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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (78495)	7/22/2017 1:10:03 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86355

How Ford F150s have lowered U.S. gasoline use By David Hunn Updated 8:53 am, Wednesday, July 12, 2017 Photo: Mark Mulligan, Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle IMAGE 1 OF 22 FILE - A Ford F150 Raptor at the Houston Auto Show at NRG Center, Thursday, April 6, 2017, in Houston. A Rice University researcher says improvements to long-running trucks like the F-150 have led to improved ... more U.S. consumers are buying more big trucks, and driving more and more miles. Yet gasoline demand has fallen over the past five years, according to a recent white paper by a researcher at Rice University. The reason: Manufacturers keep improving the fuel efficiency of American trucks, even if by just a few miles per gallon. And those small improvements have had an outsized effect on total U.S. fuel consumption, said Gabriel Collins, an energy fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy — much larger than larger improvements in the fuel efficiency of the hybrid gas-electric Toyota Prius, for example. “It’s a paradoxical outcome,” Collins said on Tuesday. American driving rose 8 percent over the past five years, according to Collins’ paper. Meanwhile, gasoline demand inched up by half that, less than 4 percent, the brief found. Collins credits the much-maligned mpg of the Ford F150 (plus similar Chevrolet and Dodge models) for such statistics. Five years ago, a typical F150 might get about 16 or 17 mpg. The Prius averaged more like 46. So the F150 used about 6 gallons of gas to go 100 miles. The Prius? About 2. Ford and Toyota both improved their vehicles. Ford F150s now get about 20 or 21 mpg; Priuses, better than 52. That means F150s have shaved gas usage by an entire gallon over 100 miles, or about 17 percent, while the Prius still averages about 2 gallons used per 100 miles. Add that to this simple fact: Americans buy four times the number of Ford F-series trucks each year — about 800,000 — as they do Priuses, which sold fewer than 140,000 in the U.S. in 2016. “For better or for worse, a big chunk of American drivers like large, powerful vehicles,” Collins said. “So if you can find a way to make those vehicles more efficient, that's really low hanging fruit.” chron.com