Edmunds.com: Washington, Please Don't Repeat Past Mistakes with CAFE Standards

The Auto Channel to Jeremy Anwyl: Please Shut Up!

WASHINGTON - January 28, 2011: Yesterday, Jeremy Anwyl, the CEO of Edmunds.com, a resource for automotive information, presented to the Society of Automotive Engineers' 2011 Government/Industry Meeting on policy that could help achieve the President's clean air goals.

"In the 1970s and 1980s, new emission, safety and CAFE standards forced automakers to build vehicles the market often did not want, relying on technologies that were not ready for public consumption. Over time, the reputational damage to iconic American brands like Cadillac was huge. In fact, one reason I was a reluctant supporter of the auto bailouts is that the trouble the car companies were in was not entirely of their own making - government policies played a role," stated Anwyl, who drones on more on this subject at http://justtoclarify.typepad.com/my-blog/2011/01/learning-from-lessons-of-the-past.html.

"The lesson from the past is that effective long-term policies must include consumers' interests," Anwyl added.

"The good news is that today, technology caught up and is yielding a new wave of high tech clean gas and diesel engines that deliver safer, more efficient vehicles at little expense to consumers," continued Anwyl. Anwyl then gave, as examples, a series of gasoline and petroleum oil-based diesel powered cars to support what he calls "good news."

Marc Rauch, Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher of TheAutoChannel.com - the Internet's most complete and comprehensive automotive information resource - responds:

"The financial and brand problems of the American car companies is entirely of their own making. The problems began way before the introduction of government CAFE standards. It started when European and Japanese automakers began making better and more attractive vehicles," Rauch says. "The problems were then compounded when Detroit attempted to compete with vehicles designed by "camel" committees and out-of-touch beancounters in ivory towers." Rauch adds: "The U.S. government did no favor to the public it is sworn to serve by letting the carmakers off the hook with sleight-of-hand, three-card-monty CAFE requirements, but that happened because of the lobbying efforts of the carmakers (and their buddies over at the gasoline companies). I doubt there were any politicians who took it upon themselves to create the rules to allow for the continued production of gasoline-guzzling vehicles against the wishes of the carmakers. The politicians should have insisted that gasoline-guzzling vehicles be mandated out of existence. If Americans wanted big powerful cars and trucks - which they did and are entitled to have - the vehicles should have been manufactured to use a fuel other than gasoline or standard diesel. Domestically produced CNG, propane and ethanol should have been mandated into use. But again, Congress didn't make a unilateral decision, they were forced into it by the pressure and check books of the carmakers and the oil companies."

To Anwyl's comment that there is good news because "...of a new wave of high tech clean gas and diesel engines that deliver safer, more efficient vehicles at little expense to consumers," Rauch laughs derisively. "We continue to be stuck with gasoline-powered engines that poison us. A cigarette with a "micro-weave" filter is as harmful as an unfiltered cigarette. At a time when the bailout could have been used to mandate meaningful changes thereby creating millions of jobs, our addiction to gasoline is greater than ever, and we continue to provide funding to enemy regimes and global terrorist organizations. For Anwyl to say that there is "little expense to consumers" is just so typical of the empty headed comments he has made since being given the job at Edmunds."

Rauch does agree with one thing however, "There is a lesson to be learned. But the lesson is to keep Anwyl away from a typewriter or computer keyboard."

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