Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 1 outlines the importance of transportation in petroleum and GHG contexts, discusses the importance of vehicle features in the evolution of the passenger car, and outlines the themes to be discussed in the remainder of the document. For nearly a century the automobile has been the dominant form of personal transportation in the United States. The passenger car has made inexpensive, reliable transportation accessible to virtually every citizen and has profoundly a↵ected the development of modern society. Atthesametime,transportationhasalsobecomeadominantsourceofgreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel consumption in the United States. As shown in Table 1.1, the Transportation sector represents a growing driver of energy and fossil fuel use. The Transportation sector is now responsible for 71% of petroleum consumption and 34% of GHG emissions. Since 1999 the Transportation sector has exceeded the Industrial sector as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.[EIA, 2010] The Transportation sector derives 94% of its energy from Petroleum. 45% of this petroleum is used to produce motor gasoline, the vast majority of which is used to fuel Light Duty Vehicles (LDVs). The GHG emissions and fossil fuel consump- tion driven by the Transportation sector have been modeled by numerous groups. 15
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