Edgy01

Porsche May Struggle to Comply With U.S. Fuel Limits, FTD Says


By Brian Parkin

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Porsche SE, the maker of the Boxster sports car, may struggle to fulfill U.S. gasoline-consumption rules, potentially denting sales, Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing a company spokesman.

Porsche gained a waiver to meet the requirements in 2012 through 2015 yet doubts its automobiles will satisfy the legal minimum consumption rate from 2016, the company’s U.S.-based lobbyist Stephan Schlaefli is cited by the newspaper as saying.

The U.S. legislation, which will become law in May, requires cars to have an average gasoline consumption rate of 41.4 miles to the gallon, the FTD cites Schlaefli as saying. That will entail lowering the consumption of Porsche cars by about 10 percent a year from 2010, which Schlaefli said was not feasible, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net

russo

The green police are steadily gaining power. Pretty soon they will be dictating the type of light bulbs and the amount of electricity we are allowed to use.

Bruce R

What's not clear from the article is what options Porsche NA has from 2016. Previously NA manufacturers could pay a fine and be done with it. Will that option still exist?

Bob Rouleau

The fines are huge, maximum is $37,500 according to what I read someplace.

ADias

This is the '70s/'80s all over again. The government kills the auto industry (see Toyota) and destroys pleasure driving. Damn!

Wasn't VW helping here? Averaging the fleet? Isn't Ferrari averaged under Fiat?

Chris C.

Agreed - it's big government gone awry. The CAFE standards were unilaterally changed by the new administration.

alexb76

This is ridicolous! Like GM, Ford with their gas guzzler trucks can be safe as they could hide under "Truck" designation, and to average it out across other GM/Ford cars... they should limit this law to mass produced cars... how in the world can Ferrari, Lamborghini can comply!

I remember the last episode of Top Gear, it was sad, Jeremy Clarkson was testing the latest Aston Martinm he drove it around and talked about how enjoyable the car is, but that "this is a sad moment, and this will be the last of these amazing cars!", totally sad statement!

I love them to go after all the pollution, not to mention carbon that the coal power factories make, to POWER the electric cars of 2016!!!

This whole global warmin is a sham created by businesses behind *green* industries!!!

alexb76

I saw parts of the Congress hearing with Toyota US CEO... IT WAS A JOKE!!! They have NO CLUE how cars are designed/tested/manufactured, they had some idiots telling the CEO "WHY don't you take this lady's car that's crashed 2 years ago and study it as to why it accelerated"!!! They were doing their best to make Toyota say they still don't know what caused the issue, and to basically give general public the perception all Toyota's are unsafe!

I remember Audi almost went out of business because of unintended acceleration BS, due to the fact that people would mistakenly press on gas pedal instead of brake (pedals were close), and thought it's a computer problem!

I am Canadian, but I sure hope you guys can change everyone in that stupid Congress, both Democrat and Republican!

Mike in CA

Yeah. What a conspiracy. All that silly science validating climate change from all those stupid liberal scientists, the National Science Institutes of virtually every industrialized nation, not to mention those liberal wackos at NASA who believe it's real and that humans are the primary cause of it. I mean, why listen to all those "scientists" with fancy degrees and supercomputers and elite liberal knowledge and stuff when you can get your scientific information straight from the people who really know, like Palin and Glen Beck.

I also think it's stupid to go after companies like Porsche and Ferrari in order to get a few more MPG. In the grand scheme of things that's just puppysh*t. Knee jerk reactions are not going to solve the problem. But to deny there even is a problem, flies in the face of facts and common sense.

Alan Smithee

The difference this time is that there is an EU contolled by greenies, so European performance car manufacturers will have to adapt to survive.

brendo

edgy's always on top of the news

I'm a big supporter of CAFE limits if they're done appropriately. they should be gradual and reasonable and drive innovation. today's average car has tons of power relative to just a few years ago.

Alex's point is spot on - the big three got away with a big BS loophole driving truck sales and getting away with ignoring the CAFE limits. your basic GM SUV now is 30 year old technology. yes, they're useful and big and spacious, but i'm not a fan - not a hater either.

in this case though, i would view this as lobbying at best and i'm surprised that Porsche is concerned. the primary drivers for the VW-porsche merger was sharing technology (scale) and getting Porsche around the CAFE limits, same as Ferrari.

incidentally, the CAFE limits in europe are nearly double that of the US, while the US has much stricter emissions requirements.

when it comes down to it, CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) is the fleet average, not the average of the individual brands. i'm not worried that the end is near!

nyca

This article makes no sense - Porsche averages in now with the VW fleet. I am not sure about the Fiat/Ferrari relationship, and how the Chrysler addition works along with that.

But hey, alot of people posted here that these 2016 regulation enacted at the start of this administration were draconian - and it could well play out as described in this article. I, along with most of you I imagine, will be buying pre-owned cars the rest of our lives if this comes to pass. I won't climb into some unsafe car with no power, I'll put 200,000 miles on an S Class first and pay whatever it costs to keep it maintained and on the road.

The best gasoline powered cars ever to be produced, are being produced right now - and over the next 5 years.

Alan Smithee

Which is why the CAFE is ridiculous, and will end up further hurting the US auto industry.

DJ23

I guess I'll definitely stick with my 2010 Turbo. Hopefully someone with great sense will realize the economic impact this could invaribly have on US dealers and our economy. We will have to see how this plays out.

Jay

jsmirand

This is overblown, and basically a lot of corporate, political, and scientific positioning will take place over the next few years.

Some pressure is healthy - I wouldn't want to live in a city that didn't control leaded gasoline. I've been to places like Manila or other heavily smoggy cities in Asia that are miserable - where you literally need a mask to go outside - its an extreme of non-regulation, but so is the notion that NASA and science is wrong, etc...

There is a fine balance, there will always be performance available to those with the ability to purchase it.