Today's Gas-Guzzling Exotic Cars

[atlaw4u]

New CAFE Rules Mean a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti Will Have to Meet Same Standard as a Camry.

Joseph B. White - WSJ - May 12, 2008

A Porsche 911 is a marvel of automotive engineering and an object of desire for people who've worked hard enough, and been lucky enough, to have $80,000 or more to drop on an exotic sports car. One thing a Porsche 911 doesn't do is get 41.3 miles per gallon in city and highway driving.

That could be a problem, because under the fuel-efficiency targets recently proposed by the federal government, Porsche cars sold in the 2015 model year (which begins in the fall of 2014) could be required to average 41.3 miles per gallon to avoid fines levied under the revised U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules.

Most of the discussion of federal efforts to boost the average fuel efficiency of new vehicles to 35 mpg by 2015 has focused on how the new standard will do in large sport-utility vehicles. But high-performance cars -- particularly those sold by relatively small manufacturers such as Porsche, Lotus, Ferrari and Subaru -- are also targets of the proposed reforms to the CAFE regime.

Overall, the new standards put a tougher burden on luxury and specialty manufacturers. By 2015, BMW AG, for example, is supposed to sell a fleet of cars that averages 37.7 mpg. Toyota, however, will have a fleet-wide passenger car target of 34.6 mpg, and General Motors Corp.'s car fleet will have to average 34.7 mpg...[Read More]

[donee]

Hi All,

Is this news? Ferrari and Porshe are paying CAFE fines with the present (not even the recently voted 35 mpg) CAFE limits. It just gets rolled into the USA Price of the car.

There is no targeting going on. They pay their fines now. Nobody is trying to take your sports car away.......

[cschur]

Thats Chrylers attitude - why bother improving gas mileage, lets just charge the customer for it by adding the fine onto the cost of the car. Im afraid chrsler wont be with us much longer....

cs

[Vooch]

article never mentions how big or trivial the FSP tax will be -

[RichXKU]

I don't think this fine should be applied to models that make up such an insignificant percentage of cars on the road.

On the flip side I think extremely high volume vehicles should have tighter FE standards.

[Vooch]

instead of CAFE standards why not just wack up the gas tax ?

FSP's will end up consuming more gas and therefore will pay more taxes

[Jaral]

@Vooch: Darn it, Ive been saying that for years. If the US Gov't really gave a crap about our fuel consumption, they would pass a nasty tax on it, make serious money which could be used to actually maintain our infrastructure and push people to consider the price of gas. We STILL aren't paying as much for gas as Europe has been paying for many years now. But no, it is our God Given Right to CONSUME!!!

[vtec-e]

I second what vooch and jaral said. Our (Irish) govt are introducing a complicated emissions system to tax cars. Far simpler to remove those taxes and work out a % to put on the gas instead. Then the heavy user REALLY pays, the occasional user pays very little. Seems fair to me. "But wouldn't that force big engined vehicles out of existence?" i hear you ask. Well, thats why it will never happen. Keeps the big boys in business.

ollie

[300TTto545]

A higher Gas tax is a political impossibility in the US. CAFE standards work better because people don't realize that there is a cost. The fine (per mpg) will probably not change from the current system. I think it worked out to $300 a car for BMW a few years ago. The fine will go up as you miss targets more but Europe has its own targets so the manufacturers are increasing the gas mileage anyway. Isn't it amazing that Porsche only misses the mark by 1 mpg? I believe the current formula of fining manufacturers winds up being far less than the gas guzzler tax which is a visible line item that technically the consumer pays. I am sure the GGT on a high end Ferrari is about $5000.

[Shiba3420]

Why should exotic's get a break? Or, let me phrase it another way, why should the rich get a break the poor don't? The rich buy the exotics and the poor have to get the fuel efficient mini's (or lower-mph used car). If your rich enough to afford a porsche or ferrari, your rich enough to pay the hefty fines that go along with driving it. But, maybe, for some, that extra expense will make the car look too insanely priced and they will go with something with better economy. Rich people don't tend to stay rich if they throw their money away with every purchase.