Detroit Fought Rather Than Sought Change

An opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal titled, "Detroit's (Long) Quest for Fuel Efficiency" caught my eye. In it, Paul Ingrassia argues that consumers, not regulation, drives automotive change. Somehow, though, I feel like he ends up proving just the opposite.

He cites three "lessons" to support his case. First, he says, don't underestimate incremental change. As examples, he cites the clunky Chevy Corvair, which achieved 29 MPG in 1960 and the late-90's EV-1 electric vehicle. I suppose he is saying that although they weren't big hits, these cars were pioneers of a type. The problem is that nobody followed in their footsteps. The only thing that "incremental" improvements have netted is 50 years of dirty cars, contributing to a global CO2 problem that we haven't begun to solve.

His second lesson is that market forces are the right driver for higher gas mileage. He says, "But CAFE, which first became law in 1975, didn't prevent the SUV boom in the 1990s". How could it? SUV's weren't even on the map in 1975 and Detroit fought any attempt to update the standard to encompass SUVs as the popularity of these vehicles rose. The fact is that CAFE standards worked. Fuel efficiency had fallen to 12.9 MPG in 1974. The standards pushed this number to 27.5 by 1985 and in 2002, according to the National Academy of Sciences, motor fuel consumption was 20% less than it would have been without the regulation. The emergence of SUV's has dropped total US new fleet fuel economy (2000-2007) to just 23.1 MPG.

His third lesson is that new auto technology requires new infrastructure, creating what he calls a "chicken-or-egg problem". He points to the historic battle over clean air and the resistance of US automakers to installing catalytic converters. The devices required the use of unleaded gas and a change to the oil company practice of putting lead in gasoline to boost octane. Eventually GM President Ed Cole announced that his company would use the devices, breaking the deadlock. Ingrassia uses this story to conclude that we need a person or corporation of his ilk to solve today's infrastructure issues. I simply don't see it that way. The Clean Air Act spurred action on tailpipe emissions, not Ed Cole. The regulation forced auto companies to produce fewer tailpipe emissions and oil companies to drop the lead that was poisoning a generation. I call that a win-win.

It is certainly true that as citizens begin puttering around in new jalopies, we'll need a fuel system to keep them puttering. However, I don't think this example lends itself to his conclusion that infrastructure and innovation are at a stalemate. That's because this is where government has proven to be at its best, building the support structure for the next big thing as it did with the railroads and our national highways.

I'm not one to conclude that government regulation is the salve for every environmental ill. However, I think that Mr. Ingrassia has overlooked the real lessons of the fuel efficiency fight in America. Detroit hasn't quested for fuel efficiency, it has quelled it for the last 50 years.