Lutz says Bush fuel standards will raise car prices by $5k
GM Vice Chairman and blogger extraordinaire Bob Lutz used the spotlight of the New York Auto show to talk about the Bush Administration's plan to raise fuel economy standards four-percent per year through 2017. Mr. Lutz placed a tab of $5,000 per vehicle for the fuel economy initiative, which is a heavy price to pay for an OEM in Aerospace, much less the auto industry. Lutz' comments came in response to a recent Supreme Court decision that the EPA has the express right to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
A Bush administration analysis of the initiative placed an industry cost of $117 billion between 2010 and 2017, with over $40 billion coming from GM alone. The plan, which aims to decrease US oil dependency by 20% by 2017, is focused on several industries, but the car and light truck market could be hit extremely hard. Lutz and other industry leaders are keen to the idea of better-utilizing E85 instead of what Blogger Bob calls an "unaffordable solution". Currently, there are only 1,100 E85-capable gas stations out of 170,000 in the US.
We'd be more than happy to get 20% better fuel economy on our cars, but we probably wouldn't be happy paying an extra $5,000 for it.
[Source: Detroit News]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
tony2x 1:19AM (4/05/2007)
What nonsense! Americans just need to get over the fact that they don't need a 3.6 litre V6 engine in a mid-size car. Europeans have been driving around with
I don't mean to come across anti-America because I live here and love the place but I am still shocked as to the enormous, old technology engines that get shoehorned into Buicks and Chevys. Sure they are cheap to produce but witness the Saturn Astra, 1.8 engine pushing out 140hp, surely that's enough for a compact car? Why do we need massive six cylinder engines!
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Declan Moran 7:54PM (4/04/2007)
This is what auto execs always say. If it was up to them we'd be driving around at 200mph with no seat belts and none of us could breath. I love cars, but anyone can see that GM makes a whole fleet of vehicles already that meet all these mileage restrictions. Only problem is they don't sell them here.
Thanks Bob, doesn't hold water. Find a new talking point.
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Patrik K 7:55PM (4/04/2007)
Bob is probably giving us the best of OEM-FOS propaganda.
The auto industry had lots of time to prepare for this, and GM has some hot technologies in the oven like everybody else. They can do it.
The problem is, lowering the bar in the US won't help anybody in the mid- and long term. On the contrary, lobbying for conditions to be softer on the domestic OEMs in the US marked will over longer or shorter make the weaker.
Proof of point: Big fat heavy bumpers in the 70s to make small imports more clumsy didn't prevent the eventual decline in domestic car market share, pushing legislation soft on SUVs (after profits from cars were gone, SUVs were a big source of income) didn't prevent the imports from taking good chunk of that segment. Light trucks, are next, by the way.
if the bar is raised in the rest of the world, and th US will follow eventually, the car companies from that rest of the world will have a huge advantage.
Beware of those who survive the toughest conditions.
China, if you' re listening: Introduce the toughest emissions and fuel economy standards, and before you know it, your manufacturers will be the world leaders in those areas.
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chewy 7:53PM (4/04/2007)
All the SUV+pickup. The new EPA powers to regulate CO2 will finally make sure that pickups and SUVs don't get free passes. Most cars already get decent fuel economy, pickups and SUVs don't.
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JasonSK 7:55PM (4/04/2007)
Screw that, give me a 500hp 12mpg car, idiot green morons, cars barly add a single dig percentage to overall pollution
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pete 7:57PM (4/04/2007)
wtf, so we now need to pay a more to save gas and money?!?!?!?
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JC3 8:08PM (4/04/2007)
America doesn't need their big dumb SUV's.
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Peter 8:10PM (4/04/2007)
I call Bullshit.
Smaller cars and engines get better mileage. Better mileage vehicle should actually be cheaper.
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sk 8:13PM (4/04/2007)
This is a small price to pay if we get cars that run on alternative fuel. If you consider that in 2014-15 our oil sources will be short of suppling enough oil to keep up with demand. Oil prices will go through the roof. This should give an advantage to other fuel sources and in return CO2 emissions will be reduced.
That's also the main reason Bush proposed this reduction of fuel consumption. He knows that we're already running low at some of the biggest oil fields in the world and can't afford not to respond at this point and time. Unfortunately we should have done more about that in the past. As longer we wait as more costly it'll be.
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Billy C. 8:12PM (4/04/2007)
I agree with #3, this is just industry propaganda that makes Lutz look like a stooge. Any car company can increase mileage by just changing their manufacturing plan. It may cost profitability if they don't know how to make profitable high mileage vehicles, but that's their problem - other companies already can and will fill the gap.
All that said, people should be able to buy any kind of vehicle they want. Fuel taxes can be increased to European standards to shape consumer tastes. Let people buy any vehicle they want if they are willing to pay the full cost of owning it.
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theo 8:15PM (4/04/2007)
Dear Lutz,
Innovate, you idiot. It's what GM/Ford used to be good at.
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Nick 8:15PM (4/04/2007)
It's not going to be $5,000 to the consumer when Hyundai or Toyota or Honda or whoever are all competing and dropping prices. The domestics will be in big trouble, because their legacy costs will not give them enough margin to cut close to the bone if their costs increase due to fuel economy regs.
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Nicole 8:16PM (4/04/2007)
It's the same old whine, whine, whine of the US auto makers. New legislation gives them an excuse to offer sub-standard vehicles and blame it on the legislators - who just mandate minimum standards that are already possible. And by mandating those for all cars, they get more cost efficient.
Exmples? Seat belts, air bags, side impact beams, catalytic converters and other modern emissions equipment. I'm glad we have those mandates, as they made our cars better in so many ways: Safer, more reliable, more practical.
Hopefully, some day law makers will realize that our freeway speed limits are counterproductive to engineering and building better cars, and find a reasonable new number. Because those are one reason we have so many heavy, poor handling gas guzzling trucks and SUVs.
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Nick 8:17PM (4/04/2007)
9- There's plenty of oil. Oil won't be running out for a loooong time. There's refinery issues, and increased demand, but the supply of raw oil is not tight.
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iQuack 8:18PM (4/04/2007)
Gas mileage mandates are ridiculous. When prices rise enough, buyers will voluntarily purchase economy cars as they're doing now.
If the government wants to control something, it should pass a law against jacked-up monster trucks whose bumpers are raised to where they'd kill the occupants of any car they hit.
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Nick 8:20PM (4/04/2007)
Emissions regulations are ridiculous. When air quality gets bad enough, people will buy cleaner burning cars.
Seriously, 14., why waste gas when we don't have to?
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Craig 8:58PM (4/04/2007)
Is it just me or is everyone else thinking the US would be much better off without the domestic car makers and their associated union issues? All they seem to do is whinge, complain and ask for bail out money, all at the same time as building ugly pieces of crap that people buy because they are cheap.
The car makers know if prices had to go up to cover these emission restrictions then they are sitting ducks to be blown out of the water by the Japanese and Europeans.
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St?ane Dumas 8:34PM (4/04/2007)
#12 Nicole, a twisting irony is Toyota now offer as well as Nissan some gaz-guzzling models with Tundra with a 5.7L V8, Titan, Sequoia, Armada, Pathfinder, various Lexus models, Infiniti M45 and Q45 (I might forget some others models), so when it's Detroit, we critize them but when it's Toyota or Nissan who offer a gaz-guzzling model (come to think of it, should we include Mercedes, BMW even if they are more luxury cars then "mainstream cars"?), we don't go further. Are we doing a case of positive discrimination or "reasonable accommodation" like in Quebec, Canada? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_accommodation
It won't be long before Honda offer a V8 model (probably for Acura), and it will happen before the Toronto Maple Leads will win the Stanley cup again.
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Stéphane Dumas 8:35PM (4/04/2007)
"Toronto Maple Leads"
I mean Toronto Maple Leafs, sorry for the inconvience
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shah_ashay 8:42PM (4/04/2007)
Does this mean GM has to actually spend money on R&D? Somebody turn on the lights in the basement lab....maybe we will find Igor there.
Maybe they should spend some money and get a Japanese or German scientist since those guys already finished their research and work.
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