Category: Automotive

ombustion fumes coming out of car exhaust pipe
Automotive / EPA
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EPA Issues Automotive Trends Report, Noting Record Improvements in CO2 Emissions and Fuel Economy

To close out 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued its annual Automotive Trends Report, which provides the public with information about vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fuel economy, technology data and innovation, and auto manufacturers’ performance in meeting the EPA’s GHG emissions standards. EPA has been collecting this information since 1975.

According to EPA, new vehicle CO2 emissions and fuel economy had the biggest annual improvement of the last nine years, reaching record low CO2 emissions and record high fuel economy. In model …

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Trucks
Automotive / Emissions
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California Hits Harder on Heavy Truck Emissions

On April 28, California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) approved new regulations which would phase out the sales of medium and heavy-duty combustion trucks in California by 2036. The goal is to fully transition existing fleets to zero-emissions vehicles by 2045.   

Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulation, the ACF is part of CARB’s latest initiative to accelerate California’s transition to zero-emission medium and heavy duty vehicles. The purpose of the regulation is to protect communities that are near trucking corridors and warehouse locations. Studies have shown …

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Handle fuel nozzle to refuel the car.
Automotive / Emissions
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EPA Gives the Green Light to Ethanol for Summer Travel

The EPA on Friday granted a waiver of its traditional summer ban on the sale of gasoline with 15-percent ethanol — or “E15” — to continue mitigating the disruption of fuel commerce around the globe caused by the conflict in Ukraine.

Ethanol is made by fermenting the sugar in the starches of grains such as corn, sorghum, and barley, and the sugar in sugar cane and sugar beets. The vast majority of gasoline sold in the United States is “E10,” or gasoline with 10-percent ethanol …

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truck traffic
Automotive / California
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EPA Gives California Green Light to Hit the Brakes on Heavy Truck Emissions

California has been pushing hard recently to lose its status as the second-largest contributor of the nation’s greenhouse gases (still comfortably behind Texas.)

In 2020, the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) enacted the Advanced Clean Trucks (“ACT”) rule, the world’s first zero-emissions commercial truck requirement. Specifically, ACT required large-capacity vehicle (truck) manufacturers to phase out gasoline and diesel trucks, which account for the largest single source of pollution in the world’s fifth-largest economy, by replacing them with ever-larger volumes of vehicles with zero emissions. By …

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Automotive / EPA
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The Last Step – EPA Finalizes Rollback of Obama-era Automotive Pollution Targets

On April 1, 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its final rule to rollback Obama-era automobile fuel efficiency standards. The new rule will allow vehicles on American roads to emit nearly a billion tons more carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the vehicles than they would have under the prior administration’s standards.

The new rule, which is expected to be implemented by late spring, will roll back a 2012 rule that required automakers’ fleets to average about 54 miles per gallon by 2025. Under the …

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