Good article. This works in
Good article. This works in several ways and on several fronts as well. Automakers, for their part, generally oppose CAFE standards, but don't do so very stridently because they know that it's all a PR campaign.
CAFE (corporate AVERAGE) means that all the company has to do is be PRODUCING a fleet of vehicles with an average fuel economy of whatever the bureaucrat's magic number is that year. This means that GM, for instance, can make 200,000 SUVs getting 20mpg, but so long as they produce a Volt in any numbers (meaning it's a "production vehicle"), to bring up the average to the set CAFE number, they are fine.
This is why even with electrics and hybrids being only about 1% of the market, so long as car companies are producing them as "production" vehicles, they can make all the SUVs, pickup trucks, land yachts, etc. they want. All they have to do is make sure that their average vehicle (each model counts as 1, doesn't matter how many are produced) economy is whatever the CAFE standard is that year.
Wonder why every car manufacturer is working on hybrids and full electrics? It's how they game this CAFE system. It's also why only one manufacturer is selling a factory-made CNG vehicle in this country, why none of the U.S. automakers are really serious about producing clean diesel (outside of big vehicles), and why most other alternatives are being ignored in favor of electrics.
Not only do carmakers get high CAFE bonuses for building EVs, but they get subsidies for the development of them and subsidies (via fleet sales to government) to put them on the road. Note that only EVs and hybrids are "test vehicles" sold to government fleets to "test" them on the road. New gasoline and diesel vehicles rarely (if ever) see this kind of treatment.
The whole system is a shell game played for public relations and corporate-government-corporate handouts and deal making.