Nissan U.S. March sales increase 43.3 percent!

SiXK

The obama administration has moved the fuel efficiency standards of 35.5 MPG for the fleet up to 2016. It was set to take effect in 2020.

With the 370Z sales low - something I think Nissan would be fine with in a normal world - you have to wonder what their thoughts will be on the Z. Its certainly going to be one of their lowest MPG cars. How will they be able to justify such a low selling, low mileage car when the govt is requiring a 35.5 MPG fleet standard?

2016 fuel standards will affect the next iteration of the Z, they won't develop a new car to only sell it a year or two. It will be interesting. Will they get its MPG up? Hybrid the Z? Or will they kill it?

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Magnetic Black 2009 370Z / Pearl Yellow 1991 300ZXTT

ChrisSlicks

It's all about the averages. If they can sell many cars that get 40 mpg then the small percentage of cars getting around 30 mpg isn't much of an issue. I fully expect the Z to be achieving around 30 mpg by that time thanks to direct injection and maybe better gearing.

The other wild card that people don't always know about is the way that they compute averages for certain hybrids (for the purpose of CAFE only) are different. So for every plug-in hybrid that you sell you essentially get a "bonus", and for full electrics and even bigger bonus. For the purpose of calcuating the average, the full electric car could be considered as getting 360 mpg! As long as Nissan sells a few of those Leaf things their average will be golden. I don't think the final math for electric cars has been finalized yet, but it will boost the average significantly.

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