Just wait until the SUV’s and trucks are banned because they are a danger to the smaller, lighter cars.
Obama Nails the Coffin Shut (on automakers)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254607/posts
By Car Guy Eric Peters on 5.20.09
Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the final nail being hammered down onto the coffin lid of the U.S. car industry.
President Obama wields the hammer — in the form of a massive uptick in federally required fuel economy standards that will require each automaker’s lineup of new vehicles to achieve an average of 35.5 MPG by 2016.
But what could be so bad about forcing the automakers to make cars more fuel efficient? Dig deeper and you’ll see.
Even the Obama people concede the new mileage standards will cost American consumers about $1,600 per vehicle by 2016 — in effect, a massive tax increase in the middle of a neo-Depression. The difference is this tax increase will be optional. People can avoid it by avoiding new cars — which will make it that much harder for the car industry to recover from the catastrophic state it finds itself in right now, with sales down anywhere from 30-50 percent depending on the make.
Pure genius!
Boosters of the 35.5 MPG standard talk up the fuel savings (current cars must meet a 27.5 MPG average), but if the car costs $1,600 more to buy, the roughly 8 MPG uptick is probably a net wash, at least until the car is several years old and the fuel savings amortizes the considerably higher up front costs. Obama and Co. are millionaires, so this is small potatoes from their point-of-view. But ask most Americans whether they think $1,600 is chump change.
But all this is secondary. The real killing aspect of CAFE (the federal government’s cutesy acronym for the fuel economy standards) is that it will mean the summary execution of perhaps one-third to one-half of all the vehicles in GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s product lineups — including the best-selling and most profitable models, virtually none of which achieve close to 35.5 MPG.
The law doesn’t say an automaker can’t continue producing cars that don’t meet the 35.5 MPG cut. But it does impose “gas guzzler” fines on any automaker (and individual car) that doesn’t. And since the fuel economy standards represent average mileage — the presence of just one “gas guzzler” has the same effect on an automaker’s overall CAFE ratings as a D- has on a high-schooler’s overall GPA.
That means automakers (and not just American ones — Toyota makes many “gas pigs,” too) will be under tremendous pressure to cancel countless models — including models just now coming to market (or soon to be here) that represent huge sums of money in the form of R&D, tooling, assembly lines and so on.
The 2010 Chevy Camaro is one example.
Say sayonara.
Normally, the huge investments in the development of new car lines would be amortized over the life cycle of the car “platform” — which is typically 5-8 years, on average. But at the stroke of Obama’s pen, a vast fleet of barely-born cars will be rendered economically untenable. All the money poured into them will be flushed straight down the pipes — adding to the vast ocean of red ink that’s already sloshing around.
The industry can only take so many hits below the waterline. This might be the coupe de grace. And if it’s not, the 35.5 MPG’s follow-up will definitely do the job.
Obama also wants to cut new car “emissions” by another 30 percent. Sounds good — except that it’s a hugely dishonest number.
Most people innocently assume “cutting by 30 percent” represents a substantial cut.
In reality, all 2009 and newer cars are already virtually pollution-free in terms of their exhaust emissions.
Literally 98 percent of the gases coming out of the tailpipe are just water vapor and carbon dioxide. Only about 2 percent constitutes “emissions” — things like carbon monoxide and the remains of incomplete combustion (unburned hydrocarbons).
It is this remaining 2 percent that Obama wants to cut by 30 percent. Work that out. The number is very small.
But the cost will not be. These minor, incremental “improvements” in exhaust emissions grow increasingly expensive. It is the law of diminishing returns.
The majority of the “easy” improvements/reductions have already been achieved. Getting at that last 1-2 percent will involved Herculean effort and huge sums — and probably will never fully be realized since the act of internal combustion necessarily is going to produce some unhelpful byproducts, however minor, no matter what we do.
The question is — or ought to be — is it worth it to kill the industry in the process of going after these final few vapors like a latter-day Inspector Javert?
Obama shows his ignorance of both economics and engineering by these potentially devastating diktats.
If he really wanted to improve the fuel efficiency of new cars without killing off the car industry in the process, all he’d need to do is rescind federal bumper-impact standards, which have increased the curb weight of the average new “economy” car to around 2,500 pounds (vs. around 2,000 lbs. 20 years ago).
Cars that weigh less burn less fuel. They cost less, too. In the ‘80s, there were dozens of cars that got 40 mpg.
Today, only one or two achieve that mark — despite all the technical advancements of the past quarter century — because they are so much heavier, courtesy of the federal government.
Would lighter cars be less “safe”? Maybe. It depends, for one thing, on whether you have a major accident. Most of us don’t. Maybe we’d like to exchange the very real, everyday advantage of 40-plus MPG (probably 50-plus, given modern engine management technology) for the hypothetical advantage of a “safer” car weighed down by government-required argle bargle.
Shouldn’t it be our choice?
Apparently, not. The Great Engineers in DC know best. And they’re not stupid enough to let a good crisis go by unexploited.
But they won’t pay the price. The car industry will. And then, so will we.
Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: The Cars You Love to Hate (Motor Books International).
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/20/obama-nails-the-coffin-shut
Obama promised to help fix the auto industry, and maybe this is his plan.
Tell Americans that just about all of their cars, trucks, and SUVs will no longer be available and they’ll run out and buy the last new ones around (like light bulbs). It’s working with me. I’m about to buy a large SUV that I have absolutely no use for...but may later on, and I figure it will now keep its value a lot better than my savings.
I ain’t givin’ up my F-150! That’s why there’s a gun rack on the back window.
By the way, Obama’s giving the REPUBLICANS an incredible amount of campaign fodder here. After showing a scene of a Soccer Mom trying to stuff her 3 kids into their Smart Car, they could say something like:
“Elect us and we’ll free up America to produce the cars that AMERICANS want”
[rather than cars that Kenyans want us to have - implied]
But, NO, the Republican leadership is too busy listening to Colon Bowels and pounding on Rush and Sarah.
The important parts that comprise the nation are strewn about the garage floor. He's tired of tinkering because he is incapable of making the motor function the way he remembered in his nightmare, so he'll eventually just give up, his mission accomplished: he's ruined the nation and it is unrepairable.
America will then officially become a communist nation: SNAFU!
When I was reading the mpg standards, I wondered about folks who need trucks or large vehicles to tow things. We tow a boat...wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to try with one of those “squadgy” fuel efficient cars.
Neil Cavuto interviewed a guy from cars.com (I think that’s where he was from) and he said if you own a high powered vehicle, by all means hold onto it. They’ll probably still make large vehicles, but you’ll be paying a lot more for them in the future.
Yes, he really believes that because the established media lets him get away with it.
BO’s socialist auto plan maybe put on hold since Chrysler dealers and pension funds are suing him.
Obama’s revenge against Ford.
So I’m assuming this applies only to U.S. auto manufacturers?
LLS
Not ever having had a real leadership position, 0bama apparently does not realize one of the most important leadership truisms.
“You lead by example, whether you want to or not!”.
This means that unless the Federal Government gets rid of all those gas guzzleing SUV’s, NO ONE is going to take 0bama and his administration seriously or respect them.
I always laugh at the big SUV with the Obama sticker. Some I yell to at stop signs. “Hey are you going to give your SUV to OBAMA?”
Where will the electricity be produced, and how?
Other businesses will also suffer. Case in point..my brother in law is a whole sale bait dealer and depends on a large pick-up to haul his minnow tanks..no puny econo-truck can do the job. However as pick-ups are also a major means of hauling fishing boats in these parts, I expect to see his business and well as other recreational businesses flounder.
All hail Lord Obama who will make our country into East German complete with crappy little government built cars.
If you want to drive something else, you'll have to move to another country.
Hey but at least auto workers will have their retirement health care plans, and Obama will have saved the planet, (while China, Russia, Turkey, India, and all of Pacific rim Asian countries triple their CO2 outputs over the next ten years as they take over the markets around the world.
Nonsense. The pick-up truck will still be available to all Americans - provided only that the vehicle has no engine and is powered by driver-operated bicycle pedals where the gas pedal used to be.