What Exacty Is A Truck?

Automotive News reports that a federal agency has taken the first step toward changing the quarter-century-old definition of a truck under the government's fuel economy program. A change has powerful implications for automakers, which openly take advantage of the flexible truck definition. They offer a wide range of multipurpose passenger-carrying vehicles that they call trucks to avoid the tougher fuel economy standard for cars. More such vehicles are on the way. Wednesday, May 8, was the deadline for public comment on changes that could take effect as soon as 2005. The situation, which has been obvious for years, finally has caught the attention of regulators. "The functional distinction between cars and trucks (cars for personal use and trucks for work cargo use) has broken down, initially with the introduction of minivans and more recently with sport-utility and crossover vehicles that are used almost exclusively for passenger transport," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. "NHTSA has the statutory authority to change how these vehicles are classified and may do so in the future to reflect the usage of many types of light trucks as passenger vehicles," the agency said. NHTSA added that it also could establish a series of truck categories. And it could set, for example, different fuel economy standards for pickups, minivans, small sport-utilities, large sport-utilities or any number of other subgroups. These bold declarations are all but hidden in the dense verbiage of a legal notice NHTSA published in February. It asked automakers and other interested parties to comment on possible changes in the corporate average fuel economy program, or CAFE, beginning with the 2005 model year. The agency likely will issue proposed regulations in fall and must create a 2005 standard by April 1, 2003.