fuel economy question

It does seem to read like that, ridiculous. Enjoy it while you can, sounds like the high horsepower sport sedan may be endangered. Unless they can offer enough high mileage models to skew the average.

"anoop" wrote

No. CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. What it means is that all cars - and the X3/5 are not included as "cars" (they are included in the new truck standards, but should meet them easily) - sold by BMW in the US have to meet the 27.5 standard averaged OVER THE ENTIRE FLEET.

But the standard is the "old" fuel economy standard - 325i/330i gets about 30mpg, 525i/530i about the same. Since that's about

70% of the US sales, they easily out-weigh the 545i/50i/745i/760i/M sales. That's one of the reasons that a 330i costs about $5K more than a 325i - they want to sell high-mileage vehicles.

I'm not sure if Mini is included in BMW sales for CAFE - they can only help.

FloydR

So they use the highway number? I scanned the article trying to look for whether that number was supposed to be the highway MPG or the combined city/highway MPG. If it's only the highway MPG then I guess the 3 series cars would meet it (except perhaps the M3).

I don't understand your comment on 330i vs 325i. The mileage on both is identical per the data on BMW's website.

Anoop

"anoop" wrote

This is what I was able to dig out about the definition of "average" under CAFE:

Par. 32904: "(c) Testing and calculation procedures. The Administrator shall measure fuel economy for each model and calculate average fuel economy for a manufacturer under testing and calculation procedures prescribed by the Administrator. However, except under section 32908 of this title, the Administrator shall use the same procedures for passenger automobiles the Administrator used for model year 1975 (weighted 55 percent urban cycle and

45 percent highway cycle), or procedures that give comparable results."

Source:

Cheers,

Pete

"anoop" wrote in news:1143693255.114981.119680 @e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com:

my 30+ year old 2002tii gets about 28 so no problems.

If we use these percentages, it looks like all BMWs that are sold in the US would fail to meet the 27.5 MPG standard.

Anoop

... while my soon-to-be-19 year old 535is gets around 20. But then, the "Gas Guzzler" tax is right there on the window sticker. =;^)

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there, done that)

Yes, BMW paid a $12 million dollar fine to the NHTSA for failing to meet this standard in 2005. Mercedes paid $8.5 million and Porsche paid 6.5 million.

It's puzzling as to why BMW and MB don't sell their smaller (1-class, A-class) cars in the US and Canada, which is, after all the intent of the legislation. Even if they only broke even on the sales, they'd still avoid these fines. Perhaps it has to do with cheapening the brand, or some such MBA concept.

Thanks. It now all makes sense.

Anoop