Technologies and policies for increased efficency in the automobile and light truck fleet

摘要

The fuel economies of successive model years of U.S. new cars and light trucks have been essentially constant for the past decade - in 1988, the new car and new light truck fleet mpgs were 28.6 and 21.2 mgp, respectively, and in 1996 the fleet mpg's were 28.5 and 20.4 (Heavenrich and Hellman, 1996). Further, the market share of less fuel efficient light trucks has climbed dramatically, from about 20 percent in 1975 to 30 percent in 1988 and 40 percent in 1996 (Ibid) - and today, the light truck share is nearly 50 percent. Thus, the fuel economy of the entire (new) light duty fleet has actually declined during the past decade.