Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 1/2/2008
Posts: 348
Points: -1,174
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
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BMW is asking the Bush administration to relax a little on the upcoming 2015 Cafe standards. BMW believes the new regulations are too high for the premium automaker. While the upcoming averages for most automakers are 35 mpg for cars and 28 mpg for trucks, BMW has to hit 37 mpg for cars and 31 mpg for trucks. Why is this? Well, the government did realize that some automakers, like BMW, that don't deal in big, monster trucks would have an easier time meeting the new standards. So they created a sliding scale depending on the ratio of small and large autos the company sells. The only way BMW can save itself is by cutting weight (always a good thing) or switching much of their fleet to four cylinder or smaller six cylinder engines.
The Bush administration, probably predicting higher gas prices, raised the Cafe standards considerably late last year. The goal is to slowly have every automaker raise their miles per gallon over the course of five years between 2011 and 2015. The previous standard was 27 mpg for cars and 23 mpg for trucks.
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