US and Foriegn built cars

[Gene Brown <simigene@domain.elided>]

When the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy laws were first passed in
the 70's the unions were concerned that the (then) Big 3 would just
import a bunch of foreign built cars to raise the average fuel economy
thus costing the jobs of union workers so CAFE was divided into import
and domestic categories. Because of this Ford had to build the Crown
Victoria in Canada for a while since they couldn't take the economy hit
on their domestic CAFE but could on their import CAFE. 

The domestic/import CAFE rule ended up backfiring on the unions in the
end. In the perverse ways of government agencies a car is considered an
import if more than a certain percentage of it (like 25%) is imported.
When Honda, Toyota and some of the other foreign manufacturers started
to build cars in U.S. plants the unions were happy because it meant more
jobs for union workers. The problem was that many of the cars were still
considered imports because the car was a few percentage points short of
being classified as a domestic. When the politicians asked the
manufacturers to build more of the car in the U.S., thus employing more
U.S. workers, they were told that the manufacturers couldn't because the
U.S. built cars were generally the lower fuel economy cars and if they
did build more of the car here then it would be a domestic car and they
could not meet the domestic CAFE.

Trucks were originally exempted from the emission/fuel economy rules
since they had to actually haul cargo and thus needed more powerful
engines. So while the cars got anemic the trucks kept the more powerful
engines. also the people hauling station wagons started to disappear or
were down sized to the point where they were no longer useful for
hauling many people. To fix this the automakers decided to make trucks
into people haulers and take advantage of the loopholes. The government
is starting to take action though and is proposing regulations to
classify SUVs as cars and not trucks. In defense of the SUVs they are
not as bad environmentally as the media makes them out to be. While the
emission requirements are not as tough as cars most of the SUVs have
emissions lower than the limits placed on cars and could easily pass the
car emission tests. A few months back the media was all over Ford for
the Excursion (the biggest SUV). It is only a few inches bigger that the
Chevy Suburban and not much heavier. On of the news paper articles was
talking about the poor fuel economy and how many tons of emissions the
vehicle would produce over it's life. If you did some calculations you
would realize that even using the lowest fuel economy figure the
Excursion would put out about three times as much weight in pollution as
the fuel it consumed. But then some of the media have a problem with
facts and figures.

Gene Brown
Simi Valley
78 Spider
Still looking for a Montreal

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