No doubt, congress will include a limo exemption.
No doubt, congress will include a limo exemption.Precisely. One of the many opt-outs on this new standard is full exemption from CAFE for makes w/ under 60,000 annual unit sales. Hell, Lincoln sold only 61,000 cars last year!
Among the unintended consequences of this bill (which still has to pass the House in the Fall -- and it won't without less stringent revisions), I'd look for:
- Hummer, Lincoln, GMC, and other divisions spun off as independent makes, with CAFE exemptions;
- regulatory exemptions prevalent, especially for large trucks;
- hundreds of thousands of 800mpg street-legal golf cars given away in order to off-set the CAFE numbers for cars Americans actually want to buy;
- total memory loss of 2007 and this new CAFE regime when crude settles back under $40/ barrel and gasoline to around $1.80 a gallon. Consumers will only ask, "why have I been driving this p.o.s. 3-cylinder faux-automobile?
- carbon-offsets traded on Ebay and the gasoline pump. It will be a buyers market, and pre-2008 Suburban owners will rejoice.