BMW, others fined for not complying with fuel econ. regulations.

[breytonX5]

Just read this news from the local paper (Toronto Sun)

"Automakers, led by BMW AG and DaimlerChrysler AG, paid nearly $32 million US in penalties in 2005 for failing to comply with fuel economy regulations, according to government figures released this week.

BMW paid more than $12 million for three separate violations of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations. The rules are put into place to ensure vehicles meet basic gas mileage standards.

DaimlerChrysler paid $8.5 million, followed by Porshe AG with nearly $6.4 million and Volkswagen AG with $3.4 million. Ferrari Maserati North America Inc. paid $1.5 million.

For 2006 model year vehicles, the requirement for cars is 27.5 miles per gallon and for light truck it's 21.6 mpg.

Many manufacturers of luxury vehicles regularly consider the CAFE fines as cost of doing business. The fines are paid to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."



I don't think these luxury automakers worry too much about paying these fines.....pocket change.

[UCrewX5]

Originally Posted by breytonX5

I don't think these luxury automakers worry too much about paying these fines.....pocket change.

Probably just looked at as a cost of doing business

[somewhereinla]

Fairly common practice, they pay the fine every year, actually most car manufacturer do.

[Bavarian]

Is the required MPG an average of city and highway figures? Cuz I think only companies like Toyota and Honda would pass in that case.

Even a manual-equipped 325i has a city/highway average of 25mpg, and that car is quite efficient in light of BMW's other offerings.

[JCL]

CAFE fuel consumption is a rather unique program. It comes from a mid-seventies US government pledge to double the fuel efficiency of manufacturer's fleets. Trucks are treated differently than cars. Fuel consumption is not the EPA calculation that is on the window sticker, but a special CAFE calculation. Fleets are calculated as weighted averages based on sales volumes.

In 2004, BMW had a fleet calculation of 26.1 for cars (27.5 is the minimum). The BMW truck average was 21.5 (20.7 is the minimum). For cars, the standard hasn't been raised since 1990. The truck standard was frozen for years, but started increasing in 2005. It applies to all trucks under 8500 lb GVW.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/CAFE/overview.htm

Domestic and Asian manufacturers have never paid a penalty (not sure about 2005). Five European manufacturers pay every year. The penalty is based on the number of cars sold (x$ per .1 mpg times sales volume). It is not a cost of doing business, IMO, but rather a carbon tax that is built into the price of the vehicle. It is obviously not punitive enough to drive much in the way of fleet fuel economy improvements, so perhaps simply increasing the price of fuel would be more effective.

[lanbrown]

Originally Posted by JCL

Domestic and Asian manufacturers have never paid a penalty (not sure about 2005).

I wouldn't go that far, there's CAFE credits.

[JCL]

Originally Posted by lanbrown

I wouldn't go that far, there's CAFE credits.

It is actually an NHTSA quote from their 2004 report. They have never paid a civil penalty. Yes, they have missed the odd target, but they have been able to use previous year's credits to compensate.