THE CAR OF THE FUTURE - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 124

helped blunt this trade-of ; it's now possible to make pret y big cars that
don't gulp fuel. Recent rounds of fuel economy rules have also been
designed so that companies trying to cut their cars' fuel consumption
simply by making them smaller won't get any credit. h is means that
the new regulations won't create any incentive to make smaller cars.
But one of the big ways auto companies still foresee cut ing their
cars' fuel demand is by making those cars lighter. h is still concerns
people who worry about what would happen to drivers in a car crash.
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Transportation weighed in on the con-
troversy. 56 New fuel economy rules passed three years earlier would
make small cars lighter, increasing the number of occupants killed in
accidents, but it would also make big cars lighter, decreasing the num-
ber of people killed when those cars struck others. h e net impact, they
determined, would be zero. Later, they revisited the analysis, applying it
to the new rules being put in place for 2025. h is time they concluded
that although more people would be killed in small, light cars as the
result of the new regulations, it would be more than of set by the saved
lives of people struck by now-lighter trucks. 57 h is sort of cost-benei t
analysis is done all the time. Still, when you break it down, it's a bit
morbid. It's easy to see why some people blanch at government man-
dates that yield consequences of this kind.
h e i nal challenge comes down to cost. No one seriously disputes
the fact that fuel economy standards raise the costs of cars and trucks
and that tougher standards will raise them more. h e debate is over how
big those costs are and whether they outweigh any benei ts. Analysts at
the Department of Transportation have looked at this question with a
computer model that at empts to predict the changes car manufacturers
will make in order to comply with its new rules for cars and truck sold
between 2017 and 2025. h ey have concluded that, by 2025, a new car
will cost somewhere around two thousand dollars more to produce, and
sticker prices will rise by a bit more as a result . 58 Whether the right
number is half this, or double, is tough to pin down—governments
usually overestimate the costs of complying with new rules—but the
basic trend is certainly right. 59
h e big question is whether this cost is outweighed by the benei ts
from driving more ei cient vehicles. h e Department of Transportation