Saving Detroit: Keep the $50 billion, rewrite CAFE instead

Motortrend Blog ^ | September 18th | Angus MacKenzie

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

"CAFE has to be the most perverse exercise in product regulation in industrial history." So wrote Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal last week. "Look at the gallons consumed, miles driven, barrels imported or emissions emitted: CAFE has had no significant impact on energy consumption. Its sole practical effect has been to inflict on Detroit the need to produce, with high-cost U.S. labor, millions of small cars designed to lose money."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

When the next handout comes........ and it will come........... it'll be good to point out how expensive that CAFE standards are.

[norraad]

CAFE is controlled in a subrosa fashion by big oil to help manage the flow of petro product and keep the market in balance (from their “superior” perspective that is)

[tcrlaf]

The Media is almost CRIMINAL in missing the point that FORD keeps repeating, they have budget $14 BILLION dollars to develop new technologies to meet the latest CAFE standards BS.

This technology DOES NOT EXIST YET, and when you start going in to how environmentally destructive the battery manufacturing and disposal process is for hybrid and electric car batteries, they go in to screaming fits....

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

CAFE is controlled in a subrosa fashion by big oil...

What?...I've never heard of this.

[norraad]

yeah, I know, so don'tell nobody..

Started long ago when shootin' for some food, etc.

You can't compress a fluid, so it's all gotta go somewhere, when 911 happened and no jets where flyin' refinery flares were fully lit with jet fuel for days.

We actually melted some flare heads where I was then.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Do you have a link on that?

The ford/budget part I mean.

I’d really appreciate it, it’d come in handy.

[myuhaul]

Bush to Obama: “Just call it pee pee it is all urine. You are such a smart a$$, you figure it out.”

[org.whodat]

If you don't actually know it you can always make it up.

[tcrlaf]

“Do you have a link on that? The ford/budget part I mean”

SURE...
From DOW JONES, 12-2-08:

Ford Motor Co. (F) unveiled its latest plan to turn around its operations as the auto maker seeks $9 billion in bridge financing from the U.S. government.

The company’s plan includes $14 billion in U.S. spending over the next seven years as the company retools its 2015 models to be 36% more fuel-efficient than its 2005 models.

http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200812021103DOWJONESDJONLINE000428_univ.xml

Democrats think the MONEY to pay for these mandates just pops up out of thin air.

[Does so]

"...Its sole practical effect has been to inflict on Detroit the need to produce, with high-cost U.S. labor, millions of small cars designed to lose money..."

Small cars reduced dependence on foreign oil; however, it didn't apply to trucks. SUVs are trucks.

Detroit made good money on SUVs.

[tcrlaf]

Save the insults, and check the posting BELOW yours...

[Azzurri]

CAFE standards are an example of over-regulation wreaking havoc on an industry. Why do we need CAFE standards in the first place...why not let consumers “drive” what vehicles are manufactured and what they want to buy? When gas is high, they’ll buy smaller vehicles...when gas is low, they’ll buy trucks. The companies will shift as necessary. Setting artificial CAFE standards forced Detroit to build small cars that they could not make money on due to high labor costs, the author is exactly right. They could’ve banked much more money into a rainy day fund when times were going good by building the vehicles which were most profitable for them at any particular time.

[rsobin]

Let's see. CAFE standards forced U.S. car manufacturers to build smaller cars ,and oh yea to try and make them more efficient. If not for that then they would have had only sub fifteen MPG vehicles to sell when gas was four fifty a gallon. I'd be willing to bet that the exec's partied and bonused away the best part of those potential development costs in the last ten years, and what they did not the unions squandered the rest. And are not all the other companies that sell cars here under the same CAFE standards. Detroit has had enough time to to discern the trends in the market and to adjust to them. I truly believe that if the Japanese companies did not come here and push the American manufacturers to build better vehicles we would be still driving Detroit's “worn completely out in 80 thousand miles cars”. I have had 4 GM and 2 Ford vehicles in my life but if they take my money then never again.

[uncle fenders]

I don’t think forcing the big 3 to make small cars has been as much of the problem as is the fact that toyota and honda are doing it much better... Now maybe the big three’s small cars aren’t as far behind as the buying public seems to think. However until the ford/chevy/chrysler cars are at the top of the mileage and long term durability studies AND are priced competively ...they will be unable to regain lost ground..

[org.whodat]

Ankle biting libertarian view point, they and their ten supports are a joke.

[org.whodat]

Let's see. CAFE standards forced U.S. car manufacturers to build smaller cars ,and oh yea to try and make them more efficient. If not for that then they would have had only sub fifteen MPG vehicles to sell when gas was four fifty a gallon. I'd be willing to bet that the exec's partied and bonused away the best part of those potential development costs in the last ten years, and what they did not the unions squandered the rest. And are not all the other companies that sell cars here under the same CAFE standards. Detroit has had enough time to to discern the trends in the market and to adjust to them. I truly believe that if the Japanese companies did not come here and push the American manufacturers to build better vehicles we would be still driving Detroit's “worn completely out in 80 thousand miles cars”. I have had 4 GM and 2 Ford vehicles in my life but if they take my money then never again.

Excellant!!!

[meyer]

The CAFE standards are wrong, but they aren’t the biggest problem. The UAW is the biggest problem. The EPA is a problem. OSHA is a problem. Poor management is the problem. Lots of problems that are much bigger than CAFE.

[Lowcountry]

What a load of crap. MPG this, CAFE that. What I want is a car that will tow my boat, bring home lots of stuff from Home Depot or the garden center, and get my wife and our three kids around town or on vacation comfortably. To hell with a bunch of little cars designed for GenX singles and losers with no families. I need to move a lot of stuff and people. If you want a roller skate that bounces you into town to chase girls or gets you to your job an hour from your home, buy a little gas mizer. But please, until the laws of physics can be altered so that a battery can propel my family to Disney World or to my folks house 4 hours up the road, I’ll take my 7-seat Suburban and dare your marxist tendency to take it from me. And make that battery last at least 150,000 miles with out a complete change over for under $5,000.

[Azzurri]

Are you sure your reply should be addressed to me?

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Excellent. :-)