Compromises Made By The Feds Make New CAFE Standards A Token Gesture

What is the European or Asian equivalent of CAFE? In other words, how do their governments dictate the vehicle mix that a company must produce. I imagine that Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Jaguar and other boutique brands must have a helluva time complying with the Euro version of CAFE.

Anyone know what the required fuel economy average is over in Europe or Japan? Korea?

I believe most CAFE style standards have a production limit. For example, if the company produces more then say 50,000 vehicles per year, then it has to abide by the rules.

How can the President of the US be laughing when unemployment is higer than ever?

Oh really, I thought he was laughing because the Hyundai sold more Genesis than Acura sold TLs?

Yeah it would be sad if you could find that info.

How are you getting 39 coupes from that?

I believe... the 39 comes from June's ytd figure's. 15,414 TL's and 15,454 Genesis coupes/sedans. Apparently jtz7 said somewhere that just the Genesis sedans were outselling all of the Acura TL's. If they outsold them by one car, that would leave only 39 coupe's being sold all year.

I believe however that JTZ could have been telling the truth for that month since the monthly sales had a much larger 853 car difference. Just that Autospies2(angryinch... 5 or was it any of the other angryinch accounts) decided to troll this point endlessly by twisting the original argument into something it never was.

The article actually does a good job of explianing the "loopholes" in CAFE like each electric vehicle sold that counts as two CO2 free vehicles (in reality there is powerplant C02 but that would be hard to count) these loopholes aren't too bad as they encourage the manufacturer to actually sell more of EVs, if they can. I don't like like the additional leeway given to "trucks" which only exxagerates and prolongs the current low average fuel economy.

You know what's an unfair advantage? Excempting auto companies that sell less than 400,000 units annually in the US from CAFE standards entirely. (That's everything sent over from Germany, much of which doesn't meet US CAFE standards)

When will the conspiracy nuts stop viewing this as Dem vs. Rep, and realize that it's really US vs. rest of the world? GM & Chrysler have simply become targets for your misplaced anger. Get off the "I hate Obama wagon" and realize that CAFE standards have existed since Jimmy Carter, and no Republican President elected since then has even considered their repeal.

CAFE forces US companies to take a loss on small cars that they cannot achieve economies-of-scale on because other nations add enourmous tariffs (19% in the case of Germany). At the same time, Eurasian governments add taxes to their consumers and stimulate demand for small cars, which they gladly import to the US. Typically, these vehicles can offer increased content (or lower prices) because they sell in the millions in thier protected home markets, not the tens-of-thousands that US small cars do in a good year.

"Conservatives have this twisted view of corporations as completely alturistic entities that have your best interest in mind. They are all about profit. ALL OF THEM.

Do you actually think we would have the myriad of standard safety features on all cars had ALL governments not mandated them? Airbags are expensive, seatbelts are an extra cost, tire pressure gauge,? are you kidding me? This whole free market libertarian view is a sham and only propagated by ignorant uneducated middle Americans who have never left the country."
-blazinboy

If only the government can bring about safety features, then explain how a vast number of safety features such as safety glass, padded dashboards, deep-dish steering wheels, seatbelts, etc. became commonplace before the FIRST federal safety standards went into effect in 1967? The photo used in my avatar shows a stock 1966 Chrysler crash-testing and disbursing crash energy without any deformation into the passenger compartment. Do you think that came about overnight because of government regulation? Energy-absorbing steering columns first appeared in 1967, not because of government mandate, but because GM/Saginaw sold them to other manufacturers as a "safety feature", and by 1969 they were virtually standard equipment among the Detroit 3.

You bring ignorant, tired stereotypes into the discussion with your comments about how far the average American travels. I bring facts.