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Comment by zzleeper | Hacker News Reader

Well, on the one hand you have emission restrictions and on the other hand you have MPG restrictions. Then you have consumers that want to buy SUVs, so there is no way you are going to meet your quota of zero-emission-vehicles.

I'm not taking the blame out of carmakers, but it is very easy to end up with regulations that when taken together are not feasible.

Imaginary example: you need a capital/asset ratio of at least 20% (which means capital/liab. of at least that, by definition). But you also require at least 30% of the liabilities to be long-term debt. Another regulation says that 50% of loans must be financed with deposits, and so on. The end effect is that there is little margin for these banks to decide on their liabilities. At the extreme, if we impose unfeasible restrictions, they might just end up skirting some of the rules.

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This is the important bit:

   > ... it is very easy to end up with regulations that
   > when taken together are not feasible.

I had a discussion with a member of the "Bay Area Air Quality Management Board" (not a fan) about this very issue. I asked, "How do you know whether or not what you're trying to achieve is possible?" Their answer was "Well if it isn't possible someone will tell us."

It is a classic prisoner's dilemma problem. If everyone is honest, you make cars that are good for the environment but lack the performance, if one can "defect" while looking like they haven't (aka they cheat) they take all the money.

> if one can "defect" while looking like they haven't (aka they cheat) they take all the money.

And yet they get caught (and always will) and lose the long game.

Sayonara, VW.....

Big corporations used to have bean-counters that calculated the cost of getting caught and they cheated only when the risk vs. damages had a cost upside.

Corporations now just don't appear to give a flying fuck about what lands in the lap of the next CEO. They'll get their golden parachute, right?

If you can't produce a SUV that meets all regulations, then you can't produce a SUV. Nobody forces car makers to offer SUVs. Maybe the intention of those regulations is that not everybody needs to ride in 3+ ton vehicles to get to work.

This is already happening. Right now the most popular SUVs are in the "crossover" category, which have much better fuel economy. It appears most American drivers want:

1. Elevated driving platform.

2. Room for extra passengers and cargo.

I agree that the vast majority of pickups (utes) sold in the U.S. are much larger than necessary for their usage and in comparison with pickups sold outside of North America.

There's also

3. A slanted liftgate that sacrifices cargo space so their crossover doesn't like their parents' station wagon and/or minivan.

I want my station wagons back :/

Then you have consumers that want to buy SUVs, so there is no way you are going to meet your quota of zero-emission-vehicles.

It was the emissions restrictions that pushed so many consumers to SUVs in the first place.

I'm not saying that's not true but in my case, it was the need for an 8 passenger vehicle that was not a minivan. It was either a SUV or a commercial commuter van.

I'm curious why not a minivan? What does the commercial commuter van offer in terms of functionality that the minivan doesn't?

Show me a minivan with two rows of benches. AFAIK they all have captains chairs in the first two rows now.

If you want two bench seats in the 21st century your options are basically all SUVs

Both Toyota and Honda minivans are still available with 8 passenger seating.

All the minivans I looked at had the auto slide doors. I have 4 friends and myself who have experienced catastrophic failures of the auto sliding door mechanism on their minivans. I've always bought used cars and have experienced my share of problems and quirks. Not being able to get in or out (well, my kids not being able to get in or out) without a series of arcane jiggles has been one of the most frustrating.

After that it was only vehicles with hinged doors and 8 passengers so...SUV or commuter van.

edit: also I live in a northern state in the middle of nowhere. 4 wheel drive and high clearance were not insignificant factors for us.

That may have been true in the 1970s, but light truck and passenger vehicle emission regulations have been identical for a long time. Looser fuel economy standards for light trucks certainly causes manufacturers to push them harder though.

CAFE standards were responsible for much if not most of the increase in SUV driving we saw from the mid 90s onward.

On top of all that, the raw numbers of diesel passenger vehicles sold in the US is so small that their emissions are basically irrelevant.

Americans for the most part do not like diesel cars. It's really not even worth testing them.

Trucks are another matter, but they have different emissions standards.

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