In accordance with the procedures in 49 CFR Part 555, Tesla Motors, Inc., has petitioned the agency for renewal of a temporary exemption from certain advanced air bag requirements of FMVSS No. 208. The basis for the application is that the petitioner avers that compliance would cause it substantial economic hardship and that it has tried in good faith to comply with the standard…
Not so bad, right? As a small manufacturer, Tesla simply has to prove that it still isn’t in the financial shape to put advanced airbags in its money-losing Roadster… after all, nothing has fundamentally changed since the initial waiver was granted. But it turns out that NHTSA isn’t going to give out these waivers like candy anymore…
I’m not in the business of helping people Tweet better, I’m not in the business of helping people post to Facebook better. My job is to make sure we keep people safe behind the wheel. I’m not going to deny the fact that people want these things. They do. Especially the generation behind us. They’re used to being connected 24 hours a day.
A car is not a mobile device — a car is a car. We will not take a backseat while new telematics and infotainment systems are introduced. There is too much potential for distraction of drivers.
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland took the war on distraction to the enemy in a speech to an auto technology conference, reports Bloomberg. With nearly every manufacturer racing towards ever greater implementation of connectivity, communication and entertainment systems in cars, Strickland’s rhetorical line in the sand foreshadows a serious confrontation between industry and government. Either that, or this is just Ray LaHood-style hot air calculated to make it look like something’s happening.
In the 1970s the Carter administration prohibited speedometers from indicating speeds over 85 miles per hour. The idea was around before Carter, but his people implemented it.
Regulations require some justification. The justification was, people might not drive fast if they didn’t know how fast they were going. After some hand-waving and pulling numbers out of orifices it’s possible to fabricate a number of accidents and deaths per year prevented and call that the benefit of the regulation.
As part of Reagan’s regulatory reform the speedometer rule was scrapped. Rescinding a regulation requires some justification. The justification was that there was no real evidence that limiting indicated speed would reduce or had reduced driving speed.
An ineffective regulation is harmful because it imposes costs with no benefits.
The release of A Road Forward: The Report of the Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel [PDF], probably raised a few eyebrows around the industry this week, particularly at the headquarters of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington D.C… but not for any obvious reason. The report’s findings about Toyota’s internal reforms in the wake of last year’s recall scandal aren’t particularly mind-bending, and are well summarized in an introductory passage
First, the Panel believes Toyota needs to continue to adjust its balance between global and local control giving weight to local control in order to improve its communication and speed in responding to quality and safety issues. Second, the Panel believes that Toyota needs to ensure that it listens and responds as positively to negative external feedback as it does to negative internal feedback. Third, the Panel believes that Toyota must persist in more clearly distinguishing safety from quality and continue its efforts to enhance its safety practices and procedures.
In addition to identifying specific areas for improvement, the report places a heavy emphasis on “the leadership of Toyota’s top executives as they navigate the road forward, as well as the company’s leadership in the industry” as a way to avoid the traps it fell into prior to the recall scandal. And this emphasis on leadership could have some interesting effects…
Why do consumers like CAFE? Well, the short answer is that a gas tax (which is infinitely superior from a pure policy perspective) hits them directly in the pocketbook, while CAFE forces automakers to absorb the cost increases before passing them along to consumers in the form of higher MSRPs. But underlying this fact is a larger issue that’s driving support of increased emissions regulation: gas is getting more expensive. As I pointed out in my recent editorial on the subject, for all the automakers’ whining about CAFE increases, it seems that energy prices are moving the market in the same direction anyway (the average family will spend $3,100 on gasoline this year).
According to a Consumer Federation of America study [PDF], the steadily-rising price of energy has consumer’s even more concerned about gas prices and dependence on the volatile Middle East than they were during the height of the last fuel price shock in the Summer of 2008. As a result, support for a 60 MPG fuel economy standard doesn’t go below 49% (among Independents) even assuming a ten-year payback period, and earns the support of 63% of Democrats. And before you dismiss this support as hysteria, consider the underlying economics for a moment…
The Environmental Protection Agency has revised its alternative-fuel conversion regulations for light and heavy-duty vehicles, making it easier for manufacturers to sell conversions that are compliant with clean-air laws. The 186-page ruling provides an exemption from a Clean Air Act prohibition against tampering when converting an engine to run on alternative fuel.
In the past, a manufacturer of alternative-fuel conversion systems was required to certify its products in the same manner that a vehicle manufacturer certified its vehicles — an expensive and difficult process. The new regulations provide a way to comply with clean-air standards through streamlined testing.
In essence, the rule change creates a graded compliance structure, depending on the age of the converted vehicle, making it easier to retrofit older vehicles. Read all about it at the EPA’s website.
We’ve long struggled with finding the right balance of recall coverage here at TTAC, as the sheer volume of them makes it extremely difficult to separate the life-saving wheat from the irrelevant chaff. Now, it seems the rental car industry is tired of struggling with the same challenge and is lobbying the government for reform of the recall system. Bob Barton of the American Car Rental Association explains the problem to the NYT
We can’t determine the significance of a recall and whether a vehicle is no longer safe to operate or whether it can continue to operate and then should simply be brought in for service at some point in time. We simply want the manufacturers to instruct us when a vehicle needs to be grounded and we will absolutely comply.
Fair enough. Recalls are carried out for plenty of non-safety-critical problems. But where do you draw that line? And, more importantly, does the rental industry enjoy enough of a reputation for safety consciousness to assure customers that their calls for reform won’t result in any increased danger?
As I write this, President Obama and his top environmental and auto regulators are gathering for a speech on “American energy security” at Georgetown University. In this speech, the President is expected to make the case for ramped-up CAFE standards, EV subsidies and other transportation-related energy efficiency goals, and based on his politically pragmatic framing of the issue as being about “energy security” rather than environmental prerogatives, it seems that he’s serious about creating new policy rather than merely playing to his base. But, according to the Detroit News, the automakers are not going to take increased regulation sitting down, but appear to be gearing up for the first major legislative clash over automotive regulation since the green-tinged bailout. Automakers have begun to push back on both fuel economy and stalled safety legislation, explains Alliance of Automotive Manufacturer’s spokesperson Gloria Bergquist.
Automakers have always supported legislation and regulations that are driven by data and sound science, and there have been some examples where there was more wishful thinking and targets being selected that weren’t based on the data. So we have become more outspoken on the need for data to drive policy decisions.
Of course, automakers haven’t always supported regulation of their industry… but this is clearly a change in tone from the cowed industry that collapsed into the government’s arms just a few short years ago. A battle is brewing, so let’s look at some of the flashpoints in this forthcoming conflict.
The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will be holding a series of round table discussions aimed at investigating misleading dealer practices in the areas of sales, financing and leasing. According to the Commission’s release, the round tables will
gather information on consumers’ experiences when buying or leasing motor vehicles. The roundtables will explore consumer protection issues related to the sale, financing, and leasing of the consumer vehicles consumers most often use – cars, SUVs, and light trucks.
For many consumers, buying or leasing a car is their most expensive financial transaction aside from owning a home. With prices averaging more than $28,000 for a new vehicle and $14,000 for a used vehicle from a dealer, most consumers seek to lease or finance the purchase of a new or used car. Financing obtained at a dealership may provide benefits for many consumers, such as convenience, special manufacturer-sponsored programs, access to a variety of banks and financial entities, or access to credit otherwise unavailable to a buyer. Dealer-arranged financing, however, can be a complicated, opaque process and could potentially involve unfair or deceptive practices.
The public comment period on this safety proposal only recently closed, and NHTSA will be asking Congress for additional time to analyze public comments, complete the rulemaking process and issue a final rule
But don’t expect NHTSA to drop the proposed rule. An analyst watching the regulatory process tells AN that
he expects the rule to be tweaked to include testing for illumination at night and the time it takes the picture to appear on the display. Overall, though, he said there shouldn’t be any major changes that would cause the ruling to be enacted later than September.
The agency says the cheapest option is to connect the camera to a vehicle’s existing video screen at a cost of $58 to $88. Equipping a vehicle that doesn’t already have a screen would cost $159 to $203
At an industry-wide cost of $1.9b-$2.7b, that comes to some $20m per life saved (assuming cameras will actually prevent back-up “accidents”). Want to guess what most of those 200 comments have to say about the proposal? Seriously, though, we can only find one…
The IIHS’s latest bid for relevance comes in the form of an entirely unshocking revelation: crash a car and an small SUV together, and the car will be more expensive to repair. I know, I know… mind-blowing stuff. And it would be goofy enough if the IIHS had performed these crash tests simply for the data, but in fact the results gave them cause to exhume one of the most asinine crusades in the history of automotive regulation: regulating bumper height. Because, as the IIHS’s Joe Nolan puts it
We picked vehicles from the same manufacturer because we think automakers should at the least pay attention to bumper compatibility across their own fleets. The results show that many don’t.
And why not? Well, maybe because the odds of hitting a vehicle made by the same manufacturer that made your car are so astronomically unlikely that testing “bumper compatibility” let alone calling automakers to task for not paying enough attention to this meaningless metric is the height of self-important stupidity. But of course the IIHS wasn’t going to just leave things there…
Automotive News [sub] reports that the new GOP majority in the house of representatives will likely mark a shift in the political dynamic between the industry and the US government, as Republicans shift from noisy protest of government support for the industry towards orchestrating reductions in industry regulation. And, according to the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers, the first victim of the new Republican House could be the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, a set of sweeping regulations aimed at preventing recall scandals like the Toyota unintended acceleration fiasco that took place earlier this year. House Republicans plan on holding hearings on that bill, which has passedcommittees in the House and Senate but has not yet faced a full vote by either full body. Says National Auto Dealers Association lobbyist Bailey Wood
There will be much more oversight, and the process will slow down
But House Republicans will also face their own challenges. With Democrat JerryBRown winning California’s gubernatorial race, national lobbyists will have a harder time resisting ever-increasing emissions standards, as California is the sole state with authority to independently regulate auto emissions. Though Republicans are likely to support the industry’s resistance to increased fuel economy standards, they will require help from the White House in order to, as the AAM’s Dave McCurdy puts it
rein in some of the more exuberant tendencies in California
With battles brewing over safety and emissions legislation, 2011 is shaping up to be an interesting year for followers of the politics of automobiles.
Toyota and Fiat may not be setting European sales charts alight, but according to a recent analysis of per-vehicle CO2 output, the two automakers are on the cusp of meeting the EU’s stringent 2015 standard. Automakers competing in Europe will have to reduce their carbon emissions to 130 gm/km by 2015, a huge challenge for firms like BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen, which currently have average emissions of 151, 167 and 153 grams per km respectively. Fiat and Toyota, on the other hand, have already reduced their emissions to 131 and 132 grams per km, putting them within a sneeze of the 2015 standard. But the auto industry never though that any of its firms would be on track for overcompliance. In fact, the AFP reports
In 2008 carmakers successfully pushed back from 2012 to 2015 the deadline for technological innovation, allowing them to meet stipulations, in exchange for a commitment to drop to 95 g/km by 2020.
Despite not insignificant loopholes, they can be heavily fined if they miss these targets as the EU strives to meet wider aims in reducing emissions of harmful gases blamed for negative climate change effects.
A lawsuit against Mazda is moving to the United States Supreme Court, reports Bloomberg, challenging whether automakers should have been required to install shoulder belts in all of its seats prior to current regulations requiring the improved belting systems took effect in 2007. The case centers on a 2002 accident in which Than Williams was killed when a Jeep Wrangler hit her family’s 1993 Mazda MPV. The Williams MPV had only lap belts because shoulder belts weren’t required by federal law until 2007. A California court has already barred the lawsuit from coming forward, arguing that federal regulations supersede any local rulings, and that then-legal seatbelts should protect manufacturers from personal injury liability. However a recent case casts some doubt on the precedents in the Mazda case…
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