mmarshall

Yes, that's correct.

While EVs and hybrids are indeed becoming more popular, the clear majority of the American public does not want their choice for traditional ICE vehicles taken away from them....including large ICE vehicles. And we still don't have a nationwide charging system for electrics to justify their production.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

so it said this 'waiver' was given to california in 1970's clean air act. why should california be able to enact different fuel efficiency regulations to other states?
the reality is that by doing that with over 10% of the u.s. population, the car makers have no choice but to make models that comply, either by making all their output comply (likely adding cost) or making a 'special run' of product just for california (also adding cost). they likely spread those additional costs across all sales but the net result is the same, some or all people pay more for cars, plus the effort spent meeting california's special regulations (not only for fuel economy, but also their draconian and crazy CARB emissions rules) is effort car makers don't spend on innovating in ways that might be fun, useful, or reduce cost.

california feels it should be able to drag the whole country in their way of thinking, and that's not the basis of how this country works. however, the nation is meant to have 50 state experiments where they can try things, except where overruled by federal law, or not exempted. once again, a tricky issue...

but i definitely like rescinding this waiver, and next up should be the many ludicrous rules all over meaning that refineries have to make a baskin robbins number of flavors of gas for different places... it's nuts.

mmarshall

Bingo. That's where today's actions come in.

Even given California's unique pollution problems caused by the local terrain, sea-currents, and weather systems, IMO it never has made sense to have two standards for vehicle-manufacturers (and fuel-refiners)......one dictated by Washington and the other by Sacramento. It is one reason (not the only one) why fuel in California is so expensive.

ExTrEmE99

iTrader: (6)

Cars like the corolla and civic are basically already compliant at being 30+mpg. But i think due to the paris climate accords, these standards are essentially going to be standard* to the world markets. As the car manufactures develop it could become more standardized for emissions.

Diamler just announced theyre going 100% into EV. So it'll be interesting how the market moves in the future. I do know about the difficulties finding charging in other states, that is a reason why i wouldnt consider a EV i still like my ICE. but thats because Lexus interiors still kicks my brother's teslas butt but am definitely watching the tech grow.

UDel

Good news to car enthusiasts.

G Star

iTrader: (2)

Great news, regulations strangle innovation.

Amazon today pledged to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans by 2040. There was no regulation in place forcing them to do it, they just thought it was a good for their brand and bottom line. See how that works?

TigerInst

The problem with California's regulation policy on emissions is that it has blossomed into a corrupt cash grab by the Cali's gov and smog program. While the smog program does in fact help with pollution, the more stringent regulations to "fight" smog arent even measured accurately anymore and therefore no longer deserve to move forward with stricter rules.


My next statement is purely speculation/opinion but it is based off what my coworker has told me and it should have some merit since he has been a smog technician since the early 90s. Cars inherently produce pollutants and I think the cars here in Cali have reached an equilibrium point where they can't realistically get any cleaner. My next statement, however, is not speculation/opinion. The Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) measures pollutants removed from the atmosphere based on how much money a customer spends on emissions related repairs rather than directly measuring before/after tailpipe emissions. They then use this "data" to show lawmakers that they've removed this amount of pollutants from the air which proves to the state that their program is successful.

While indeed successful in its own right, the data is inflated so BAR can have a larger and larger fund every year since they are funded by the state. This leads Cali gov to believe its easily possible to get cleaner petrol cars with the smog programs ever improving succes and therefore enact stricter emissions laws. This is partly why our road/toll tax has increased and one of the main reason why our gas tax has increased.

There's more stories my coworker has told me where he has won court cases against BAR but still had to pay them anyway due to Cali/BAR corrupt laws. Its wild stuff.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

https://andyarthur.org/how-much-clea...are-today.html

Since 1960s cars emit vs 2010 car. Its even cleaner for a new car
1% NOx
5.4% the CO
.000777% the particulate matter
47.6% the CO2

These final %s are getting very expensive and probably not cost effective to get rid of

EZZ

They try to reduce pollutants by driving higher mpg. If you can get 35 mpg on average across all cars, you can remove x% of pollutants by burning less gas. Regardless of Cali policy, the automakers will get there on their own over time. Especially if the US goes EV heavy over time.

mmarshall

MPG is only one measure of pollutant-emissions. No matter how much or how little fuel an engine burns, it has to burn cleanly if you are going to get a low mission figure. An engine getting 50 MPG can emit more pollutants than an engine getting 10 MPG if the catalyst, oxygen sensors, or engine management system is not working properly, or if you are using crappy, poorly-refined fuel.

charley95

Well said!

tex2670

Because it's been such a huge problem with CA having a different set of standards for the past 40+ years.... When the EPA rolled back the CAFE standards recently, didn't many automakers say "That's fine; we're going to keep adhering to the CA standards anyway."

https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...ifornia-waiver

tex2670

True. Today's cars have very little innovation with all of the regulations imposed on them. All efficiency and safety regulations should be ended--then the car companies will really produce the most innovative, efficient, safe and cheapest cars in history!

mmarshall

I don't think it's so much the companies wanting the specific California standards. More likely, they just wanted one set of nationwide standards, period.....which this action by the Administration accomplishes.

BTW, that article by the L.A. Times is highly questionable. Federal law, in most cases, supersedes state law...and the Administration's position is likely to prevail, even if the case goes all the way to the SCOTUS.

mmarshall

Just PR stuff....and most of the public probably doesn't care whether Amazon's vans are electric or not.