If climate science is dubious, shouldn't governments give carmakers a break?

[Chuck]

"If what is taken as gospel in terms of global warming turns out not to be the case, then the automotive industry has been encouraged and forced to spend huge amounts of money effectively for nothing."

Neil Winton - DETROITNEWS - Feb 19, 2009

...You may say that I'm a denier
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as good as done --Ed.

In a sane world, European governments would be scrambling to rescind tight regulation and extortionate taxation introduced in the name of saving the planet from the ravages of global warming, induced by CO2 emissions from cars.

After all, the science justifying action to raise the cost of energy generally and forcing the European automotive industry to raise its fuel economy to unattainably high levels, has been shown to be in doubt, if not downright fraudulent.... [Read More]

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Again:
1) Petroleum is a limited resource
2) Pollution is bad

Demanding higher mileage is only a problem to selfish people.

[Earthling]

And sending petro-dollars to people who hate us is not only illogical, it's dangerous.

Harry

[southerncannuck]

The problem with treating AGW as settled science and stiffling all discussion is that now that there is a kink in the armor everything is likely to fall apart. They really should have been more thruthful and open to the scientific process.

[Kurz]

Originally Posted by ItsNotAboutTheMoney

Again:
1) Petroleum is a limited resource
2) Pollution is bad

Demanding higher mileage is only a problem to selfish people.

Though how realistic are those MPG numbers? (talking about Europe's)
How efficient can we make Gasoline and Diesel motors?
Gas prices aren't at the level to warrant such great efficiency. (Maybe in Europe)


All I am saying is you can't push the combustion engine's efficiency without making serious sacrifices to what the consumer wants.
Thats why I love electric cars, I just wish the battery was better than what we have now.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Originally Posted by Kurz

All I am saying is you can't push the combustion engine's efficiency without making serious sacrifices to what the consumer wants.

All I am saying is you can't give the consumer what they want without making serious sacrifices.

The idiot who wrote the article complains that the 2015 target about the additional cost of up to $1350 even though that would easily be recovered by the consumer here let alone in Europe.

According to him it's a bad thing for consumers to produce less pollution, consume less of a non-renewable resource and reduce exports while also saving money. I'm used to people complaining how "normal people can't afford to be green" but this is different.

The 2020 target of 60mpg NEDC is the rating for the current Prius. (It's approximately equivalent to 49.2mpg on EPA 2008 using a 18% reduction). There are also small European diesels that are currently better than 60mpg. Have a look at this list of efficient cars.

So, in other words European manufacturers have 10 years to match the fuel economy across their fleet for a current vehicle that's sufficient for a family of five.

In the EU there are two key factors that will make the requirement much less onerous than in the USA: more diesels; smaller vehicles.

The coming decade will also introduce PHEVs, BEVs and more LiHEVs which will be above target and will allow some leeway on regular ICE and diesel vehicles.

Having tough but attainable fleet targets will also help stop the race to the bottom on front end price that costs the consumer and the environment over the vehicle life. For example you can expect every new ICE vehicle to have start-stop technology and LRR tires.

[phoebeisis]

If the USA BASED manufacturers had their way we-USA- would not have airbags, side side curtain airbags OR EVEN SEAT BELTS, OR 50 MPG VEHICLES!!

Yes our Big 3 FOUGHT every every safety mandate and every mpg mandate.They frequently claimed that high mpg cars were impossibly expensive. Of course since I paid $100,000 for my Prius,I guess they were right.

Our car manufacturers long ago took a 3 month stock price view in respect to long term planning. Not this isn't completely true, but it is kinda' true. The UAW of course had their own narrow concerns and together they almost killed the Big 3, and lost 500,000(or more) jobs in the process.

Better mpg is win,win, win -better for our national interests, better for the manufacturers, better for the long term health of the planet's warm climate, and coastal inhabitants. The Russians will probably benefit from any long term global warming-maybe the Canadians also..

Charlie

Charlie

[chibougamoo]

Add to that, we cannot continue to offer every Tom Dick and Harrietta a 500 hp FSP, just because he might need it once a year to go to the cottage, and 6 days a week to intimidate every other reasonable-sized commuter vehicle in his path.

Nor can we continue to indirectly fund terrorists, just because Joe Truckie doesn't want to change his bad habbits.

(Not saying a monster pick-up or even the occasional SUV are unwarranted; but encouraging one-vehicle single-occupant bull-headed commuter-cowboys is counter-productive; over 80% of this weekend paper's car/truck ads are for monster-motor P/U's and FSP's).

[booferama]

The number of factually inaccurate claims about global warming in his article is stunningly high. No one at UEA fiddled with the numbers, the Himalaya claim was a minor error (and not in the section of the IPCC report about climate science), the debate about the "hockey stick" isn't settled as he claims, and the quote from Phil Jones is ludicrously out of context.

And btw, here's a good explanation of how no science is "settled."

[WriConsult]

More B.S from Detroit News. Those guys never stop, do they?

I think it's mostly a myth that the scientific community treats GCC science as so "settled" that there can't be honest debate. This is a strawman argument made to make the science look more "dubious" than it really is. No, we can't say human caused climate change is a serious threat with 99.999% certainty -- what!?! it's not 100% settled !?!? -- but the evidence is pretty solid overall.

Charlie, I agree that not only have the domestic automakers fought every safety mandate, in many cases they appear to have deliberately botched them. When passive restraints were mandated, GM came out with those awful door-mounted seatbelts that were actually LESS safe than the previous pillar-mounted belts. And when talk started swirling about making DRLs mandatory, GM put them on all of their cars -- using the high beam lens so that they would blind everyone and make the public hate DRLs.