I had a shower thought on how to defeat CAFE standards

I know there are a few criteria a vehicle must meet to become a crossover which means it is a "light truck" most of them being 4wd/AWD and being a certain height, clear a specific angle of break over and something else.

The same way the Dodge demon offered the $1 drag package....why don't auto manufacturers just artificially raise the vehicle and for $1 remove some suspension height blocks that bring it down to a normal car ride height.

Boom cafe standards beaten. We get fun CARS and not BS crossovers.

The buyers want crossovers. Lay people like to sit up high. Don’t ask me why but they do. They don’t want cars like we do.

Because that's another package you have to crash test and validate. How much are you willing to bet that a sedan raised up on blocks is not going to pass any crash tests?

The real secret with CAFE is that plenty of automakers, like Mercedes Benz, JLR, FCA - They just paid the CAFE fine year after year. It used to be before 2020 something trivial like $40/mpg/car

It’s a Reddit thing to think everybody wants small cars and big cars are being forced upon them. Everybody I meet who doesn’t know a chassis code would pick a crossover over a sedan if all else (money) was equal. They’d also likely pick a proper SUV over a crossover. These things aren’t slow anymore like they used to be.

Or, they could do a good job and not have to cheat standards.

They’re still slow compared with EVs, but they can theoretically keep up with traffic.

Because the EPA would simply close the loophole if manufacturers did this. They didn't care about the Demon because ots a low volume performance edition. Also, because most people don't want to deal with this for something they consider to basically be an appliance.

CAFE is good and we don't need to defeat it. Fuel economy and emissions standards have resulted in billions of dollars spent employeeing engineers, made cars more reliable, less damaging for our health and the enviroment.

theyd have to pass crash and safety with that extra height. And suspension mods become a real mess in the wholesale market.

Teens don’t want what the mothers drive. They want sedans.

They don’t really make cars for teens these days.

CAFE sucks, but convincing people that gas should be taxed at several dollars per gallon is a losing battle.

What if I told you there are EV crossovers and EV SUVs?

I would agree with you, but I would also point out that they are unaffected by CAFE.