Ford increasing SUV production

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
Ford has announced they are decreasing production of cars, and increasing production of trucks and suv's.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2018/01/16/ford-plans-more-suvs-fewer-cars-plans-billions-shareholders/1037855001/

After moving some manufacturing back into the US they seem to be going even further toward larger vehicles. Could this be an indicator that CAFE standards may be rolled back and possibly even more on changes for larger vehicles?

This mainly has to do with the way the carbon footprint CAFE regulations work. Basically, if you sale more smaller cars, then the corporate average fuel mpg number you need to meet will be high. On the flip side, if you sell more large vehicles, then the corporate average fuel mpg number you need to hit will be lower.


So if Ford sales mostly trucks with a big footprint then their average footprint will be higher meaning that they need to meet a lower mpg number in the graph below. If they start to sale a lot of small cars then that would lower their average footprint meaning they would have to attain a higher average mph number in the graph below. So essentially you will have some manufacturers making bigger vehicles just so they don't have to meet such a high corporate average mpg. Just another example of the side effect of EPA regulations and how it actually does more harm then good because they only focus on meeting a number instead not what meeting that number will causes.