Obama and numbers

[stevenehrbar]

Obama said, " "While our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5 miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us, with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon."

The response from Toyota spokesman Mike Michelsm "I'm not sure where he got that figure.  No carmaker gets 45 m.p.g. Ours is closer to 30 m.p.g." 

In another case, Obama said, "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed."

The tornado disaster actually killed twelve people, three orders of magnitude fewer.  (The deadliest tornado outbreak in the 20th Century, the April 3–4, 1974, “Super Tornado Outbreak”, killed 330 people.  Hurricane Katrina caused 1,723 deaths.)

Comments

[archangelbeth]

That's okay -- where does he get 27.5 mpg for American cars, especially in the last 2 decades? Low-20s seems far more plausible.

Bother. I'd hoped he'd be smarter. O:p

[stevenehrbar.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's the passenger car CAFE standard enshrined in law. Perfectly good number, been the law since 1985.

(The light truck standard was set at 20.2 in 1991, and slowly has crept up, to 22.2 MPG this year, which is what minivans and SUVs are all sitting under. Prior to 1991, there were dual 2-wheel and 4-wheel CAFE standards, and a complicated formula where they could be averaged.)

(And there's a CAFE credit for flex fuel vehicles, so the "real" limit is somewhat lower. Chevrolet, for example, has flex-fuel versions of the Tahoe, Silverado, Suburban, Avalanche, Impala, and Monte Carlo.)

(Hmm. Also, it should be noted that neither China nor Japan have any CAFE requirements at all.)

[archangelbeth]

Wonky. I suppose that's freeway driving, and all the tests that Consumer Reports claims are inaccurate for "real use" style driving. (My old car got about 22-23, as did the one before that. My new one, if I do freeway driving, can hit 25-29mpg till the averages drop her back to 23-25, depending on if I'm paying attention to her little onboard computer that both shows current mpg and average mpg. And I try not to pay toooooo much attention to it because that takes my attention off the road.)

*pauses to love my 2006 Subaru Legacy wagon*