The_Lizard

2005 Outback to be classified as a light truck

To Avoid Fuel Limits, Subaru Is Turning a Sedan Into a Truck

By DANNY HAKIM
Published: January 13, 2004

DETROIT, Jan. 12 — The Subaru Outback sedan looks like any other midsize car, with a trunk and comfortable seating for four adults.

But Subaru is tweaking some parts of the Outback sedan and wagon this year to meet the specifications of a light truck, the same regulatory category used by pickups and sport utilities. Why? Largely to avoid tougher fuel economy and air pollution standards for cars.

It is the first time an automaker plans to make changes in a sedan — like raising its ground clearance by about an inch and a half — so it can qualify as a light truck. But it is hardly the first time an automaker has taken advantage of the nation's complex fuel regulations, which divide each manufacturer's annual vehicle fleet into two categories. Light trucks will have to average only 21.2 miles a gallon in the 2005 model year. By contrast, each automaker's full fleet of passenger cars must average 27.5 miles a gallon.

The move will let Subaru sell more vehicles with turbochargers, which pep up performance but hurt mileage and increase pollution. "It was difficult to achieve emissions performance with the turbos," said Fred D. Adcock, executive vice president of Subaru of America. They also made it hard to meet fleetwide fuel economy standards for cars.

Subaru's strategy highlights what environmentalists, consumer groups and some politicians say is a loophole in the fuel economy regulations that has undermined the government's ability to actually cut gas consumption. The average fuel economy for new vehicles is lower now than it was two decades ago, despite advances in fuel-saving technology.

"This is a new low for the auto industry, and it would make George Orwell proud," said Daniel Becker, a global warming expert at the Sierra Club.

It is particularly striking that Subaru wants to call the Outback a light truck because many of its owners see the wagon version as a rugged alternative to a sport utility, and the Outback sells best in those parts of the country, like college towns, where many people think it unfashionable to own an S.U.V.

"I probably can't count my friends with Outbacks on one hand — I'd have to use feet and toes," said Elizabeth Ike, 29, a fund-raiser at Sweet Briar College, which is an hour south of Charlottesville, Va. She said "the Outback might as well be Charlottesville's official car," adding that the town "likes to think of itself as an island that is more globally aware than the rest of the state."

"I don't want to speak for my friends, but I think they probably don't want to be that person in the Excursion," she said, referring to Ford's largest sport utility.

Subaru, a unit of Fuji Heavy Industries, says the new Outback, which will make its debut next month at the Chicago auto show and go on sale this spring, will retain its not-an-S.U.V. image because the changes being made are technical in nature. What customers will notice will be the new Outback's glossier look, executives said. Further, the base model will be more fuel efficient than the current version.

They said that calling the Outback a light truck will also let them offer the option of a tinted rear window not allowed on passenger cars.

Subaru executives noted that the sedan version of the Outback accounts for only about 8 percent of the model's sales, or about 3,500 vehicles a year; the rest are wagons. But critics say the actual numbers are less important than the precedent that the reclassification would set.

"If they can do it with a sedan, then anyone can do it with a sedan," said John DeCicco, a senior fellow and fuel economy expert at Environmental Defense. "It's almost like anything goes at this point."

Federal regulations originally set less-stringent fuel economy and emissions requirements for light trucks to avoid penalizing builders, farmers and other working people who relied on pickups. But the exemption opened the way for automakers to replace sedans and station wagons with vehicles that fit the definition of a light truck, notably sport utility vehicles and minivans.

Light trucks now account for more than half of all passenger vehicles sold in the country, up from about a fifth in the late 1970's.

The Transportation Department oversees corporate average fuel economy regulations and fines companies that do not comply with the rules.

Companies that change a borderline vehicle can benefit in two ways, because a big wagon that can sink an automaker's car average may improve its truck average. That, in turn, makes it possible to produce more big trucks and still meet the overall truck standard.

Since the regulatory system was put in place after the oil shocks of the 1970's, the industry has not only invented the minivan and greatly expanded the sport utility and pickup markets, but also started selling wagonlike "crossover" vehicles, like Chrysler's PT Cruiser, that blend cars and S.U.V.'s but are designed to meet the specifications of light trucks.

There are different ways to make a car meet the federal definition of a light truck, including making the rear seats removable to give a wagon a flat loading floor or raising a vehicle's ground clearance to at least 20 centimeters, or a little less than 8 inches. Subaru will raise the Outback's height from a minimum of 7.3 inches to as much as 8.7 inches next year, and will make other adjustments, like altering the position of the rear bumper, to meet light truck specifications.

Significantly raising the ride height can have a hazardous effect on a vehicle's stability. Part of the current Outback's appeal is that it performs better than S.U.V.'s on rollover tests.

"I live in the northern suburbs of New York and I saw a lot of S.U.V.'s on their backs like turtles," said Ralph Schiavone, 46, a consultant who lives in Westchester County, N.Y., explaining why he bought an Outback.

Tim Hurd, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a branch of the Transportation Department, said a vehicle either met the specific technical requirements of being a light truck, or it did not. "They aren't a judgment call," he said.

Added to the complexity of the system is the fact that tailpipe emissions of pollutants are overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has classification rules that do not match those of the Transportation Department. The E.P.A., however, has said it will phase out the distinction between cars and trucks this decade.

Congressional efforts to change fuel economy standards face entrenched opposition from some members of both political parties. But last month, the Bush administration proposed an overhaul of fuel regulations for light trucks and an altered definition to rein in classification problems.

Environmental groups and consumer advocates have generally criticized the administration's proposals as potentially making a complicated system even more prone to manipulation, though they say aspects of the plan — in an early, undetailed form — could be beneficial.