Mapping the road to 54.5mpg

Part 1 of AEI's three-part series looks at the CAFE challenge and the product-development options being weighed to meet it-while engineers look forward to the critical 2018 midterm review.

In automotive product development, achieving a 5% increase in efficiency across a subsystem, or overall in the vehicle, is a very big deal. This is, after all, an industry in which engineers will practically kill to get an extra 1% out of anything. A 10% efficiency gain is cause for jubilation.

That's why the new U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations that raised the auto industry's overall fleet fuel economy requirement from 25.3 mpg in 2010, to 34.1 mpg by 2016-the biggest CAFE increase since the 1978-84 period-were regarded as a very tough bogey. But it's nothing compared with what comes next.