The 105th Chicago Auto Show, which opens Saturday at McCormick Place, will feature the latest high-tech innovations, screaming muscle cars and drool-worthy exotics.
But the biggest head-turner may be a small black-and-white number affixed to the windows of the impossibly polished vehicles — the estimated miles per gallon. After years of high gas prices, fuel efficiency is becoming as sexy as horsepower for many car buyers, and a priority for manufacturers.
Driven by increased consumer demand and a federal mandate for automakers to dramatically improve fuel efficiency, new cars are averaging an all-time high of 24.5 mpg, up nearly 20 percent since 2008, according to a recent University of Michigan study. Those increases are most evident in a plethora of new high-mileage small cars, a fast-growing segment for the Big Three and beyond. But they are also reflected in everything from sports cars to pickup trucks, many of which are now sipping fuel with noteworthy restraint.
"Fuel economy is the No. 1 consideration for most consumers," said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst with Edmunds.com. "They still may be buying a pickup truck, but they want the best fuel economy."
The once-beleaguered auto industry was on a roll last year, selling 14.5 million new vehicles in the U.S., a 13.4 percent increase from 2011, according to Autodata Corp. Analysts project sales could top prerecession levels by 2014, on the way back to an all-time high of about 17 million units.
Fuel economy should be breaking records every year from now until 2025, when federal standards will require automakers to average 54.5 mpg for all cars and light trucks. The higher-mileage standards have been in the pipeline since 2009 and were finalized in August. The first major milestone is coming in 2016, when vehicles must average 35.5 mpg.
Automakers are further along the road than it may seem. The federal mileage standards, called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), use a more lenient methodology that includes laboratory testing, weighted sales and a variety of adjustments and credits to measure a manufacturer's overall fuel efficiency.
Employing a similar methodology, University of Michigan researchers calculated the industry's unadjusted CAFE number for January at 29.8 mpg, meaning the federally adjusted number would be even higher. Getting to 35.5 mpg by 2016 seems well within reach, according to some experts.
Auto analyst Alan Baum said the number of high-mileage vehicles offered by manufacturers has doubled since 2009. The trend goes beyond hybrids and electrics, with diesel and more fuel-efficient gas engines lifting car lines across the board. Baum wasn't afraid to break down the chicken-and-egg question as to what's behind the industry improvement in mileage.
"Without the standards, it wouldn't have occurred," he said. "But they wouldn't be meeting the standards if there wasn't consumer demand."
Those mileage gains were on display at the auto show preview Thursday.
Ford is introducing a 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine to the U.S. this year in its 2014 Fiesta that is projected to top 40 mpg on the highway and will be "the most fuel efficient, nonhybrid vehicle in North America," according to Liz Elser, a Ford spokeswoman.
The current-model Fiesta is priced about $14,000 and has been doing well, Elser said.
"Buyers in this segment, the No. 1 purchase reason is fuel economy, and it's very important to them," she said. "We want to deliver that to our customers in the best way we can. If we're coming in at 40 right now, we want to be able to improve on that."
At the Chrysler display, full-size 300 sedans advertised 31 mpg in large print across the front windshields. But leading the high-mileage roster for the manufacturer is the 2013 Dodge Dart, which began rolling off the assembly line in Belvidere in May. Built on a Fiat platform, it is the first compact offering for Chrysler in nearly a decade, luring new buyers to showrooms with sticker prices less than $20,000 and fuel economy upward of 41 mpg on the highway.
The company sold more than 7,000 Darts in January, its best month to date, and momentum is building, according to Chrysler spokeswoman Kathy Graham.
"We are pleased with the pace of sales," Graham said. "We're not the top seller in the segment — there are others that have been established in the compact car segment that sell more — but we're making progress each month as more and more people become aware that Dodge has an offering in the compact car segment."
A bright red, all-new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray looked fast even as it spun slowly on a turntable. The next-generation Corvette — the model has been the quintessential American sports car for 60 years — lives up to its legacy, capable of doing 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds. But it also delivers surprisingly good gas mileage, getting upward of 28 mpg on the highway, according to a General Motors spokesman.
While the Corvette lags behind the Chevrolet Cruze Eco, which gets 42 mpg on the highway, it nonetheless achieves improved fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance through the use of lighter materials and a number of design innovations. Cruising on the highway, for example, the Corvette shuts down half its eight cylinders, waiting to kick back in on command.
"When it's rolling along on the highway, it will go from 6.2-liter V-8 to a 3.1-liter four-cylinder," said James Bell, head of consumer affairs for GM. "But when you ask for a little more power, completely imperceptibly, the other cylinders come back to life."
Bell said that even Corvette buyers care about mileage, especially if they use it as a commuter vehicle. But he said the improvements in fuel efficiency are a direct result of the more stringent federal standards coming down the road.
"We've got CAFE regulations that need to be met," he said. "While we'd love to sell a ton of these, it has to contribute to that CAFE. We can't have a car like this that gets 10 miles per gallon."
rchannick@tribune.com
Twitter @RobertChannick
