Matthew de Paula, Contributor
I offer thoughtful coverage of the auto industry.
As automakers shave every extra ounce from new vehicles to boost fuel economy, a weight problem of a different sort could be thwarting their efforts.
The extra pounds people are packing on their waistlines might be offsetting gains in gas mileage, according to a blog post from the insurance company Allstate.
Weight gain of passengers in noncommercial vehicles could account for nearly 1 billion gallons of gasoline consumed per year in the United States from 1960 to 2002, Allstate says in an infographic accompanying its blog post.
Automakers are doing all they can to make new vehicles lighter than in the past, including using lightweight material like thinner steel. The goal is to reduce how much fuel they use. For example, the 2013 Nissan Altima is about 80 pounds lighter than the model it replaces, and the 31 miles per gallon it gets in combined city and highway driving is about 15 percent better than the previous model.
It might seem preposterous that portly passengers could negate the weight savings automakers are achieving. But consider that fuel efficiency improves 2 percent for every 100 pounds shed from a vehicle, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So if a heavyset adult couple—each 50 pounds overweight—loses the extra weight, their fuel economy will go up 2 percent.
The reason automakers are going to great lengths to make lighter vehicles—Jaguar even reduced the number of rivets it uses on cars—is to comply with stringent new Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. Fleet-wide fuel economy for passenger cars must jump to an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, from 32.8 miles per gallon this year.
This obsessive new focus on dropping pounds from vehicles is a reversal for the auto industry. In general, cars have gained several hundred pounds over the past few decades, largely because they’ve gotten bigger and added more safety features and other technology.
Meanwhile, Americans have also been steadily growing in size and weight. Obesity is at an all-time high, affecting more than 35 percent of U.S. men and women, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Average self-reported weight is up nearly 20 pounds since 1990, according to a November 2011 Gallup poll. On average, American men said they weighed 196 pounds and women said they weighed 160 pounds.
Allstate included those statistics and others compiled with the help of Cars.com in the infographic on its blog. Allstate attributes the calculation of 1 billion extra gallons of fuel consumed due to peoples’ weight gain to a 2010 Consumer Reports post. Consumer Reports says it drew on research from a 2006 Entrepreneur.com article that analyzed the amount of additional fuel burned by heavy drivers.