Benefits of recent improvements in vehicle fuel economy.

PDFTech ReportUMTRI-2014-28Fuel consumptionLight vehiclesCarbon dioxidePollutantsAir quality managementTrend (Statistics)United StatesUniversity of Michigan. Transportation Research InstituteSivak, MichaelSchoettle, BrandonUniversity of Michigan. Transportation Research InstituteUniversity of Michigan. Sustainable Worldwide TransportationUS Transportation CollectionFor the past several years, we have calculated (on a monthly basis) the average, sales-weighted fuel economy of all light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs) sold inthe U.S. The results indicate that, from October 2007 to September 2014, the average fueleconomy has improved from 20.1 mpg to 25.3 mpg. This brief note quantifies theconsequences of this improvement on overall fuel consumption and vehicle emissions.Because of their improved fuel economy, the vehicles sold since October 2007 saved acumulative total of about 15.1 billion gallons of fuel\ue2\u20ac\u201dequivalent to the current totalconsumption of all vehicles in the U.S. for about 33 days. This reduction in the amount of fueltranslates to a reduction of about 297 billion pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions.In terms of the current savings, for the most recent month\ue2\u20ac\u201dSeptember 2014\ue2\u20ac\u201dthe savingsamount to 614 million gallons of fuel, or about 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. Thesesavings are equivalent to about 6% of both the average monthly fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions from all light-duty vehicles on the road