Trump has continually tried to water down rules set to protect people. There has been a rule that cars had to get 5%more efficient each year. Trump’s law “safe” (the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule), was a misnomer- it scrapped much of the fuel efficiency rules, this supposedly in the name of safety, despite it being illogical. It was clear trump wanted zero, but settled for 1.5%improvement each year.
Trump’s argument runs along lines essentially saying that in order for companies to meet the 5% efficiency rule they would have to to put hundreds of millions of dollars into research which would allow them to build these more efficient cars, and it all this money would be tacked onto the price of creating the car thereby making the cars more expensive.
There are several obvious problems with this, not least without absurd unfair government pressure it looks like the world has started an unstoppable move towards electric cars. These are something like 300% more efficient and therefore instantly make the problem irrelevant.
Nevertheless it is still an area that Trump is fighting hard on. The problem he hit was that California had an exemption to these, allowing it it to continue to demand higher efficiency. California is the largest market within the USA, and 13 States follow all their rules. Therefore for trump to be able to have any impact he must eradicate california’s exemption but this is standing on States rights. More to the point while Trump’s move might be popular with companies it most certainly is not popular with the public.
It doesn’t matter what the EPA rules are because if they are more relaxed than california’s then in order to sell to the largest car market in the States they must adhere to california’s rules. In the past on occasion car companies with make 2 cars one that met the rules of California and one for the other 49 States. However this doubles the cost and as such it has ended up meaning that the EPA rules are irrelevant because california’s must be met.
If trump can remove California’s exemption then lower standards will apply across the USA (and lives will be lost as a result). However even most of the car companies have said that they aren’t interested- they have spent the money and got the outcome they wanted with cars be more efficient, who is then going to buy a new model who which is going to cost them 20% more to run.
Of course the rest of the world is not paying attention to trump stupid rationale but are continuing to improve their efficiency and make their cars better in safety terms. This means the Trump move is most likely to damage the very car companies he’s trying to help. Few people are going to be willing to buy a car that costs slightly less ( but cost more to run) and has terrible safety, which means that the American auto companies such as Ford and GM are likely to lose out to their rivals. There’s also obviously is significantly damages the American economy so is a foolish move on almost all levels.
Of course if Trump was a business first president, he would support Tesla that is an entirely American company there is growing as an astounding rate and is changing the world to the hilt, but he logic doesn’t matter to him- it should matter to the american citizens in November.
