Kyle A. Lohmeier
So far, in the last 53 days we’ve had the stupid wall and its stupid 20-percent tariff with Mexico, the stupid travel ban and the stupid Obummercare replacement. Finally, after nearly two months in office, the President is working on something kind of actually smart for a change.
“U.S. President Donald Trump is set to formally announce a review of vehicle fuel efficiency rules locked in at the end of the Obama administration when he meets with automaker chiefs this week, according to two sources briefed on the matter,” Reuters reported yesterday.
The review will apply to rules that Obama locked in late in his reign that mandate vehicle emissions levels and fuel efficiency standards for the years 2022-2025. The automotive industry has warmly greeted the announcement, since the rules Obama mandated were out of touch with reality, just like the former president was for his entire life. Obama’s unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky mandates called for raising average fuel efficiency from 27.5 miles per gallon in 2010 to more than 50 mpg in 2025.
Turns out there are a few practical hurdles when it comes to nearly doubling average fuel efficiency in 15 years while still meeting ever-more-strict crash-safety standards; the largest being the immutable laws of the physical universe itself.
“Automakers argue the vehicle emissions rules, which would raise the fleet average fuel efficiency to more than 50 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2025 from 27.5 mpg in 2010, will impose significant costs and are out of step with consumer preferences. They argue they need more flexibility to meet the rules amid low gas prices.
Environmentalists, who favor the standards, say the rules will reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gases and have vowed to sue if the Trump administration weakens them,” Reuters reported – the fact they couldn’t make the environmentalist argument any stronger, or indeed at all, is quite telling as this is, again, Reuters reporting here.
So, the Left’s response to the fact that they want to use violence to achieve the impossible is to threaten to use yet more violence against anyone who tries to interfere with their daydreams.
“The Obama administration said in 2011 the changes would boost fuel efficiency to a fleet-wide average of 54.5 mpg, save motorists $1.7 trillion in total fuel costs over the life of the vehicles and cost the auto industry about $200 billion over 13 years. The fuel standards were a central part of Obama’s legacy on addressing climate change.
In July, the EPA estimated the fleet would average only 50.8 mpg to 52.6 mpg in 2025 under the rules because Americans were buying more sport utility vehicles and trucks and fewer cars,” Reuters reported.
Where the hell do they even get those numbers? Reuters doesn’t say, which is probably a strong indication they were utterly fabricated at the time the statements were made. According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the average MPG of all cars sold in the USA as of February 2017 was 25.1 miles per gallon. That is the case in a market that still has government doing all it can via taxation and propaganda to convince Americans to buy fewer Ford F-150s and more Smart ForTwos. Thing is, the goofy-looking 2016 ForTwo, with its rear-mounted, three-cylinder, .9-liter engine gets a paltry 34 combined MPG. A 2016 Ford F-150 XL with the 3.5L V-6 gets a combined 20 MPG and can fit a Smart ForTwo in its bed with only a few inches of it hanging over the tailgate. Far better value, and even more importantly, what Americans want.
Of course, the real lesson here is that all this haggling with numbers is idiotic and unnecessary. The only haggling that needs to take place when one private entity sells a consumer a vehicle is between the buyer and seller over price – not between the manufacturer and the Mob over how it will be designed. As always, getting the government involved, or indeed having it to begin with, only ever hurts the individual – in this case, Obama taking away choices and options and dictating what Americans will buy because he knows better, and tree-hugging, and pandas, or something.
America invented automotive mass-production. Americans know what kinds of cars they want. We’ve all watched Top Gear UK (well, not anymore). We know the rest of the world thinks we make big dumb cars that cannot corner and just go fast in straight lines. We don’t care. Europeans can keep their little, quick-cornering cars; they need them. You couldn’t get a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat opened all the way up in Belgium as you’d have to stop at a custom’s post before you slotted it into sixth. Here in the USA, no problem – we’ve got the breadth of a continent to drag race across.
As I’ve been saying for ages, the USA is not the rest of the world, and vice versa. What European serfs have been convinced they like and works there could never work here, be it civilian disarmament, “universal” “free” healthcare or having government tell us what kinds of cars to buy.
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