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Possible way for manuf. to circumvent CAFE for "sports" cars?

PricklyPete

PricklyPete

Lifer
Obviously this plan will not work for V8's, but what if car companies started putting turbo's in there sports car's, but tune the turbo's for maximum efficiency vs. power...but build in enough tolerance in the engines to withstand re-calibration of the ECU and a lot more power. Then the companies could partner with third party ECU flashers that would boost performance and people could still keep there warranty.

This way the CAFE standard would be met, but people who really care about the extra power could still get a company backed method of getting said power.

I'm sure I'm simplifying "optimization for power vs. efficiency" and assuming that most of that is done with just ECU programming. If it is possible, I'm sure this kind of setup would be very popular with enthusiasts.
 
Or how about the volume of sports cars sold is so low that 15mpg vs 30mpg doesn't have that big of an impact on the manufacturer. For example, if a company sells 300,000 cars and the fleet averages 30mpg, selling an additional 10,000 sports cars that get 15 mpg only causes the average to drop .49mpg. Doubling the mpg on that car doesn't have a huge impact like squeezing a few extra miles out of the family sedan.
 
KentState said:
Or how about the volume of sports cars sold is so low that 15mpg vs 30mpg doesn't have that big of an impact on the manufacturer. For example, if a company sells 300,000 cars and the fleet averages 30mpg, selling an additional 10,000 sports cars that get 15 mpg only causes the average to drop .49mpg. Doubling the mpg on that car doesn't have a huge impact like squeezing a few extra miles out of the family sedan.
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I guess I'm not really familiar with how the CAFE numbers are calculated. How do new cars affect it if the numbers are based purely on past volume? Seems like it would be impossible for a car company to plan if the CAFE number was going to be based on volumes. The car company would have to guess about how many they might sell of each of their vehicles to do product planning. They guess wrong on those numbers ALL the time.
 
See the very bottom of this page for an example calculation figuring the CAFE for a hypothetical manufacturer:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/cafe/overview.htm

While car companies don't know exactly how many vehicles they're going to sell in a given year, they have to be pretty good at estimating, otherwise how would they decide how many to make? There's a whole lot that goes into making a car -- supplier orders, production schedules, number of shifts at a factory, etc.... and since they have years' worth of data to go on, they can be fairly certain how well a given vehicle will sell, even if it's a new vehicle for that model year. Even if they are off in their estimates, I wouldn't think that it'd be feasible for them to be change it by more than 10% or so.... they'd have to hire/fire too many people or run a factory well over or under capacity. Yes, there have been some recent high-profile demand shocks due to economic pressures, but overall the auto makers can estimate pretty darn well.

And just because sales might be off, doesn't mean that production is off. We have seen times when cars are flying off the lots, and the factories can't pump out any more. Also times when the dealers' lots are full and the car companies have to give big incentives to move stock. In the end I think they would rather give incentives than cut deeply into their production schedule, because layoffs cost money too.
 
Or get this to pass the crash test.

AZ-1

Mike&
 
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How about get both great gas mileage along with great performance? Doesn't the new Hyundai GTDI get around 270bhp and 22/35MPG?
 
Zap said:
How about get both great gas mileage along with great performance? Doesn't the new Hyundai GTDI get around 270bhp and 22/35MPG?
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I'm assuming that's diesel and diesels just don't sell well here in the states. I would definitely buy a diesel but they just don't sell well enough.
 
zerocool84 said:
I'm assuming that's diesel and diesels just don't sell well here in the states. I would definitely buy a diesel but they just don't sell well enough.
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It's not a diesel...it is a turbo direct injection motor.

The idea here is not that they can't produce engines with both...we just all know that there is always going to be a compromise with regard to performance vs. fuel efficiency. If they were able to program the cars to be geared toward efficiency off the lot...but leave enough room in the engine design for the aftermarket (possibly even partnered with them) to really open up the car...then you could pass CAFE standards with ease, but still satisfy the enthusiast market who want the fastest/greatest.
 
So, minimal boost off the lot and limited to 3k rpm, and high boost with 7krpm with an aftermarket ECU is what your are purposing?
 
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HarryLui said:
So, minimal boost off the lot and limited to 3k rpm, and high boost with 7krpm with an aftermarket ECU is what your are purposing?
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I'm not so much getting into the specifics of how it would be implemented...just the idea of under tuning the car to produce max mileage out of the factory...but leave a lot of room (or even partner with a aftermarket tuner) to produce cheap power for the enthusiast.
 
Many cars have done multi mode tuning, Jags, mercedes all have the sport/comfort switch. I suprised the US hasn't caught on to the idea yet. The vette actually forced the trans from 1st to 4th for a while to help with the epa ratings.
 
lurk3r said:
Many cars have done multi mode tuning, Jags, mercedes all have the sport/comfort switch. I suprised the US hasn't caught on to the idea yet. The vette actually forced the trans from 1st to 4th for a while to help with the epa ratings.
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Still does. Avoids the gas guzzler tax. It's called CAGS, computer aided gear selection.
 
crazySOB297 said:
Still does. Avoids the gas guzzler tax. It's called CAGS, computer aided gear selection.
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Exactly...more of this kind of stuff...but taken to a more extreme with turbo's and fuel systems. A cheap fix would yield the car much more capable and the company would pass its CAFE restrictions.
 
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