Cars Clips: April 3, 2020

 

Clean Car Standards

 

Trump Takes Heat For Dialing Back Fuel-Economy Standards. According to Public News Service, “The Trump administration is taking heat for dialing back vehicle-emission standards when a public health crisis already is threatening lives and the economy. The final ‘Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient’ (SAFE) Vehicles Rule requires automakers to raise the fuel economy of passenger cars by 1.5% annually, overriding 2012 standards that required 5% increases each year. Detroit-area mom Elizabeth Hauptman, Michigan field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, contended that weaker standards will worsen air quality for the 332,000 Michigan kids with asthma, including her son. ‘As a mom right now, it just seems reckless and dangerous,’ she said. ‘If he gets this, we’re going to a hospital; there’s no ‘passing go.’ I don’t understand why they would want to put children in danger. It just makes me sick to my stomach.’ Federal officials have claimed that the SAFE Vehicle Rule strikes the right regulatory balance for the environment, the auto sector, the economy and safety. The Trump administration initially wanted to freeze standards at 2020 levels. Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said this final rule only appears better on paper. ‘The administration claims that they’ve improved the rule compared to their initial proposal,’ he said. ‘We have no reason to trust that. The 1.5% yearly improvement they’ve suggested is already less than what the industry has averaged over the past 15 years, let alone the 5%-per-year improvement required by the current rule.’” [Public News Service, 4/1/20 (+)]

 

Experts Say Lower Fuel-Efficiency Standards Will Cost AZ More. According to Public News Service, “After a couple years of wrangling, the Trump administration’s policy easing fuel-efficiency standards for new cars has gone into effect. The plan rolls back an Obama-era rule to cut emissions 5% a year by 2026, trimming that annual reduction to just 1.5%. Opponents have said the rollback is a bad idea, but especially so with the threat of a recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, predicted that the changes will make Arizona’s already poor air quality worse. ‘It will hurt our air, especially in places like Phoenix and Tucson, where we have poor air quality when it comes to ozone pollution,’ she said, ‘and a lot of the emissions that contribute to that pollution come from vehicles.’ Arizona failed to meet federal Clean Air Act standards in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that asthma, COPD and other respiratory conditions are on the rise across the state. Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that while Trump administration officials have tried to spin the change as a way to make cars less expensive, it still will hit drivers in their wallets and pocketbooks. ‘They still can’t fudge the numbers enough to make it look like a good idea,’ he said. ‘It’s likely to leave us worse off, and that pain is going to be felt hardest by low-income families who spend a bigger portion of their money on transportation and are already dealing with the impacts of climate change.’” [Public News Service, 4/1/20 (+)]

 

Datapoint. According to Politico, “The Trump administration’s Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles rule, unveiled this week, would require automakers to improve fuel efficiency for trucks and light cars by 1.5 percent per year — well below the 5 percent target sought by the Obama administration. POLITICO Pro DataPoint’s Patterson Clark breaks down in a new DataPoint graphic what the Environmental Defense Fund says would be an increase in deaths stemming from added petroleum pollution and increased carbon dioxide, outweighing the number of lives saved by cheaper cars.” [Politico, 4/3/20 (=)]

 

Clean Car Standards Rollback Opinion Pieces

 

Op-Ed: On Fuel Economy, States And Auto Companies Need To Take The Lead. According to The Detroit News, “Americans are suffering right now, physically, emotionally and financially. And it’s only getting worse. Unemployment claims skyrocketed to about 10 million the past two weeks. Many are struggling to make ends meet, while many more are worried about what the future holds for their jobs and paychecks. And, of course, we are all focused on the health and safety of our families, our friends and ourselves. At a time like this, we should be making investments that keep people healthier, save people money and preserve industry jobs, but a recent decision by the White House does the opposite. For about two years now, Consumer Reports and a whole chorus of consumer, business and environmental advocates have been holding up a big red stop sign to make it clear that the White House should not drive perfectly reasonable gas mileage and emission rules off a cliff. The plan to weaken these money-saving rules was a bad idea when it was proposed two years ago. But finalizing this rollback now, as we face a global pandemic and our country is on the edge of a recession, is unconscionable. It’s lighting a match to about $300 billion — Michigan consumers alone will no longer save $10 billion because of the rollback — as the nation wrestles with a public health epidemic while trying to forestall the considerable long-term consequences from many Americans being out of work for an extended period of time.” [The Detroit News, 4/3/20 (+)]

 

Gutting Fuel Economy Standards During A Pandemic Is Peak Trump. According to Vox, “It is difficult to focus on anything other than Covid-19 in our current news environment, but spare a moment for President Trump’s new fuel economy standards, announced in final form on Tuesday. They replace the Obama administration’s standards, which would have pushed the US auto fleet to an average efficiency of 54.5 mpg by 2025, with standards that would reach only 40 mpg (a goal the industry expects to exceed even without a rule). By the Trump administration’s calculations, the change will result in almost a billion more tons of greenhouse gases emitted over the next five years. In one stroke, the best thing Obama ever did for climate change —addressing the most carbon-intensive sector of the US economy — has become the worst thing Trump has done for climate change. The public overwhelmingly opposes the change. Consumer groups, environmental groups, business groups, and conservative groups oppose it. Even the auto industry is tepid. To a first approximation, the only people truly happy with the change are oil company executives, who will now be able to sell more gasoline. There’s no need for it, no demand for it, and no justification for it. Yet somehow, even during a frantic, understaffed, and inadequate response to a pandemic, with so many other areas of governance and policy being neglected, Trump’s people found time to finalize this rule.” [Vox, 4/2/20 (+)]

 

Electric Vehicles

 

The Coronavirus Is Putting A Dent In Tesla Deliveries. According to Los Angeles Times, “Tesla fell victim to the coronavirus-affected economy in the first quarter, delivering 88,400 cars worldwide. In the previous quarter, Tesla had delivered 112,000 vehicles. Analysts warn that worse is coming. The United States didn’t begin to feel the commercial effects of the virus pandemic until March, so second-quarter numbers are expected to be hit much harder, with second-half 2020 results nearly impossible to predict. Chief Executive Elon Musk’s target of 500,000 deliveries this year will now be ‘virtually impossible,’ said Dan Ives, who follows the company for Wedbush Securities. Ives has lowered his year-end forecast to 400,000 to 425,000 vehicles, while Joseph Osha of JMP Securities changed his forecast to 433,000. But under stay-at-home restrictions of extended duration and worldwide economic uncertainty, those numbers amount to best guesses. ‘It’s like a game of blindfolded darts,’ Ives said. Tesla’s 2020 first quarter did top the 63,000 vehicles delivered in the same period last year, by 40%. At the time, Tesla had just started sending Model 3s to Europe and was wrestling with serious delivery snafus.” [Los Angeles Times, 4/2/20 (=)]

 

California Electric Vehicle Growth Spurs Look At Mileage Fees. According to Bloomberg Environment, “California has a road funding problem, thanks to cars driving farther on a tank of gas and an expanding electric vehicle fleet. The quandary has prompted the state to investigate news ways of funding, including charging by miles driven rather than by gallons of gas pumped, while also taking more immediate actions. The Golden State has more than 700,000 electric vehicles on the roads—more than any other state—and a goal of 5 million clean cars within 10 years. Zero-emission sales goals for trucks are also on the horizon.” [Bloomberg Environment, 4/2/20 (=)]

 

AP | Toyota, China's BYD Announce EV Venture. According to E&E News, “Toyota Motor Corp. and Chinese electric automaker BYD Co. announced a partnership yesterday to develop battery-powered vehicles, adding to a flurry of industry tie-ups to share soaring development costs. Automakers are spending billions of dollars to create low-cost models that appeal to Chinese buyers and meet government-imposed sales quotas following the end of subsidies last year that turned China into the technology’s biggest global market. Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co. and other brands have linked up with Chinese producers to create lower-cost electric models. BYD also has a separate electric vehicle venture, Denza, with Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz. Toyota and BYD ‘determined that there is much we can learn from one another’s expertise,’ the companies said in a statement. They gave no financial details or sales plans.” [E&E News, 4/3/20 (=)]

 

Research and Analysis

 

Armed With Good Data, Engineers Wage Quiet Battle For Cleaner Air. According to Reuters, “As countries try to slash air pollution and step up action on climate change, many are looking at a key culprit: tailpipes. India in 2016 put into effect its first fuel-economy standards for passenger cars and by 2021 is expected to have lowered planet-warming carbon emissions from new cars by 30%. Mexico similarly launched pioneering regulations to cut emissions in 2014, focused on reducing pollution from its millions of automobiles. Supporting those efforts - and dozens of other cleaner air standards worldwide - is a quiet group of engineers few have heard of, but whose efforts could help decarbonise the global transport sector by mid-century. The Washington-based International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) - which on Thursday won a $1.5-million prize from the Skoll Foundation - gathers and crunches data to give countries the ammunition they need to draw up effective policies, said Drew Kodjak, its executive director. What the ICCT may be best known for, however, is discovering - as its engineers tried to make sense of unusually high diesel pollution levels in tests - that Volkswagen had installed an emissions ‘defeat device’ on millions of its vehicles. The software, which let cars pass emissions tests and then produce vastly more nitrogen oxide pollution on the road, eventually led to a $2.8-billion fine by a U.S. judge in 2017, and an embarrassing admission of guilt by VW officials.” [Reuters, 4/2/20 (=)]