Foolish president! Carmakers are smart to ignore Trump's auto emissions rollback

[Zorro]

It looks like more carmakers are going to side with California in the President Trump versus the Golden State standoff over clean-car standards. That’s good news for anyone who cares about breathing and not baking the planet.

Last month, four of the world’s largest automakers — Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW — announced they will, in effect, ignore the Trump administration’s plan to relax fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards. Instead, they reached a deal with California to voluntarily make their vehicles more fuel efficient.

The New York Times reported this week that Mercedes-Benz is preparing to join the California deal. Another unnamed auto manufacturing power is also planning to reject the Trump rollback and “stick to the current, stricter federal emissions standards for at least the next four years,” according to The Times.

Neither company has announced that they are indeed bucking the Trump plan. But the president certainly thinks they’re going to, if his tweet Wednesday morning is any indication.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-21/trump-clean-car-emissions-rollback-foolish

[Turbineguy]

1. They would have to be stupid to follow trump.

They'd have to come back and fix the cars after trump is gone.

[SCVDem]

2. Damn!

I wanted a coal fired Stanley Steamer!

I noted this when dump first called for a change in the regs.

California is big enough and strong enough to influence and make policy of it's own.

I remember choking on the 405 in the 70s. Who would want to go back!

[machoneman]

3. As a car guy and having worked with Detroit automakers...

..what they are doing is quite smart. As a.) the rest of the world is moving to higher emissions standards b.) lead times on product development are long, far longer then even a one-term president c.) consumers like the high mpg their modern and safer cars give them and finally d.) the chances are better than 50-50 that the next Democratic president and Congress would quickly move to re-instate our last real President Obama's EPA standards all lead these automakers to reject the Orange-Haired Fool's move.