Last year, the Obama administration finalized a new set of fuel economy standards that will require car companies to average 54.5 mpg across their fleets by 2025—the biggest change since the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) law was passes in 1975. Current rules for CAFE program mandate an average of about 29 miles per gallon, with gradual increases to 35.5 mpg by 2016.
Source: Nissan
Automakers are taking different approaches to meeting the increasingly more stringent guidelines. Electric drivetrain, both plug-in and hybrid, is one obvious approach. Consumers gravitating towards smaller vehicles is another. However, a significant portion of OEMs’ fleets will still be based on traditional gasoline powered internal combustion engines.
But automotive engineers are not at their wit’s end. The designers of Nissan Altima 2013 were able to achieve significant mpg savings through improvement by employing a newly designed continuously variable transmission, lowering overall mass and reducing drag.