WC Archive

I don't know the details of this, but yesterday on the evening news a Greenpeace Canada spokesman (Steven Gilbeault) said that Canada has had "voluntary agreements" with carmakers for 20 years and that they haven't worked.

Maybe someone here knows what agreements he was referring to?

"The auto companies are now in the awkward position of telling a judge that they cannot make the same cars in California that they will make in Canada."

Judges? They're so passé. Didn't you get the memo from Congress?

:)

As always you missed the entire point by a mile. They are perfectly happy to reach a NATIONAL agreement that is doable given the cars thier CUSTOMERS want.

They cant and wont abide states going it alone as not only is that very costly its also illegal. Only the fed can set milage rates.

Keep up, winter, your rants are getting sloppy.

The state of California and the Northeaster & Pacific Northwest states adopting its regulations are not setting mileage rates. They're setting limits to carbon dioxide output; California has since the early 1970s the right to put controls on emissions above and beyond federal laws, and states have the option to adopt the federal standards or the tougher California standards. As it happens, the easiest way to reduce CO2 output is by improving vehicle mileage, but that's not the only way.

The states aren't "going it alone," they're choosing between two options. The states adopting the California standard add up to one-quarter to one-third of the vehicles on the road in the US (depending on who you read). Adopting the CA standard already means that carmakers either build different designs for different states or build all of their cars to meet the tougher requirements. That won't change.

As for "cars thier [sic] CUSTOMERS want", you seem to be using an overly-simplistic market model. Demand is driven by marketing and experience. Consider safety features like seat belts and air bags -- these were not customer-driven features, they were government mandates. Look back on customer polls and carmaker arguments from the time and you'll see that only a minority demanded the new features, and the carmakers all said that they'd be too expensive to include (sound familiar?). These days, demand for safety features is much higher, and carmakers advertise on those characteristics -- but that happened only after consumers were "forced" to have such features in their cars.

As always you missed the entire point by a mile.

You know, I know you're going to enjoy this response (as you keep desperately trolling for them), but quit being such a rude and ungrateful jerk, OK? There's plenty of places on the Web to act like you're acting, and the people here run a great website with lots of positivity. I'm sick of seeing all your childish posts, but when you cross the line into gatuitously insulting the hosts of this space, then you deserve to get the boot.

That's just my opinion.

I wasnt insulting the poster of the article because he didnt say anything silly he didnt even post an opinion on the matter he just said it as news .

I said YOU missed the entire point as in you yes you the people who had just responded to it.

The point being its a massively different ballgame controlling emissions that can be controled via a bolt on addon and controlling co2 which is directly linked to milage. One is easy and not too costly the other is very much blurring the lines between what the feds do and what the state is allowed to do. As such it is a legal issue and a costly issue for the car makers.It also is very likely illegal or will be judged as such.

Even if they do win its very likely to be a piraic victory for california as what would result is the car makers only selling a subset of cars in state and the rest being bought out of state. Which of course would lead to it not working at all anyway...

It doesnt do this site any good to put blinders on and ignore the fact co2 emssions controls are a very different beast then normal emissions controls and that this is a fight thats gona get ugly fror a very good reason its costly as hell to both sides and both sides have a damn good reason to fight it.

On airbags you do know a large number of people died because the gov forced airbags out before they were ready for prime time and they killed people dont you? Much like how they forced the use of mtbe before it was realy and THEN find out its not only cancer causing but that it seeps through the soil like crazy and has contaminated everything in sight...

Lawyers scientists and politicians 3 jobs where you can get everything wrong and still have the gall to demand to be paid;/