Light Duty Automotive Fuel Economy… Trends thru 1983

This, the eleventh in a series of Papers on EPA fuel economy trends, emphasizes the current Model Year (1983) as usual, but also gives increased emphasis to trends in vehicle technology, including catalyst and transmission subclasses.

Final “CAFE”* production volumes and MPG figures have been used to update the data bases through the 1980 Model Year, and an analytic method used in the past to allocate year-to-year fleet MPG changes to specific causes, such as weight mix shifts, has been reinstituted.

Conclusions are presented on the relation between fuel economy and emission standards, catalyst types, and transmission types.