NHTSA Proposes New Fuel Efficiency, GM Doesn't Agree

JAKARTA - Recently, the Department of Transportation of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed new fuel standards to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize the use of emissioned carbon.

In NHTSA's proposal, for the 2027 to 2032 vehicle model, passenger cars must produce an increase in fuel efficiency by 2 percent per year, while for light trucks it is expected to increase by 4 percent. Meanwhile, commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks and vans are required to achieve an increase in efficiency of up to 10 percent per year for the 2030 to 2035 model.

The proposal was made to achieve fuel savings with an average of 58 miles per gallon in 2032. Although this will lead to new automotive industry competition, companies like General Motors (GM) do not welcome the news well.

Reported by Automotive News, Friday, July 28, GM estimates that the automotive industry will face fines of US$100 billion to US$300 billion from 2027 to 2031 if the proposal becomes a new law.

According to GM, automakers who do not meet the requirements can face fines of US$1,300 to US$4,300 per vehicle. NHTSA has responded to this by emphasizing that the calculation is only speculation and inaccurate.

As is known, GM manufacturers are one of the companies that maintain its ideology in presenting combustion engine vehicles. In fact, they dare to build factories with an investment of US$1 billion to produce other ICE cars, such as Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD and GMC Sierra 3500HD.

Meanwhile, the proposal targets to save consumers more than $50 billion in fuel, reduce fuel dependence by saving more than 88 billion gallons by 2050, and prevent more than 900 million tons of carbon emissions.

Different from GM, other automakers have been looking for other ways to find alternative energy. Take, for example, Toyota, which will introduce a hydrogen fuel-cell energy model in 2026 by promising a cheaper price of 50 percent of existing models.