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Car companies know the writing is on the wall with regards to pollution and EV. > The administration’s plans have been further complicated because major automa

Car companies know the writing is on the wall with regards to pollution and EV. > The administration’s plans have been further complicated because major automakers have told the White House that they do not want such an aggressive rollback. In July, four automakers formalized their opposition to Mr. Trump’s plans by signing a deal with California to comply with tighter emissions standards if the broader rollback goes through

randomfool 7y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/climate/automakers-california-emissions-antitrust.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/climate/automakers-califo... > The Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the four major automakers that struck a deal with California this year to reduce automobile emissions
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  > Now, the Justice Department is investigating whether the four automakers violated federal antitrust laws by reaching a deal with California, on the grounds that the agreement could potentially limit consumer choice, those people said. That makes no sense at all. “We will comply with stricter emissions control without government intervention, so we signed a deal with California to formalize it.” Where would better emissions control harm consumer choice?
  - rjf72 7y ago
    It kills the used market (as older vehicles are generally non-compliant) forcing consumers to buy at least relatively new vehicles.
    - bt848 7y ago
      That's not how these regulations work. There are no controls on the resale market in California. There is an emissions inspection regime but it's for SO2, not CO2.
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      No it doesn’t. An agreement to make new cars with better emissions does not affect the used car market. Now, a regulation about enforcing those emission standards... that would affect the market.
    - taylodl 7y ago
      Surely the "consumer choice" argument doesn't apply to the used market? Besides, since LA is the city that practically invented smog why don't they have the right to regulate their air quality as they see fit? An emissions standard that works well in the great plains may not work so well in the great cities.
  - stale2002 7y ago
    It would harm consumer choice to buy a cheaper car that has lower emissions standards.
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      It’s the market solving the problem without government intervention. Isn’t that the whole premise of the Republican Party? “Let the free market solve itself”?
      - stale2002 7y ago
        > “Let the free market solve itself”? This specific situation violates anti trust law. It is illegal for a bunch of companies to come together and say "we all agree to not sell below this price", or "we all agree to not sell this cheap thing". Anti trust law is something that both parties support. It is not controversial to say that price fixing should be illegal. And this applies to both Republicans and democrats.
  - derekp7 7y ago
    It has to do with anti collusion laws. Companies are not allowed to all agree to raise prices together, for example. And tougher pollution standards is more expensive to manufacture. So if any one company decided on their own to raise their own standards, they would be at a competitive disadvantage if everyone else was selling cheaper cars. So the only way to do this is to get everyone else to agree to the same thing. But that type of agreement is illegal, which is why companies will often lobby for tougher legal standards because everyone else would have to comply also.
henryfjordan 7y ago
yeah, I think they realize that as soon as someone reasonable is in office again that the rules are going to immediately revert. If they have made design changes to their production lines that aren't immediately compatible with CA's regulations when that happens they are going to have to spend a lot of money to fix those inconsistencies. I imagine that the accountants are saying "just make the cars cleaner anyway".
rjf72 7y ago
One little nuance you have to keep in mind there is that many automakers now generally like emission regulations. The reason is because it creates a cycle of obsolescence. Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle. I'm not saying this is good or bad - it could well be that even if they have bad intentions it results in a good outcome, so who cares? But these little nuances are, I think, important in considering the big picture as you're doing with your statement. Another example along these lines is asthma inhalers. The reason asthma inhalers cost so much in the US, even though it's for a dirt cheap drug that's long since out of patent protection, is because pharmaceutical companies lobbied to get rid of the CFC based delivery mechanism for "environmental reasons." They lobbied on this hard, for years. And finally succeeded. And once the new rules passed they immediately threw a hoard of patents at the new mandated HFC delivery system and jacked the prices up skyhigh. [1] So you'd think rolling back drug regulations would have the pharmaceutical industry jumping for joy, but in this case they specifically utilized regulations and environmentalism to create a massive profit that would not have otherwise existed. Ultimately a lot of these issues are a lot more opaque than they might seem at a glance. [1] - https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-your-asthma-inhaler-costs-so-damn-much/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-you...
- bt848 7y ago
  Your understanding of the second-hand car market is incorrect. Promulgation of standards for initial sale of new vehicles has no impact whatsoever on the resale of cars.
- rconti 7y ago
  > Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle. But that's not actually how it works? You can continue driving a car legal for sale under 2019 emissions regs, effectively forever. Yes, every so often they 'have to' redesign the cars to meet newer regs, but nobody's forced to buy them. They buy them because they have cool new features that people want, or a new body style, or whatever.
- kube-system 7y ago

randomfool 7y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/climate/automakers-california-emissions-antitrust.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/climate/automakers-califo... > The Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the four major automakers that struck a deal with California this year to reduce automobile emissions

colejohnson66 7y ago
> Now, the Justice Department is investigating whether the four automakers violated federal antitrust laws by reaching a deal with California, on the grounds that the agreement could potentially limit consumer choice, those people said. That makes no sense at all. “We will comply with stricter emissions control without government intervention, so we signed a deal with California to formalize it.” Where would better emissions control harm consumer choice?
- rjf72 7y ago
  It kills the used market (as older vehicles are generally non-compliant) forcing consumers to buy at least relatively new vehicles.
  - bt848 7y ago
    That's not how these regulations work. There are no controls on the resale market in California. There is an emissions inspection regime but it's for SO2, not CO2.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    No it doesn’t. An agreement to make new cars with better emissions does not affect the used car market. Now, a regulation about enforcing those emission standards... that would affect the market.
  - taylodl 7y ago
    Surely the "consumer choice" argument doesn't apply to the used market? Besides, since LA is the city that practically invented smog why don't they have the right to regulate their air quality as they see fit? An emissions standard that works well in the great plains may not work so well in the great cities.
- stale2002 7y ago
  It would harm consumer choice to buy a cheaper car that has lower emissions standards.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    It’s the market solving the problem without government intervention. Isn’t that the whole premise of the Republican Party? “Let the free market solve itself”?
    - stale2002 7y ago
      > “Let the free market solve itself”? This specific situation violates anti trust law. It is illegal for a bunch of companies to come together and say "we all agree to not sell below this price", or "we all agree to not sell this cheap thing". Anti trust law is something that both parties support. It is not controversial to say that price fixing should be illegal. And this applies to both Republicans and democrats.
- derekp7 7y ago
  It has to do with anti collusion laws. Companies are not allowed to all agree to raise prices together, for example. And tougher pollution standards is more expensive to manufacture. So if any one company decided on their own to raise their own standards, they would be at a competitive disadvantage if everyone else was selling cheaper cars. So the only way to do this is to get everyone else to agree to the same thing. But that type of agreement is illegal, which is why companies will often lobby for tougher legal standards because everyone else would have to comply also.

henryfjordan 7y ago

yeah, I think they realize that as soon as someone reasonable is in office again that the rules are going to immediately revert. If they have made design changes to their production lines that aren't immediately compatible with CA's regulations when that happens they are going to have to spend a lot of money to fix those inconsistencies. I imagine that the accountants are saying "just make the cars cleaner anyway".

rjf72 7y ago

One little nuance you have to keep in mind there is that many automakers now generally like emission regulations. The reason is because it creates a cycle of obsolescence. Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle. I'm not saying this is good or bad - it could well be that even if they have bad intentions it results in a good outcome, so who cares? But these little nuances are, I think, important in considering the big picture as you're doing with your statement. Another example along these lines is asthma inhalers. The reason asthma inhalers cost so much in the US, even though it's for a dirt cheap drug that's long since out of patent protection, is because pharmaceutical companies lobbied to get rid of the CFC based delivery mechanism for "environmental reasons." They lobbied on this hard, for years. And finally succeeded. And once the new rules passed they immediately threw a hoard of patents at the new mandated HFC delivery system and jacked the prices up skyhigh. [1] So you'd think rolling back drug regulations would have the pharmaceutical industry jumping for joy, but in this case they specifically utilized regulations and environmentalism to create a massive profit that would not have otherwise existed. Ultimately a lot of these issues are a lot more opaque than they might seem at a glance. [1] - https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-your-asthma-inhaler-costs-so-damn-much/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-you...

bt848 7y ago
Your understanding of the second-hand car market is incorrect. Promulgation of standards for initial sale of new vehicles has no impact whatsoever on the resale of cars.
rconti 7y ago
> Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle. But that's not actually how it works? You can continue driving a car legal for sale under 2019 emissions regs, effectively forever. Yes, every so often they 'have to' redesign the cars to meet newer regs, but nobody's forced to buy them. They buy them because they have cool new features that people want, or a new body style, or whatever.
kube-system 7y ago