17 automakers reportedly ask Trump to back off his plan to lower emissions standards

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/6/18655820/ford-gm-toyota-automakers-trump-lower-emissions-standards-letter-california


A group of 17 major automakers have co-signed a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to not go through with his plan to significantly lower emissions standards in the US, according to reports from The New York Times and Reuters. The letter, delivered today, reportedly calls Trump’s plan “untenable.”

Trump has been pushing to lower emissions standards for over a year now, and while it might seem counterintuitive that major car manufacturers would be against that, this letter makes crystal clear that are. The issue is that California has much more stringent standards and is leading 17 states in a suit against the EPA over emissions as well.

That’s the situation that had led to this letter, just ahead of what was meant to be rollout of the new rules in the Rose Garden at The White House. These car makers don’t want two radically different sets of rules in the US. Instead, they are backing a compromise.

In fact, the same automakers have also reportedly sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom, reportedly arguing that they want a “final rule supported by all parties — including California” that is “midway” between Obama era regulations and what Trump is proposing.

The Times suggests that Trump could respond to the letter in an extreme way, reporting that “some officials have said that they fear auto industry criticism of Mr. Trump’s rollback could lead the president to retaliate by imposing tariffs on auto imports.” Were that to happen, it could significantly increase the chances that the ongoing trade war could push the US economy into a recession. Trump’s trade wars already threaten the industry.

The automakers who reportedly signed the letter to Trump include Ford, GM, Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and Volkswagen. Fiat Chrysler reportedly has not, which the Times says is because it is more supportive of Trump’s plan — but also, the company probably also has other things on to worry about right now after its merger with Renault collapsed.

As Vox has reported, car makers are much more worried about “uncertainty” than they are about the precise details of the rules. They just need to know what the rules will be so they can build cars that target them. But with this administration, hoping for predictability in issues of trade is probably asking too much.

[oyarde]

Automakers begging govt for rules to screw people . Pretty UnAmerican in spirit .

[timosman]

The Trump plan would increase U.S. oil consumption by about 500,000 barrels per day by the 2030s but reduce automakers’ regulatory costs by more than $300 billion, the agencies said.

:rolleyes:

[Zippyjuan]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.

[Swordsmyth]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.
They want heavy regulations to keep competition down.

[Zippyjuan]

They want heavy regulations to keep competition down.

Either way all car makers face the same standards. It does not change the competition to favor or not favor any particular one of them.

[Swordsmyth]

Either way all car makers face the same standards. It does not change the competition to favor or not favor any particular one of them.
Yes it does, established firms with large bank accounts and strong credit are much better able to deal with regulatory demands than startups.

They are also just globalist scum that want to force us all into EVs and blame the government.

[phill4paul]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.

Make or don't make....for California. Simple enough.

[Zippyjuan]

Make or don't make....for California. Simple enough.

Too big of a market to ignore. Two million new cars sold in the state last year out of 17 million nation wide. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2019/01/03/2018-auto-sales-results/2466909002/

[Swordsmyth]

Too big of a market to ignore.
Not really, the increased sales in other markets from selling better cars and trucks could easily make up for it.
That's just another excuse they use to claim they aren't part of the conspiracy.

[Zippyjuan]

Not really, the increased sales in other markets from selling better cars and trucks could easily make up for it.
That's just another excuse they use to claim they aren't part of the conspiracy.

One in five cars sold in the US last year. Easy to make up in other markets? No. If they could sell another two million cars in other states they would already be doing it.

[Swordsmyth]

One in five cars sold in the US last year. Easy to make up in other markets? No.
Very easy for the first company to do it, they could also produce special Kalifornia models to keep their hand in.

[Zippyjuan]

Very easy for the first company to do it, they could also produce special Kalifornia models to keep their hand in.

They would have to tool another factory. Too expensive. Cheaper overall to make cars sold in other states meet California standards.

[Swordsmyth]

They would have to tool another factory. Too expensive. Cheaper overall to make cars sold in other states meet California standards.
That depends on how they made them meet Kalifornia standards and they could get far more sales by outperforming the other companies everywhere else.

[AngryCanadian]

Would the Automakers favor leftists idea of Carbon tax? i doubt that they would.

[RonZeplin]

Would the Automakers favor leftists idea of Carbon tax? i doubt that they would.

Javanka loves that.

https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/afp_is86c.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=780

[Danke]

"As Vox has reported"


LOL, more fake news.

[specsaregood]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.

Yeah, and the rest of us don't want to have what we buy decided by the nuts in California.

[UWDude]

Member when ZippyJuan kept saying 17 intelligence agencies had said Russia interfered with the 2016 elections?
I remember.

[dannno]

They would have to tool another factory. Too expensive. Cheaper overall to make cars sold in other states meet California standards.

They could make a non-California specific model or two that is available to everybody else. Do you know if the law would allow Californians to go out of state to buy them and come back with them? Would they be allowed to drive on the roads? Register the car within the state?

Maybe other states surrounding California could allow Californians to come in and register their non-California vehicles there for an extra fee, then they can take them back to California and just drive them around with out of state plates.

[Anti Federalist]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.

Zip's right on this one.

The automakers have resigned themselves to the fact that EVs, forced on the public by government fatwa are the future.

Most of them have already committed to switching over production as outright bans on ICE vehicles come online in the next few years in places like India, China, Germany and the UK.

To have to try and meet alternative US compliance for a set of fatwas that will simply be overturned by whatever Bolshevik follows Trump will cost them millions.

And don't you dare try and "fudge" around the minuscule and nit picking amounts of "pollutants" emitted to try and build a car that people want.

Uncle Sucker will throw you in jail for that.

Ask VW.

This is yet another failure of mega-hyper-corp globalized "free trade".

Bad enough your car choice is dictated by a bureaucrat in DC.

Now you'll be told what to drive by fatwas issued in Beijing and Mumbai.

[Anti Federalist]

Yeah, and the rest of us don't want to have what we buy decided by the nuts in California.

It's gone far past just the nutjobs in California, although those assholes did set the precedent.

[Working Poor]

Oh FFS

[Anti Federalist]

Would the Automakers favor leftists idea of Carbon tax? i doubt that they would.

Just the opposite, they love it.

Not just car companies but oil companies as well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/oil-companies-join-corporate-lobbying-push-for-u-s-carbon-tax

This is the 21st century version of the company store, which is why global-hyper-mega corps are all universally in favor of it.

They realize there will be big money to made in the new "never ending rents" global economy, where nobody ever truly owns anything.

Freedom folks need to wake up to a simple fact: Big Business can tyrannize and enslave you just as quickly and thoroughly as Big Government can.

[Superfluous Man]

They just want consistent rules so they know what to make.

That's a stupid explanation. It's not so that they know what to make. If they want to make everything according to California standards, they can. If they want to make cars according to two sets of standards they can (and already do). Either way, they'll make up their minds and know what to make.

But if they do make all cars following California standards then they'll lose to competition that isn't following those standards in every other state.

And that's what they're really concerned about. They are lobbying the government to have tougher standards, so as to stifle their competition.

The OP calls this counter-intuitive, and maybe to people who are unfamiliar with croney capitalism it is. But in fact this is entirely typical.

[Anti Federalist]

You folks who are still looking at this through the lens of Big Business and Big Government fighting over rules and money making are missing what is happening here:

This is a war on mobility, the great push to EVs by government mandate is being done because cheap, readily available energy and individual transportation is a giant thorn in the side of the global control crowd.

EVs, on a wide scale, will not work, based on current technology. Just in the US alone, if you were to replace just half of the 350 million vehicle fleet with EVs, the electric grid would utterly crash and rare earth commodities prices would soar into the stratosphere.

The goal is this:

Cutting CARB

Getting back to the California Air Resources Board — CARB chairman Mary Nichols threatened even tougher pollution rules late last week in direct response to the anticipated weakening of national fuel economy standards.

Nichols said California would be forced to pursue ‘extreme’ requirements to offset the related increase in pollution, as reported by Bloomberg. She said:

“If we lose the state vehicle standards, we have to fill up the gap with other measures. We will be faced with dramatic alternatives in terms of tighter, stricter controls on everything else, including movement of vehicles and potentially looking at things like fees and taxes and bans on certain types of vehicles and products.”

Drafted remarks — which Bloomberg notes were not delivered “exactly as prepared” — included a reference to “an outright ban on internal combustion engines.”
Trump’s EPA reportedly finalized “key details” of the fuel economy standards freeze in April, and automakers expressed concerns over a “split market” due to some states enforcing more stringent standards than others.

(https://electrek.co/2019/05/20/california-evs-gas-cars-2040/)

[Origanalist]

Just the opposite, they love it.

Not just car companies but oil companies as well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/oil-companies-join-corporate-lobbying-push-for-u-s-carbon-tax

This is the 21st century version of the company store, which is why global-hyper-mega corps are all universally in favor of it.

They realize there will be big money to made in the new "never ending rents" global economy, where nobody ever truly owns anything.

Freedom folks need to wake up to a simple fact: Big Business can tyrannize and enslave you just as quickly and thoroughly as Big Government can.

And use big government to do it, they are joined at the hip. (out of rep)

[Anti Federalist]

And use big government to do it, they are joined at the hip.

Yes they do and yes they are.