UMTRI Project

Automaker Fuel Economy Strategy Study

Sponsor: Natural Resources Defense Council
Investigator: Walter McManus
11/01/2005 - 08/31/2006

This project aims to influence public policy choices about automotive fuel economy and environmental regulations through objective, scientific assessments of alternative public policy choices in terms of their effects on public objectives. The goal of this project is to influence the ongoing policy debates about mandated fuel economy constraints and fuel taxes by developing estimates of the impacts of constraints and taxes on U.S. consumer welfare and the U.S. vehicle industry. The estimates need to be credible, fact-based, and grounded in economic theory. The tools and processes used to produce the estimates need to be transparent and capable of being applied to new information or assumptions. propose to pursue two lines of research to accomplish the study’s objectives. The first line of research will capture the technology high ground by creating the “mother of all technology lists” in cooperation with Feng An, an expert in the field. The second line of research will bring the consumer into the debate through measures of attribute-tradeoffs via an expanded nested multinomial logistic regression model in combination with a detailed forecast of automotive sales and production, broken down by vehicle/engine/transmission/drive train.