$30.3 Million Fine Gives CAFE Fine Crown to Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz is counting on its new clean diesel engines to help boost sales in a U.S. market suddenly consumed by fuel economy concerns.
But the German luxury carmaker could get another big benefit from diesel sales here: the increased mileage diesel cars and trucks deliver could save it millions of dollars a year in the fines it regularly pays for exceeding the federal CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standard.
For 2006, the most recent figures available, Mercedes – through its then-parent DaimlerChrysler -- paid a record $30.3 million in CAFE fines, according to data posted recently by the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency.
As we reported previously, the record for the highest annual fine had been held by BWW of North America, which paid $27.9 million in 2001 (breaking its own record of $27.3 million set in 2000).
The fines are levied at the rate of $5.50 for each tenth of a mile that a carmaker's fleet average exceeds the year's CAFE standard -- $55 for a 1 mpg overage – multiplied by the number of vehicles produced for the U.S. market that year.
The Mercedes fine for 2006 is a little fuzzy because the total includes fines for a small number of Crossfire sport coupes and roadsters that were built in Germany and imported to the U.S. and sold under the Chrysler brand. But most of the record fine was racked up by Mercedes passenger cars, a NHTSA spokesman said.
Only 7,000 Crossfires were sold in the U.S. in 2006, compared to 247,800 Mercedes-Benz cars.
What the DaimlerChrysler fine doesn't include is any gas-guzzler penalty for cars and trucks made at Chrysler plants in North America and sold in the U.S.
With all the concern these days over the relative inefficiency of U.S. cars and trucks, this next could be taken as a criticism of how lenient the CAFE rules have become, but in the 23 years NHTSA has been collecting and reporting the fines there's never been one levied against a major domestic manufacturer, or a Japanese or Korean automaker for that matter.
With the exception of a handful of specialized domestic carmakers and tuners – companies such as Panoz Auto Development, Callaway Cars and Vector Aeromotive – only European luxury and performance carmakers have been hit with CAFE fines.
Just two -- BMW and Mercedes-Benz -- have paid almost two-thirds of the $735.4 million in fines levied since the program began 23 years ago.
That could change in coming years under new legislation, signed into law last month, which will boost CAFE to a fleetwide 35 miles per gallon in 2020, up from 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 for light trucks this year.
But for now, it's mainly Bimmers and Benzes – with a smattering of Porsches, Volkswagens and Ferraris – that are paying for the privilege of thumbing their noses at U.S. fuel economy rules. (Range Rover, Volvo and Jaguar used to pay pretty regularly, too, but their fuel economy tallies are now lumped into and diluted by the Ford Motor Co. pool.)
The German and Italian carmakers argue that their clients demand performance levels that substantial fuel-economy improvements would diminish and seem quite willing, thank you, to pay the extra costs tacked onto the stickers to cover the fuel fines.
We bet they'll do some improving now, though, with CAFE bumping up as much as 40 percent for light trucks and 27 percent for passenger cars over the next dozen years.
If the European CAFE breakers could sell enough diesel models with that 25 percent to 30 percent fuel-economy boost over comparable gasoline engines, it could do wonders for their bottom lines – the Germans that is, we don't anticipate a diesel Ferrari anytime soon, although even the gang at Maranello is going green-ish.
Here are the fines levied by NHTSA for 2006 model-year CAFE violations:
DaimlerChrysler, $30.3 million;
BMW of North America, $5 .1 million;
Porsche Cars of North America, $4.6 million;
Maserati Automobiles of America, $1.4 million;
Volkswagen of America, $1 million;
Ferrari North America, $0.8 million.
- Posted by
- John O'Dell January 3, 2008, 6:40 AM
- Permalink
- Categories:
- BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Legislation, Porsche, Volkswagen, Volvo
Higher CAFE regs + the weakness of the dollar = more expensive European cars.
It's 2009 and this is 2006 data. Maybe readers would like more up-to-date data. OEMs submitted their 2007 data last June.
BMW got credits in 2007 and paid no CAFE penalty.
To find out why go here
http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=6826