People should be careful about correlation and causation, but that doesn't mean correlation is useless. The sometimes missing piece is a mechanism for how A affects B. But in this case there is an entirely plausible mechanism.
The Norse will be alright - Sæhrímnir will be eaten (providing "the best of bacons") and brought back to life the next day.
Who voted for a higher MPG limit? No one. The EPA, a gov't bureacracy, acted on previously delegated power to set new mileage goals. This being a democracy, we're free to disagree with the ends and the means.
The citizenry doesn't (often) vote for individual policies. Direct voting for everything is an interesting idea, but has its own problems.
If the gov't could do the same for cars, I'd like to see the proposal. The EPA raising the mileage standards is not even remotely similar to what the gov't did to start off the Internet boom.
Maybe a government-funded lab could do great things for car technology, but there are no guarantees in R&D.
You still haven't provided evidence that the mileage standards are attainable - only made vague unsubstantiated references to carmakers being "okay" with them.
Ugh. You're back to questioning the attainability again? Zombie arguments never die, I guess. You don't even have to RTFA for the substantiation. It's in the summary:
Last year, 13 major automakers, which together account for more than 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States, announced their support for the new standards."
I find it interesting that we have come to a point where "science" is irrefutable if enough scientists agree with it... and anyone who disagrees and looks for alternate explanations is labeled as "anti-science" or a "kook". If I remember my history, all scientific breakthroughs required disagreeing with prevailing theories that were accepted by a majority of scientists. It is so backwards.
When there's scientific consensus, anyone who disagrees baselessly is anti-science and a kook. It's perfectly fine at any time to question and to look for alternate explanations, but overturning those prevailing theories takes more, better science, not a rejection of science.
Sorry. Didn't read back far enough into the discussion to refresh the memory.
Ok. It could happen to anyone.
You can't buy a car that doesn't get designed and sold, because selling it to meet market demand would trigger heavy penalties.
Some models that were marginally profitable may be cut, but that doesn't mean that you won't be able to find an SUV. Some of those models probably wouldn't have been around in the first place without the 2003 large vehicle subsidy.
You're not convincing me that it takes a gov't demand in order to make carmakers design better cars.
Better is subjective. You don't think the result will be better, but I do.
Is that where you think innovation comes from? Decrees from kings or bureaucrats to make it so?
Innovation doesn't all come from one place. Sometimes it's private sector and sometimes the government spurs the innovation. I've got an example in mind. I'll give you a hint - we're communicating over it.
I didn't say the standards were unattainable (impossible).
You do know that we can still read your comment that started this, calling the standards "unattainable", don't you?
In order to meet the standards, the carmakers have to make tradeoffs - price, safety, style - things which customers can legitimately want, but are now denied due to "unintended consequences" of gov'ts decrees.
Tradeoffs. Duh. We've been over that before. You could still buy your gas guzzler. You might pay more to subsidize sales of the gas sipping cars, though.
Gas efficiency is a feature. Carmakers already have a strong incentive to improve it within reason. What gov't standards just did is to push improvements *beyond* reason. There is no free lunch.
Beyond reason? Again you think you know more about this than the carmakers themselves. You're not convincing.
But in the meantime I have no reason to doubt all the car companies that say they can do it.
I do. Product doesn't always live up to marketing. Note that there's generally a difference between advertised EPA mileage and actual mileage.
The car companies have millions and billions riding on this stuff, yet you claim to know their business better than they do. I think you simply made a silly comment (standards are unattainable) and don't want to admit it.
Because said study, if it exists, has not been cited at all by the supporters of the EPA rule.
If the carmakers are already on target to achieve these gains - why need the EPA rule at all? To answer the question - it's because not issuing an EPA rule means politicians and bureaucrats don't get a chance to assert authority over people.
No, it's because the carmakers would not achieve those gains without the rule. In a single comment you suggest the standards are unattainable and also that they'd meet the standards even without the rule.
Finally the one who will be a match for the Philosoraptor.
You (and the EPA) haven't validated the claim that the standards are attainable, either.
The only iron-clad proof is actually pulling it off. But in the meantime I have no reason to doubt all the car companies that say they can do it.
It's not like the EPA invented efficiency improving technology that it wants car markers to adopt. All it did is threaten penalties on carmakers for failing to meet arbitrarily chosen mileage standards.
What makes you think it was arbitrarily chosen instead of chosen based on a study of all those tradeoffs you rightly have been pointing out?
Why not just ask for infinite mileage?
You know very well that's not attainable with internal combustion engines. You need some science fictional John Galt sort of device for that.
Surely you're not claiming that you'd treat the claims "it's partly cloudy" and "it's literally raining cats and dogs" equally? The former happens all the time, so it's plausible. Especially if you later see the ground's all wet. The latter is fairly ridiculous and can be ignored until someone provides video, at which point you should still depose witnesses and analyze the video for signs of editing.
Even scientists need to use their "personal bias" (aka what they've learned about the world) to decide what's worth pursuing.
Hey, what's with the racism crap?
It seems you've abandoned your claim that the standards are unattainable and now are arguing that they're simply not a good idea.
The free market cannot solve all problems. There are externalities unaccounted for, and this is a classic tragedy of the commons situation.
Again, of course those are tradeoffs. And the standards are attainable. Did you notice the part about the 13 major car manufacturers endorsing the new standards?
The standards don't really add anything, except...
They add efficiency. There are financial, environment and national security reasons for the efficiency standards.
Do you believe every claim that you don't have evidence contradicting?
Not necessarily, but I don't go around assuming people are liars without reason either.
The reason for the doubt is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I thought that idea would be uncontroversial, at least on a site like this.
It makes sense to average them in, but it would make it easier for car companies to meet the MPG goal. I'd like it to be a moderately challenging standard, but not unreasonably so.
Does the fleet average include electric vehicles with their mpg-equivalent rating? Cars like the new Tesla sedan (89 MPGe) could bring up the average quite a bit.
It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
