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The MartAuto News, Analysis and Editorial
As the
Earth Warms, Senator Boxer Pushes Hard for CO2 Regs and GM's Vice
Chairman Robert Lutz Fiddles a Refrain
Auto on Info April 2007
As the Earth Warms, Senator Boxer Pushes Hard for CO2 Regs and GM's Vice Chairman Robert Lutz Fiddles a Refrain
By James B. Bleeker
Senator Barbara Boxer, a U.S. Senator representing California, much of whose coastal areas and Central Valley may become aquatic environments more inhabitable by warm-water crustaceans than humans, is pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations limiting the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. Armed with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the EPA has the authority to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act, Senator Boxer states that the agency is left with "no more excuses"1 and that the current administration "has the onus of explaining to the American people why they won't control carbon."1 As the Bush administration has the reputation for being non-responsive, especially in the eyes of the Democrats, she promises to call the EPA administrator "week after week"1 until answers are given. President Bush, for his part, has proposed raising fuel-economy mandates by 4% annually commencing with model year 2009.
Meanwhile, back at General Motors Corporation, its vice chairman, Robert Lutz, recently invited David Friedman, the head of the Clean Vehicle Research program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, to convince him that significant improvements in automobile emission reductions will add a bundle to the cost of each vehicle - thousands of dollars even, making sales difficult or worse. Mr. Friedman described the results: GM and the UCS remain at "loggerheads."
The numbers in the Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies by the Union of Concerned Scientists is rather, or extremely, unfavorable to GM's position. The following chart depicts the percentages that GM's 2005 vehicle averages of global-warming, smog-forming, and combined emissions exceed those of Toyota Motor Corporation.
The chart indicates that GM could cut its smog-forming emissions by a third and still not match Toyota's lower emissions. And regarding cost and profitability,
1. GM and Toyota vehicles are still quite comparably priced by feature (although GM has been forced to offer hefty incentives to move its more rapidly dilapidating vehicles off dealer lots in recent years).
2. Toyota's sales are steadily rising and GM's sales are steadily dropping, as the following chart helps depict.
3. Toyota is, by quite a margin, the world's most profitable auto manufacturer, as the following chart helps depict.
The next chart may be even more damaging to GM's position that emission reductions mean expensive new technology. It depicts the percentages that GM's 2005 small-pickup averages of smog-forming and combined emissions exceed those of Toyota.
The fact that none of Toyota's pickups has yet incorporated its gasoline-electric hybrid technology suggests that emission reductions are obtainable with something other than significant expenditures.
However, GM's true concern may rest in the possibility that it may be charging about double the true value of its vehicles, based on their accelerated rate of dilapidation, as the following table helps show.
See "True Value Estimates of GM's 2007 Vehicles," Auto on Info, November 2006.
Under this circumstance, any increase in vehicular price resulting from the implementation of emission-reduction technology may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, i.e., causes a dramatic decline in market share.
Likely consequently, but irrespective of motive, GM and its Vice Chairman Lutz repeatedly tout flexible-fuel vehicles and increased use of ethanol. However, with regard to the use of ethanol to mitigate global warming, Automaker Rankings 2007 by the Union of Concerned Scientists concludes, "The E85 currently available provides only a 16 percent reduction in global warming emissions compared with the gasoline it replaces, but automakers receive a 65 percent bonus on the credited fuel economy of FFVs [flexible-fuel vehicles]. As a result, even if FFVs used E85 100 percent of the time [in contrast to the current one percent found in a 2005 study by D. MacKenzie, L. Bedsworth, and Mr. Friedman2], this would still not compensate for the fuel economy loophole. Manufacturers would do much more to reduce global warming if they satisfied fuel economy standards by selling more efficient vehicles, rather than exploiting the dual-fuel loophole." And with regard to ethanol's smog-forming emissions, Mark Z. Jacobson3 (B.S., B.A., and M.S. from Stanford University and M.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA and currently a Stanford University professor) has found, based on an air-pollution-and-weather forecast model and emission inventories, population data, and health effects data, that with increased use of ethanol (here, a conversion from gasoline to E85) would come increased levels of ozone, a key ingredient in smog formation, and increased mortality, hospitalization, and asthma in the U.S. generally and in the Northeast and Los Angeles particularly. To boot, E85 increases acetaldehyde and formaldehyde (the taxidermy preservative) in aerosol and fog water (dramatically, per other studies cited in Mr. Jacobson's academic article).
And so it goes, at GM.
The reader may express his/her opinion on General Motors in a poll at the bottom of this news section.
1 "Senator Wants Higher Fuel Economy," Justin Hyde, Free Press, at http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070419/BUSINESS01/704190337
2 Fuel Economy Fraud: Closing the Loopholes that Increase U.S. Oil Dependence, by Don MacKenzie, Louise Bedsworth, and David Friedman, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2005, accessible from http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/Closing-Fuel-Economy-Loopholes-Can-Save-Consumers-Billions.html
3 "Effects of Ethanol (E85) Versus Gasoline Vehicles on Cancer and Mortality in the United States," by Mark Z. Jacobson, 2007, at www.stanford.edu/group/
efmh/jacobson/E85PaperEST0207.pdf Sources for emission averages: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies, by Don MacKenzie, Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, accessible from http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/honda-toyota-beat-detroit-in-0021.html, and Clean Vehicles: Analysis: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car CompaniesUnion of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, at http://www.ucsusa.org/news/clean_vehicles/vehicles_health/automaker-rankings-2007.html
Sources for higher fuel economy push and GM's refrain: "Senator Wants Higher Fuel Economy," Justin Hyde, Free Press, at http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070419/BUSINESS01/704190337, "Lutz: Bush Fuel Standards Plan Could Boost Car Prices by $5,000," David Shepardson, Detroit News, April 4, 2007, at http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/UPDATE/704040445, "Transportation Secretary Defends Bush Fuel Proposal," David Shepardson, Detroit News, April 5, 2007, at http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070405/UPDATE/704050454, "GM Chaleenges the Eco-Critics," David Shepardson, Detroit News, April 18, 2007, at http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070418/AUTO01/704180349, "Would Ethanol Cause More Smog, Deaths?" Seth Borenstein, the Associated Press, Detroit News, April 18, 2007, at http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070418/AUTO01/704180345
Related Web Pages Auto Manufacturer Awards and Honors Roster of Vehicles with 300,000 or More Miles Table of Toyota Reliability Percentranks Table of Toyota Reliability Grades
The following poll permits the reader to express his/her assessment on General Motors Corporation.
To view responses to the above poll, click here.
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