NADA Chairwoman says flexibile CAFE standards are the right move
At the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) meeting last weekend, GM CEO Rick Wagoner asked car dealers to lobby their state and local governments to not regulate tailpipe emissions. The NADA is going to take the legislative battle over CAFE fuel requirements seriously, something that NADA chairwoman Annette Sykora said at the same conference. Sykora said that flexibility in the CAFE regulations are going to be a priority for her organization and that - stop us if you've heard this before - CAFE can't restrict the consumer's freedom of choice. According to Automotive News, Sykora said, "The consumer will decide what works and what doesn't. It's that simple. You can't wave a government wand and make consumers buy a particular type of vehicle. This is not Europe."
Yawn.
While Sykora's statement that "We don't want the jalopy effect, where car owners keep their older, less fuel-efficient vehicles much longer" is a valid one, using the Europe boogeyman is tired and not very helpful. That sort of talk might work in Texas, where Sykora is a Ford dealer, but it doesn't have a place in an educated debate about making cars cleaner. You know, I could swear it was just last year that the previous NADA chair said that fuel-efficient vehicles are the way to built market share. Anyway, you can read Sykora's speech here (PDF).
[Source: David Sedgwick / Automotive News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dhofmann 1:47PM (2/13/2008)
Won't making the CAFE regulations more flexible only create more loopholes?
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meme 2:56PM (2/13/2008)
Not necessarily. For example, I'd like to see CAFE standards be something along the lines of assigning costs to various emitted pollutants from all new vehicles. The government would then set a target cost for each manufacturer based on an estimate of how many vehicles will be sold and how much the government expects those vehicles to be driven, using the "cost" estimates. If an automaker goes under that cost for the year when all is said and done (based on how much people drove what new vehicles that year), they get a tax deduction. If they go over, they get a fine based on the amount they go over. Basically, a feebate. Leave it to them to decide what combination of marketting eco-friendly cars, improving all cars, phasing out gas guzzlers, etc, hits that target most readily. If they ignore it, then raise the feebate until they can no longer ignore it.
I think the auto industry would love it, too. To balance it out, though, since the type of fuel affects cleanliness also, you'd want to base it on a defined standard fuel and defined standard electricity source. You can then take the same feebate approach with fuel and electricity producers to get them to clean up *their* products.
Basically, the problem is that pollution is an externality to the market. My strategy would be to push it into the marketplace, force it to be a real cost that goes on their ledgers, and adjust the strength of that cost until they're forced to pay attention.
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Snowdog 2:55PM (2/13/2008)
Well, yeah, that is the whole point, this is the Auto industry what do you expect. Cafe is already borderline pointless, but that border region bothers them.
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