EU 'should ban inefficient cars'

[[R_H]]

BBC

The EU should ban the sale of cars that do under 35 miles to the gallon, the ex-chairman of oil giant Shell says.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart told BBC News the motor industry would adapt to cope with stricter environmental rules.

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders opposes the idea, saying drivers of the most polluting cars pay extra through road tax and petrol duty.

But Sir Mark said this simply let rich people avoid taking responsibility for tackling climate change.

Expanding on the views he expressed in a BBC News website Green Room opinion column, Sir Mark said: "Nobody needs a car that does 10-15mpg.

"We need very tough regulation saying that you can't drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin - but only if it did 50-60mpg."

Sir Mark's rule would apply only to new cars. Eventually, old polluting cars would die quietly of their own accord.

While car-makers could improve the efficiency of many sports cars to meet such a target, they would struggle to get some heavy, luxury cars to qualify.

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders spokesman Nigel Wonnacott said drivers of polluting cars already paid extra through VED (road tax) and petrol duty. That was enough. Sir Mark said the rich should not escape their responsibility to tackle climate change: "It is a social thing. We don't say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

"When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn't say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

"When we introduced catalytic converters the car-makers said it would put the price of cars through the roof - but it didn't. Now we all have to have catalytic converters - that's only right."

Sir Mark - currently chairman of the mining group Anglo American - said his years in industry had taught him that the market would provide solutions if governments demanded them with enough conviction.

Battle for opinion

"Government's job is to set the framework in which industry can compete," he added. "The market is a magical thing - it will meet people's convenience but it needs guiding."

He said the EU was far too lax with motor manufacturers.

Such comments from a leading industrialist will make an impact on the current European debate in which German car-makers are fighting to avoid being punished for continuing to build heavy cars.

They say jobs are at risk if they have to change their models.

Sir Mark says that with a growing world demand for cars, jobs lost in one polluting part of the industry will be more than replaced by jobs in a newer, cleaner part of industry.

His remarks may chime well with many of the public.

Opinion polls consistently show that people are prepared to change their ways to tackle climate change - but only if their neighbours are forced to do the same.

This fact is regularly ignored by politicians fearing a potential backlash.

They may find in future that it is less controversial for them to impose tough rules on everyone rather than to seek compromises to accommodate minorities.

Nigel Case, director of The Classic Car Club in London, said he supported Sir Mark's comments, in theory – but said that currently car-makers were not producing clean vehicles attractive to drivers.

He noted that the Lotus Tesla electric sports car was capable of 60 mph in around 4 seconds, and a top speed of 130 mph.

"It sounds great," he said. "But we just can't get hold of one. If there were more cars like this available, it would make drivers feel good driving them."

Hopefully this is appropriate in SLAM.

[The Grim Squeaker]

"It is a social thing. We don't say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

"When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn't say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

"When we introduced catalytic converters the car-makers said it would put the price of cars through the roof - but it didn't. Now we all have to have catalytic converters - that's only right."

Fine words that I fully agree with, when the task is attainable. (As it is here).

Asking people to do something, while making it still feasible for the biggest polluters (Who are told to become less heavy polluters) is a solution (and one I support) but if this could be pushed through...
A man and his allergies can dream, can't he

[Napoleon the Clown]

I don't know how well this would go over if it were actually put into practice. Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin, etc. would throw a fit over this. That those companies rely almost fully on cars that get a third of the proposed minimum, this would really hurt the sales of those companies. And the kind of changes needed to be made could well put many of the aforementioned companies out of business. Lets face it, Ferrari doesn't have the money of a company like Fiat (who owns them, actually). Keep in mind that Fiat is almost exclusive to Europe. The parent companies may be unwilling to divert funds to their performance divisions, seeing it as not worth the costs. Few people would buy a 300k (USD, CAN, Euro, or Pound) car that doesn't perform like current supercars. And while it is possible to develop a supercar that gets 35mpg, it wouldn't be cheap and it would cost more per unit. Ferrari and other companies that are almost exclusively supercar companies simply don't have the ability to mass produce vehicles to make a profit on a vehicle that is, essentially, built from the ground up. That's a large part of why a Ferrari 360 Modena costs more than a Z06. Both have fairly similar performance, but GM can mass produce their vehicles, reducing price per unit and increasing total sales.


Now, I don't necessarily see such companies vanishing being bad during the long term, but that would be very bad for the world economy. The EU has a higher GDP than the US, and while supercar companies aren't even in the top fifty money makers (I'd imagine) for the EU, they still have a large amount of economic impact. It could set up a chain reaction that would be more damaging than what would be immediately seen.


Personally, I see many parts of Europe as having too much pride in their performance vehicles to accept this readily, just as I see large portions of the US being unwilling to comply with such a ruling. They want their trucks and SUVs. They want their sports cars.


A last point, such vehicles wouldn't simply die off on their own. The rich could afford to keep rebuilding and repairing their favorite gas-guzzlers.

[K. A. Pital]

Now, I don't necessarily see such companies vanishing being bad during the long term, but that would be very bad for the world economy.

No. Supercars are a luxury product. If you remove them and their makers, that'd make little impact on the world economy.

Oooh, the rich won't be able to buy their toys! I'm so sorry. Fuck 'em. Maybe if they can't buy a supercar, they'd spend this money on something more useful to society than a stupid alpha male fetish.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Stas, Ferrari and the rest do more than simply sell luxury items. They're also deeply involved in racing, which commands a lot of money. More than just the rich will watch Formula 1 races. The vehicles alone aren't the thing that would make the biggest impact. The events would be of very large impact, due to advertising and other parts of the events. Hell, the spending of the competitors alone was an impressive $2.9 billion.[F1 Magazine] Throw in the advertising revenue and other associated transactions, and this is a hefty amount of money going around. It's a major sporting event.


This isn't to say that it would cripple economies, but it would be harmful. Yeah, things would recover, but people react strongly when there's a large change in their country's economy, even if the change is inconsequential when viewed from the perspective of the economy as a whole.

[K. A. Pital]

They're also deeply involved in racing, which commands a lot of money.

Yeah, but I didn't say "ban racecars", didn't I? We're not banning Formula I. Or are you saying that if Ferrari doesn't have the supercar revenue stream, it won't be able to support Formula I? Is Formula I so totally lossy? I thought it has shitloads of ads to cover that up...

[Napoleon the Clown]

I don't have figures to back it up, but I suspect that without having cars to sell, Ferrari would really get fucked over in the wallet. I'm unaware of any companies the exist wholly as racing companies.

[K. A. Pital]

Hmm... I also suspect F1 is a lossy business, although I don't know the exact numbers. Gotta check this up.

On the other hand, isn't BMW, for example, also in F1? And it's revenue stream isn't only from supercars. Couldn't Ferrari re-align somehow? Make other types of cars - high-end, but not breaking the proposed regulation?

[Sea Skimmer]

The logical thing to do is to force the average fuel economy of all vehicles sold, weighted for production numbers, to exceed a certain figure. Trying to force every last individual vehicle produced to meet a single arbitrary standard is pointless, real super cars and the like are not nearly common enough to matter. What are 100 Ferrari Enzos next to say five million Corollas? The disparity becomes even greater when you realize that a typical economy car might be driven five times the mileage of a supercar before it dies for good.

They might be toys for the rich, but so what, lots of other absurdly wasteful things also only exist to be toys for the rich. Mileage restrictions wont make super cars for the rich go away anyway, they’ll just switch to electric motors and rape the land for all the nickel they now need.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Hmm... I also suspect F1 is a lossy business, although I don't know the exact numbers. Gotta check this up.

On the other hand, isn't BMW, for example, also in F1? And it's revenue stream isn't only from supercars. Couldn't Ferrari re-align somehow? Make other types of cars - high-end, but not breaking the proposed regulation?

I touched on them trying to make a switch in my first post, actually. It'd require a complete restructure of how they do things, and honestly, they don't have the kind of money to throw around that, say, BMW has. And I do believe BMW is involved in F1, as well as Honda and Mercedes-Benz.

Actually, looking at the Wikipedia article, it appears there are indeed companies that exist almost wholly through racing, so it would indeed be possible for Ferrari to survive, though I don't know how easily they could do so. It appears that F1 would be able to survive, though the companies that roll out production cars would take a hit from it. A few could take that, such as Lotus (for an example of why I say this, look at the Elise).


This would piss a lot of people off, though, regardless of economic impact. It's moving in the right direction, but a sudden cut-off could be horrible for getting yourself reelected come voting time.

Gah, the conflicting thoughts on this... I doubt it'll happen anytime soon, though.

[Dahak]

I don't have figures to back it up, but I suspect that without having cars to sell, Ferrari would really get fucked over in the wallet. I'm unaware of any companies the exist wholly as racing companies.

Ferrari is part of the FIAT group, so they have good financial backing for F1 even without selling cars.