Higher auto fuel economy standards mean nothing

Jeff Rubin on why CAFE standards won’t get us there:

Your engine may be a lot more efficient that your dad’s old gas-guzzler from the 1970s, but chances are you burn just as much gasoline on the road over the course of a year as he did. You, like your fellow North American drivers, eat up all the energy efficiency gains made in engine and materials technology over the last thirty years by driving ever-larger, ever-faster vehicles loaded with more and more energy-consuming features. And to top it all off, you drive your vehicle about a third more than your parents did, in large measure because you commute so much further every day than they did.

So what will work? Nothing. Just wait for oil prices to spike again — and they will. People will park their cars and look for other ways to get around.