18 Car Makers Ask Trump to Reopen EPA Fuel Economy Rules

[Diver]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...ding%20Content

Automakers are asking the administration to reopen the fuel economy rules which the EPA rushed to finalize last year. Based on current consumer preferences the goals are impossible to meet due to customer preference for SUV's and Trucks.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Diver

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...ding%20Content

Automakers are asking the administration to reopen the fuel economy rules which the EPA rushed to finalize last year. Based on current consumer preferences the goals are impossible to meet due to customer preference for SUV's and Trucks.

If we let consumer preference completely dictate what the market sells ... well, we would have cities with smog issues worse than Beijing and Mexico City, for starters.

Remember how quickly Hummer and large SUV sales tanked when fuel prices went over $3 a gallon? Yeeeeeeah. Such hogwash.

Impossible, my ass. Those vehicles are, by far, the ones with the largest profit margins for said companies. That's all they're protecting: profit -- which, I might add, most global energy companies are having no problems breaking the records of despite steadily rising vehicle efficiency standards first-worldwide.

[Diver]

Originally Posted by Viffermike

If we let consumer preference completely dictate what the market sells ... well, we would have cities with smog issues worse than Beijing and Mexico City, for starters.


Impossible, my ass.

Perhaps I should have said impossible to meet in a cost effective manner. Automakers can manufacture plug in cars and sell them at a loss, or pay the fines. I suppose just because you scoot around in a little 228 you have no sympathy for the average Joe in his pickup.

Your statement on consumer preferences is an absurd exaggeration. For starters the air quality problem in China is from coal fired power plants. The fuel economy regs are not about air quality, they are about CO2. I guess you are a scared snowflake awake at night in fear of some imagined climate catastrophe.

If you are so worried about air quality go after the guys who remove their catalytic converters to get a few extra hp on the cheap, not me. All I did is report the news.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Diver

Perhaps I should have said impossible to meet in a cost effective manner. Automakers can manufacture plug in cars and sell them at a loss, or pay the fines. I suppose just because you scoot around in a little 228 you have no sympathy for the average Joe in his pickup.

Your statement on consumer preferences is an absurd exaggeration. For starters the air quality problem in China is from coal fired power plants. The fuel economy regs are not about air quality, they are about CO2. I guess you are a scared snowflake awake at night in fear of some imagined climate catastrophe.

If you are so worried about air quality go after the guys who remove their catalytic converters to get a few extra hp on the cheap, not me. All I did is report the news.

Jeez. This isn't an attack on you at all, OP. You've apparently been reading some of my other posts today? Pipe down, sir ...

Though I do have sympathy. I owned a hybrid as my last car, yet the combined MPG of my last five cars -- including my 228 and that hybrid -- is 21 MPG. And smog and ozone issues in cities such as Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta -- despite emissions regulation in place for decades -- have nothing to do with factories.

This is all about these companies maintaining profit and status quo in the short term. Nothing more, nothing less.

[jpnh]

Originally Posted by Viffermike

Jeez. This isn't an attack on you at all, OP. You've apparently been reading some of my other posts today? Pipe down, sir ...

Though I do have sympathy. I owned a hybrid as my last car, yet the combined MPG of my last five cars -- including my 228 and that hybrid -- is 21 MPG. And smog and ozone issues in cities such as Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta -- despite emissions regulation in place for decades -- have nothing to do with factories.

This is all about these companies maintaining profit and status quo in the short term. Nothing more, nothing less.

A one size fits all model suits no one

Just because Dallas or LA has a problem doesnt mean that the rest of the country has to comply with uber expensive regulations to meet Dallas or LA's issues

I'm not rooting for pollution, I'm simply being realistic that the entire country doesnt face the same issues that some big cities face

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by jpnh

A one size fits all model suits no one

Just because Dallas or LA has a problem doesnt mean that the rest of the country has to comply with uber expensive regulations to meet Dallas or LA's issues

I'm not rooting for pollution, I'm simply being realistic that the entire country doesnt face the same issues that some big cities face

Says he who lives in New Hampshire, the largest city in which barely has 100,000 people in it.

Newsflash: 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. That qualifies as a convincing majority interest and pretty damn close to the entire country, don't you think?

[uberschnell]

if you want to buy a car that gets 5 mpg fine. There is also a growing demand for electric and super efficient cars. To each his own.

Keep in mind once demand for fuel goes up, so will prices. And when the prices get to a point that no one wants to buy any more 5 mpg cars, let them sit in the lots. And when these auto manufacturers who put their money into building these cars and not enough into developing high efficiency cars come crying to the government because they are going broke, tell them and everyone stuck with a 5 years left of payments on their Hummer XXXL that they can't afford to fuel up to go sit and spin.

[Diver]

EPA officials made statements that Americans will be able to buy the kind of cars they want after these regulations went into effect. The purpose of the 2018 review was to see if there were either technical or economic problems with meeting the regulations. In the article the EPA recognized the 54.5 MPG goal could not be met because the mix of vehicles would not allow it. That assumes each size class of vehicle met it's class goal, which is very high.

Clearly, the EPA lied to the American public and does not care if pickup truck and large SUV availability must be rationed by high prices or other means. The deal inherent in the 2018 review was broken.

Again, this regulation is not about clean air. It is about CO2 which is allegedly causing global warming with ultimate catastrophic result. Yet, Viffermike continues to argue this is a smog issue when it clearly is something else. Perhaps he will stop climbing the other hill and realize those of us with any sense will not follow him up it.

[RM7]

We've made amazing progress over the last 20 years with efficiency IMO. Remember the old 3.0-ish V6s pushing out maybe 150hp? Lazy and low-compression 4cyl engines, 6cyl engines and 8cyl engines. Now cars have 8 or more speeds, gears to make them turn at 1000-something RPM on the highway and all sorts of great improvements. 6 cyl engines and turbo 4s getting mileage in the mid-thirties easily, where before they'd struggle to get 20-something. I think it's been a great improvement, hybrid drives will improve this more and they are the key to flat out performance, being able to capture braking energy to rocket out of the turn. I think the mileage push has done far more good than bad. Yes, the days of the petrol car are limited. That's just progress and it won't be next year or the year after.

Not to mention, you can't predict the bottom falling out because OPEC decides to do something, or there's a natural disaster or some other event that kicks gas prices back up to what they were years ago, then you are just screwed.

Of course, this kind of conflicts with the new American status symbol being a $70K Ford F150 that never touches dirt. People are buying these now over SUVs, wagons, minvans, etc.

[fecurtis]

Originally Posted by Diver

Perhaps I should have said impossible to meet in a cost effective manner. Automakers can manufacture plug in cars and sell them at a loss, or pay the fines. I suppose just because you scoot around in a little 228 you have no sympathy for the average Joe in his pickup.

Your statement on consumer preferences is an absurd exaggeration. For starters the air quality problem in China is from coal fired power plants. The fuel economy regs are not about air quality, they are about CO2. I guess you are a scared snowflake awake at night in fear of some imagined climate catastrophe.

If you are so worried about air quality go after the guys who remove their catalytic converters to get a few extra hp on the cheap, not me. All I did is report the news.

What if you just pulled a VW?

[jpnh]

Originally Posted by Viffermike

Says he who lives in New Hampshire, the largest city in which barely has 100,000 people in it.

Newsflash: 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. That qualifies as a convincing majority interest and pretty damn close to the entire country, don't you think?

We can debate the numbers but the point that you're making only further bolsters my point

You're asking the entire country to adopt expensive rules that only apply to very small geographic areas and are not relevent to a huge swath of the population

[Diver]

Despite all the nearly off topic arguments above I believe the crux of the problem is the EPA had assured the auto industry the rules would be reexamined in 2018 to determine if they were either technically or economically unworkable. These rules are clearly economically unworkable and the EPA has clearly admitted it.

What we have here is a bunch of climate change activists who are willing to lie and cheat to get the results they want. All the auto industry is asking for is to enforce promises made by the EPA to them and the American public.

Remember, this has nothing to do with air quality.

[Fundguy1]

I'm in the opposite camp. I think the epa, as well as department of education need to be closed permanently. The standards were lut there for twovreasons. To combat ficticious climate change, and to punish capitalism. New epa head will sort it out. We aren't going to see smoggy china. Epa has been up to doing things like lowering power plant emmissions by 0.5% at the cost of raising your power bill by 40%. Smog is long gone and these future regs hsd nothing to do with it. There's no smog now. No reason to think there will be in the near future. Especially with people buying all these environmentally unfriendly electrics and hybrids. They're the real environmental disaster.

[Red Bread]

I'll remind myself that I'm not really seeing smog next week when it's back in the 80's in Dallas. Or that when I drove from my old place in Laguna Beach to see my sister in Echo Park that the orange haze was just Presidential Coloring.

[Fundguy1]

I've never seen smog in my life. Smog was an issue in the 70s. Emissions today are a 10th of what they were then from cars. And dropping even further with those nasty environmental catastropy hybrids and electrics. No that's not sarcasm. No need for further fuel efficiency. Originally fuel efficiency was done for lowering fuel consumption to combat a fuel crisis. No such animal now. Now its used to lower emissions for climate change bs. Back to burning my trash and removing catalytics from every car I own.

[Red Bread]

Please stay in the boonies.

[Fundguy1]

I dont think NYC or Orlando is thr boonies. Lol.

[WhatsADSM]

Originally Posted by Viffermike

...
This is all about these companies maintaining profit and status quo in the short term. Nothing more, nothing less.

Agreed

[Ezio]

I am all for reducing emissions, and increasing fuel economy.

But there comes a point where the tech just isnt there yet.

[Fundguy1]

Originally Posted by Ezio

I am all for reducing emissions, and increasing fuel economy.

But there comes a point where the tech just isnt there yet.

Exactly. Thats when it switches from gentle incentive to do both at a reasonable rate to big stick destroying whole classes of cars and car companies themselves. Look at what happened when they did this the wrong way in the 70s. We went from big block muscle cars with 450hp and station wagons to performance cars with 150hp and vans. It was too much too fast. Station wagons to this day are dead here replaced by worse economy SUVs which all but didn't exist due to them being considered trucks. Conversely, they are very popular vs suvs which virtually don't exist in europe. Chrysler needed billions in a government bailout. It hurt many automakers to the point of not existing. It took until the 90s, over 25 years, for the tech to catch up for performance cars. The new guidelines were draconian written by liberals woth the agenda of pushing electrics and beating up on capitalism and not realistic. I do remember LA looking like china in the 70s on tv. That's gone. It improves annually. And guess what. They still haven't addressed legislatively the nasty environmental impact refining nickel for lithium batteries yet. That's because its done in foreign countries but its impact is far nastier than co2 emmissions. It just became non-pc to talk about that.

[Diver]

Originally Posted by Fundguy1

I've never seen smog in my life. Smog was an issue in the 70s. Emissions today are a 10th of what they were then from cars. And dropping even further with those nasty environmental catastropy hybrids and electrics. No that's not sarcasm. No need for further fuel efficiency. Originally fuel efficiency was done for lowering fuel consumption to combat a fuel crisis. No such animal now. Now its used to lower emissions for climate change bs. Back to burning my trash and removing catalytics from every car I own.

I don't approve of removing catalytic converters. It isn't fair for you to make us breath your pollution while you get cheap thrills from a downpipe.

Remember, these EPA rules have nothing to do with air quality. It is completely about CO2. There is smog in places, especially SoCal and Houston. Houston's air pollution is primarily industrial as this is a center for refining and petrochemical manufacturing.

[Fundguy1]

Originally Posted by Diver

I don't approve of removing catalytic converters. It isn't fair for you to make us breath your pollution while you get cheap thrills from a downpipe.

Remember, these EPA rules have nothing to do with air quality. It is completely about CO2. There is smog in places, especially SoCal and Houston. Houston's air pollution is primarily industrial as this is a center for refining and petrochemical manufacturing.

"Smog generally occurs in the lower part of the atmosphere, less than 5 km above the ground. Smog is a combination of airborne particulate matter, like soot, and invisible toxic gases including ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carcinogens. Some of these compounds are emitted directly."

No CO2. Yes Houston is industrial. Similar to but way less damaging as the polution created by making batteries for hybrids and electric cars. Cali is the mountains making bowls around the cities. Rest of the country is pretty much zero. That's why cali has its own emmission laws. As to not removing my catalytic, poor baby. When Florida, the entire state, decides to have emissions inspections, or any inspection for that matter, maybe I'll consider it. My advice would be not so stand next to me in a bar. My Marlboro smoke might bother you and I won't care nor do I legally have too.

But none of that has anything to do with the guidelines. They were put there for the climate change narrative, not smog. They'll be history shortly.