $7500 to $10,000, while also spending billions to create EV deployment cities. Is this spending really about change, or protectionism and politics?
I’m not sure, but if we’re going to spend billions trying to achieve change, shouldn’t the focus be on the vehicles that offer the most potential for change?
Obviously, I couldn’t agree more Smurf.
I kind of wish there was a more open hybrid and EV tax credit for a while, such as a lithium credit. Thus, even a Prius could still qualify for a tax credit, as long as powered with lithium. In fact, offer an extra credit for a lithium vehicle assembled in the US. However, say something like the Prius qualifies for a $1500 tax credit, while a Chevy Silverado qualifies for a $7500 tax credit – same as top EV credit.
I don’t know, but one way or another more focus has to be put on light trucks (including SUVs and minivans).
I don’t think anyone is saying that here Arnold.
2011 Ford F-150 gets new 3.7-liter V6 engine, according to TopSpeed.com-F-150 is getting sync along with super duty.The F-150 gets the title for best selling TRUCK, see that, truck is singular. The title isn’t for best selling trucks. If you want to say the Sierraare the best selling FAMILY of trucks, then go ahead, but I’m tired of hearing people say the GM twins are the best selling truck when it’s not.
I’ve been saying for years that trucks are the problem.
1. Trucks have gotten too big
2. Trucks get poorer gas mileage than they did in the 80’s (on average, because no small trucks exist anymore)
3. Americans love big trucks and will only abandon them if gas prices get too high.
If you want to attack the problem you have to attack it at the source.
You have to either get rid of trucks or make trucks more efficient. Neither is realistic, at least in the short term.
But is you are going to solve the “oil” problem, one way or another, you will have to solve the “truck” problem. So THAT is where the majority of your effort should be.
I think they are mostly estimating when doing CAFE.
I’d think regenerative braking would be great for pickups. unfortunately, in terms of the Volt, however, GM has claimed that the powertrain won’t work on anything bigger or smaller than it’s current platform. it’s too heavy for smaller cars and would require too many batteries in larger vehicles.
however, GM does have a dual mode plug-in hybrid powertrain that would fit extremely well on trucks. i doubt it would be very cost-effective, but after a $10,000 tax credit it might be.
still would like to find out when they do CAFE – are they counting vehicles or are they counting total miles/MPG for vehicle types?
you’d then that regenerative brake systems would be real winners for heavier vehicles, no?
and .. Chevy’s volt where it can be powered 3 ways… maybe ideal for pickups?
a Volt Pickup?
according to Ford one of the top requests Ford has received on pickup trucks is getting better fuel economy, i thought that was really interesting. even better, this F150 isn’t going to be Ford’s most efficient F150 in the US, the Ecoboost version is still coming, although mileage has not been reported, but it will be higher – so that’s exciting.
ultimately, i’m just arguing that as far as it concerns the Big 3, trucks are their key business. an it’s also an area where a huge impact on improving fuel economy could be achieved.
consequently, i’m just asking, if we’re going to spend many billions on trying to make US autos more efficient, why not a much bigger focus on the area most important to the big 3. come up with a big breakthrough here, and i think it would easily scale down into smaller vehicles as well. our current path is playing it both ways, which will probably just lead to more people buying trucks than cars and be counter-productive in the long run.
minimally, i’d like to see the small business vehicle tax credit, which only the largest vehicles qualify, include some kind of fuel economy requirement, such as supporting only Ecoboosts, clean diesels, natural gas and hybrids, etc.
there’s a ton of data there and after about 20 minutes, I have up for this go around.
I still think a data-based approach to this is to look at the total gallons used – by vehicle type – car, suv and light truck.
and then a goal in the total number then allocated down to the vehicle types and see what effect that would have on the MPG needed to get to the overall goal.
I think pickup truck drivers would love to see some trucks that get 30 mpg and would cheer on improvements to make that happen.
But I don’t think you will convince people to give up the pickup trucks by saying that they constitute THE problem – unless of course you can demonstrate that conclusively and then some folks (obviously not the Humvee/Tundra/Sequoia crowd).
I remember when the first Toyota Mini-pickups came out – they started out slow but became very popular because they were so darn reliable.
Even today – the Tacoma is a more popular vehicle than the Tundra but the Tacoma sucks on gas mileage which is really strange because it’s quite a bit lighter than the larger pickups.
That truck would easily become the defacto standard for many people if it got 30 mpg.
ditto with the Tundra.
If the Tundra started getting 5 mpg better than the F-150 – I think Ford would respond.
so to a certain extent the American pickups do not feel any heat on their necks and as long as they sell better than the Tundra/etc then there’s no need to change.
i’ve been looking for hard facts, but it hasn’t been easy. nonetheless, according to the EPA truck drivers put on between 12,500 – 15,000 miles per year, while passenger cars put on 10,500 to 12,000 miles per year (http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm).
the split between light duty trucks (trucks, suvs, minivans) and passenger cars was around 50 -50 before the recession and has fluctuated since, but september numbers put light trucks back ahead.
based on fuel economy and mileage that would mean light trucks (not just pickup trucks, although they are the largest vehicle type in that group) are using substantially more fuel than are passenger cars from what I can find.
now, if we isolate out just pickup trucks, then i don’t know what the numbers would be. nonetheless, if you can fix pickup trucks, then you can change SUVs and minivans as well. moreover, pickup trucks lead US sales, and are typically on the vehicles the big 3 place in the top 10.
what percentage of our total fuel use is due to pick up trucks?
80%
60%
40%
20%
????
It’s really not how many pickups we have.
it’s how many miles the pickups drive as a percentage of total miles driven
I’m still not yet convinced that a substantial percentage of the total miles driven and total gallons consumed is pickup trucks.
I could be convinced with data.