Thanks for the info, didn't know that's how the Japanese process works. Well that certainly makes this announcement more of a clever marketing exercise then
.
I don't fully buy that line of thinking. The CAFE standards are for an average that apply to categories of vehicles and entire brands. The CAFE standards do not apply to individual vehicles. Even with the new CAFE standards, some automakers will still continue to offer a wide availability of V8s.
The new CAFE standards are not a strong enough reason to be canning V8s or V6s. Frankly, I see it more as an excuse for some automakers to take the "easy" way out and stick in a smaller turbo engine in there, to take advantage of the EPA ratings, and get higher EPA ratings, and therefore higher CAFE numbers. Yet real-world fuel economy will be markedly worse, and the drivability experience for the average person won't be as pleasant. We'll already seen enough evidence of this with new small turbo engines from a number of brands over the last few years.
Those automakers that are still strongly committed to offering V6s and V8s that customers want, they can still meet the new CAFE numbers through strong research and development, ingenuity, and further development and advancement of V6 and V8 engines.
A lot of people, myself included, may vote with their wallets, and refuse to buy these small turbo engine vehicles, and stick to used large engine vehicles.