This was an article about fleet fuel efficiency and credits. U.S. vehicle fleet fuel efficiency fell in 2019 to 24.9 mpg -- EPA (yahoo.com) Obviously Tesla is the big winner selling credits followed by Honda then Toyota. The biggest recipients are GM, Ford and Chrysler whose top selling vehicle for all three is their pickup truck. Fleet fuel efficiency is market driven. With cheap gas, people are buying trucks and bigger SUV's. The efficiency numbers are going to go down despite most new models getting better mileage than their predecessors. I would like to know a little more about what those credits cost those companies.
It's not so much what it costs the non-compliant companies, it's how much they have to tack on to all car sales when/if they fail to meet guidelines. Don't blame Ford, or Tesla, or Toyot etc for the failure of the other companies, because they are good to go. The article is misleading when it simply States mileage going down, when in fact it's the mileage of some manufacturers, not all.
The silver lining is Many of these larger vehicles are replacing higher polluting vehicles. Its fairly clear why there was a slight drop back to 2017 levels in 2019. The new rules adopted drop cafe standards to 1.5% improvement/year, versus 5% on the old rules. Car companies know this so they used some banked credits. I do believe the old rules were too aggressive, but then they weakened them too much. I would say there are 2 very easy things government can do. Infrastructure needs improvement and one way to pay for it is to increase fuel taxes while fuel prices are low. CAFE standards can be raised based fairly easily given improvements in plug-in technology. I don't expect either to happen fast though. The pandemic and recession will take up much of the administrations time until under control. But I can see both happening in 2022.
The original document may give you more detail you are looking for. Highlights of the Automotive Trends Report | The EPA Automotive Trends Report | US EPA Of particular note, I enjoyed the graphic showing each manufacturer’s mix of technology.
I wish. Not happening in 2021, Covid economic stress plus rebound demand from delayed trips and gas prices are already up 10%. Not happening in 2022, election year.
