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+--- Forum: Vehicles & Travel (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-84.html)
+--- Thread: The car industry squirms, as it gets what it asked for (/thread-5899.html)
The car industry squirms, as it gets what it asked for - C C - Aug 6, 2018
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/car-industry-trump-epa/566738/
EXCERPT: . . . No one should have been happier about this change than the car industry. Since the day after Donald Trump’s election, carmakers have begged him to weaken the fuel-economy standards. But on Thursday, the car industry seemed subdued. The Auto Alliance—which lobbies for the “Big Three” U.S. automakers, as well as Toyota, Volkswagen, and Mazda—did not immediately hail the rollback as a triumph for American business.
[...back...] in April, the whole industry jammed the machine into reverse. The president of the Auto Alliance told Congress that he didn’t want the standards to freeze, even though he had once said the EPA should “withdraw” the rules. And carmakers wrote a new letter to the White House, which beseeched the president from the other direction: “Climate change is real, and we have a continuing role in reducing greenhouse gases and improving fuel efficiency.”
“It’s sort of a case where the dog actually caught the bus,” Jack Gillis, a researcher at the Consumer Federation of America, told me at the time. “Now what are they going to do?”
They’re going to diplomatically equivocate, apparently. [...] And despite their statements, it’s not clear that carmakers actually dislike the new proposal. Even if automakers care about climate change, the proposed rules will probably save them a lot of money.
Sam Ori, the executive director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, believes that car companies are bluffing. “The bottom line is just that industry wants the lowest costs possible,” he told me in June. “They’re concerned about the public-image aspect of this. They’re concerned that everyone’s going to see they’re self-interested, that their image as environmental stewards will be tarnished.”
But automakers do have financial reasons to fear controversy over the standards....
MORE: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/car-industry-trump-epa/566738/
RE: The car industry squirms, as it gets what it asked for - Syne - Aug 6, 2018
So we'll see if their stance on climate change was just virtue signalling or if they are willing to improve fuel economy without government regulation requiring it.
RE: The car industry squirms, as it gets what it asked for - confused2 - Aug 13, 2018
Mrs C2 and I have just bought identical cars. Competing for the highest mpg turns out to be every bit as much fun as competing for the highest mph.