Japan to introduce regulated fuel economy standards for cars
Fri 19 August 2011
View all news
The Japanese Government has announced plans to adopt standards which will set fuel economy targets for car makers similar to those which have been introduced in Europe and the US.
The draft guideline calls for an improvement of 24.1 percent in the average mileage of passenger cars in Japan to 20.3 km/litre in 2020, compared with 16.3 km/l in 2009, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said (reported by Reuters).
By adopting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) methodology, car makers will be incentivised to introduce fuel-saving technology such as hybrid systems on a large volume of cars, but will not be penalized for failing to meet standards in other categories, divided into 15 weight classes. Electric cars and plug-in hybrids will, however, be excluded from the fuel economy targets because they make up just 0.1 percent of current sales in Japan.
The new guidelines could take effect as early as next spring, the Japanese Government said. Many car models already meet the ministry's 2020 standards.
In the United States, the Obama administration recently announced proposals for the introduction of more challenging CAFE targets. The proposals, which were announced at the end of July and the result of months of negotiations between the Obama administration and car makers, would require the companies to reach an average fuel efficiency across their U.S. fleets of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
President Obama said that the agreement on fuel standards represented the single most important step ever taken by the United States to reduce its dependence on foreign oil. The President said that the new rules would lower the country's oil use by 2.2 million barrels a day over the next 15 years and cut more than 6 billion tons of carbon emissions for the duration of the program.
Under the US proposals new car fleets will be required to reach corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards of 54.5 mpg. This represents a major step up from current standards that require car makers to achieve 35.5 mpg by 2016.
The motor industry's response to the proposed standards was supported in principle by most of the leading car makers except for Volkswagen.
Related Links
< Back to news list