[camaro-dreamer]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

I'm hoping for CAFE to be replaced. We both know that CAFE's requirements are getting increasingly stringent, but the buying habits of Americans are not changing to keep up with them. As a consequence, we're getting more expensive technologies placed in the powertrains of cars that everyone uses. While these are good for some innovation, they are bad because they artificially increase the price of these powertrains and reduce customer choice in engines, performance, and features because the money that would go to manufacturing those options is spent elsewhere.

While GM and other manufacturers have done a great job of providing excellent products while still complying with federal regulations, it is clear that Americans need to eventually be nudged toward more efficient, smaller vehicles. How do we nudge people toward vehicles that allow the corporate average to improve? Prices go up. Americans like big vehicles disproportionately more than Europeans or Asians, and it shows in car purchases. CAFE provides some consideration for this by offering a better system for trucks, but it fails to help larger cars, and your average family isn't driving Minis.

What needs to happen is a change in the system, but environmentalists won't let this system die without a replacement, so we have to compromise. We compromise by offering an alternative system. The industry leadership can then meet with elected officials and appropriate members of the executive branch to discuss what standards are reasonable, and then those can be enacted. While this is taking place, it doesn't make sense for CAFE to continue since a replacement would be in effect, so it is likely that there would be a loosening of future standards until the new system can take effect.

I think this is really a false dichotomy.