He’s grinding the wrong axe to fix the “problem”. Emission standards have nothing to do with dropping car sales. Even loan lengths aren’t part of it. There’s really just 2 things going on: Car looks aren’t changing from year to year so there’s feeling of “behind” the curve when nobody can tell by eyeball that your car is 5 years old. And now pretty much all the companies make good cars that last a long time, back in the day getting 100,000 miles out of a car was good, now barring accident you should get 200,000 miles. You can see it in how 3 year old cars keep 75% of their new value, that’s the market understanding the mechanics.
Really all that needs to happen is for the car companies to understand their situation and stop making cars they know they won’t sell.
You are correct about car looks. I have the first year of the redesigned Nissan Frontier pickup. 2005. It looks exactly the same as a 2017.
As an aside, on this particular pickup, Nissan Frontier sales are on the uptick. It's proven to be a reliable truck, and Nissan has not gone cuckoo with technology stuff with this truck. That way the price stays down, and it is a good choice for people who want a reliable, plain ol' pickup.