Automakers Tell House To Lay Off On Fuel Economy - WP

[hatrack]

Or else what? They'll lay people off? They'll close plants?
:eyes:

Auto industry leaders and the United Auto Workers yesterday put up a united front in opposition to congressionally mandated improvements in vehicle fuel economy, potentially complicating the ambitions of Democrats seeking the most extensive changes in the rules since the 1970s. Auto executives appearing at a House hearing not only rejected tough rules sought by Democrats and environmentalists, but also opposed a Bush administration proposal to improve mileage by 4 percent a year over the next 10 years.

"It's time to move away from proposals that don't solve the problem," said G. Richard Wagoner Jr., chief executive of General Motors. Wagoner questioned the role of fuel-economy rules in reducing greenhouse gases or oil consumption since mandates were implemented in the mid-1970s.

The automakers favor allowing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to oversee creation of any new vehicle mileage rules, which would effectively take authority away from Congress. Some Democrats and environmental groups fear that NHTSA's rulemaking process, which includes taking into account the impact of regulations on industry, could give automakers an opportunity to water down any changes. Democrats want a law to bind automakers to higher standards.

EDIT

Gettelfinger said stringent increases in fuel-economy standards could lead to a "calamitous result" of factory closings, tens of thousands of layoffs and the loss of retiree health care, already a primary target of industry cost-cutters. Improving vehicle gas mileage could cost as much as $44 billion at GM alone, Wagoner said. (Ed. - Yep! There it is!)

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/14/AR2007031400823.html

[aquart]

1. Why are they clinging to cars no one wants?

What is the matter with their minds?

[Botany]

2. and Ford, G.M., and Damiler will continue to lose market share ...

... because they will not produce a car the people want.

[tridim]

3. $44 billion to get where Japan has been for decades?

Wahhhh.. wahh wahh wahhhhhhhh.

The only conclusion I can draw is that GM management sucks, it's probably not the engineers who are at fault here. Here's a hint GM, there are several non-hybrid automobiles that already get 50+mpg.

[rman]

4. "reducing fuel usage does not reduce use of fuel"

idiots

[gravity]

11. There's truth to it

If there are more fuel effecient cars, it just reduces the price of gas increasing demand for others.

If you really reduce fuel usage, you need to reduce the fuel supply itself, but then gas prices will rise so its not a real popular thing to do.

[rman]

14. To make use of a reduced fuel supply you need more efficient cars

What would be wrong with starting by making more fuel efficient cars,
and why is it that your logic would apply to the US but not to the rest if the world (which it apparently does not)?

[gravity]

16. There is little incentive to buy fuel effecient cars now

Reducing supply forces people to be more fuel effecient, making more effecient cars does not.

The reason European cars have higher fuel economy is because they have more expensive gas over there. There needs to be an economic incentive if you want people to reduce fuel consumption.

Right now car companies are just giving consumers what they want. If people demand\ fuel economy, they will provide better fuel economy.

[NickB79]

20. $3/gallon isn't incentive enough?

I used to drive a car that got 20 mpg 15,000 miles a year. Now I drive a car that gets 35 miles per gallon. Averaging gas prices out over the past year to ~$2.50/gallon, I saved over $800 last year alone.

[BeFree]

27. $800 saved?

That's chump change to most people. Most people can afford that with money to spare. While you and I may be happy we must realize that most of us don't give a shit.

[gravity]

29. It helped

I think thats what was when the American car companies started losing SUV sales. Also people were more conscious of their gas consumption.

Let the market decide the fate of the American car companies.

Another problem however, is that the cost of buying a new car offsets the gas savings.

[rman]

21. climate and environment are increasingly becoming an incentive

Otoh, Big Oil certainly has an incentive to pressure anyone into keeping up oil consumption.
They've already been caught paying for global-warming denial propaganda.

[liberal N proud]

5. Yeah, Lay off, the American driver doesn't mind paying high gas prices for low mpg rate cars

We just love stopping every 200 miles and dropping $30/40 at a whack

Leave the automakers alone.

:sarcasm:

[PDJane]

6. I wish that were totally true........

But I know two women who just bought gas-guzzlers, top of the line wasters.

I'm just tired.......I think it's outrage fatigue.

[phantom power]

7. Were these people dropped on their heads as children?

:banghead:

[Nihil]

15. If not, can they be?

(Preferably from a proportionally scaled-up height of course! :evilgrin: )

[phantom power]

23. I keep expecting them to be lynched by the auto workers whose careers they've ruined.

Mysteriously, it never happens.

[IDemo]

8. It will take 15 years to get to a 50+ mpg American car

15 years into the past: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Metro

[CRF450]

31. Really?

That wont be true when Chevy releases the Volt.

[IDemo]

32. Please bother reading the entire post before replying to the headline

A 15 year old American car with high mpg figures, the one liter Geo Metro:

[CRF450]

34. Oh, sorry.

I just kinda skimmed through the post real quick and it didn't really register. Sorry.

[jpak]

9. No taxpayer bailout for these assholes until they accept new CAFE standards

:oldDUFUemoticon:

[gravity]

10. Fuel economy vs American jobs?

:dilemma:

If the price of gas rises though, car manufacturers will be forced by the market to improve fuel economy.

[rman]

12. That must be why Japanese car manufacturers went bankrupt

[w4rma]

30. This time the jobs aren't affected by the standards. Waiving that bloody flag does nothing now.

In fact, it'll probably increase the number of skilled jobs available, since the big 3 will have to hire more engineers from somewhere.

[Possumpoint]

13. Gloom, Doom and Fear

Once again, US automakers show they are being run by accountants, not car makers. They continue to build, sell and lose money on cars and light trucks, fewer and fewer people want. They cannot see the benefit of changing their paradigm to one where they can more quickly respond to changing market conditions. They are demanding the right to continue to fail and have the US Government and American citizens support them and bail them out financially. Out of fear of loss of jobs and or benefits, the Auto Unions are backing the car makers. I would suggest that the companies be allowed to go bankrupt but for the retirees. They'd get screwed real bad.

For many reasons, I feel congress should require higher fuel standards. The biggest one is the world wide demand on oil and the enormous financial burden our imported oil consumption is having on this country.

[madrchsod]

17. let the market decide

if the american people decide never to buy american cars anymore then i guess the japanese will buy ford,general motors,and chrysler. then the japanese can try and figure out what the american people want

[TlalocW]

18. Oooh, I don't like threats

Guess I'll just buy a Prius for my next car.

Actually, my next car after I buy a used Ford Cargo Van that's been converted to use compressed natural gas. Burns more cleanly, and it's 94 cents a gallon at a place close to my house.

TlalocW

[jaksavage]

19. What a bunch of crap

The big 3 has repeatedly failed to adjust to conditions and so have altered conditions to keep selling the overpowered and overweight and very profitable trucks and SUVs.
I worked in dealerships in the 70s 80s and had my own shop for years. GM makes great cars, they just aren't content with that.
So they exploited a trend towards 4x4 heavier vehicles and even got congress to give a tax break for heavy trucks, $100,000 deduction.

Corporations don't give a crap about any human being

We the society have to make these bigger choices and mandate that they happen.

easiest way...gas taxes high ones
god knows we can use the revenue.

While you are at it have a clunker buy back program and financial assistance for low income families to acquire solid, efficient, transportation. Of course improve mass trans everywhere.

Our children still burn gas like it is water. So do many adults

What have you done for the earth today?

[hunter]

22. Another lovely day on the RMS Titanic.

:toast:

[Shallah Kali]

24. Lay off MPG standards or we will distroy the world! Oh, wait we already are doing that......

:nuke:

[leveymg]

25. That's so short-sighted, they might as well walk off a bridge

The technology for 50 mpg cars and 40 mpg light trucks (turbo-diesels and hybrids that have plenty of power and run smoothly) is already here. If the hybrids were plug-ins, for a lot of commuters, that would mean an effective average of more than 100 mpg. Give people a tax break, on a sliding scale, so that the poor and lower middle classes can afford them, too. Add another tax break for persons to install home photoelectric and/or wind turbine generators. Increase the fleet average requirements by 1 mpg per year. Start at 45 mpg combined for cars and 35 mpg for light trucks. Raise taxes on hydrocarbon motor fuels and stationery source emitters to make up the difference.

That would be the biggest shot in the arm the American auto industry ever got.

We're only a few years away from commercially-available hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen burning engines. That's the direction we should be going, away from hydrocarbon fuels, anyway.

[razzleberry]

26. 10 MPG SUVs are the problem

fighting over...

put a smaller engine in the car that currently gets 25 MPG

...
would be typical, but unhelpful behavior,
pf politicians

[depakid]

28. Had Congress done this years ago- automakers would be in such sorry shape

Unfortunately, management at these companies is so shortsighted and obtuse that they're on verge of bankruptcy.

[Radical Activist]

33. I don't understand their argument that this will cost jobs.

Can't Americans build fuel efficient cars just as well as any other car?
The fact that foreign cars with better mileage are selling better would suggest that it will benefit American car companies.