One little nuance you have to keep in mind there is that many automakers now generally like emission regulations. The reason is because it creates a cycle of obsolescence. Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle. I'm not saying this is good or bad - it could well be that even if they have bad intentions it results in a good outcome, so who cares? But these little nuances are, I think, important in considering the big picture as you're doing with your statement.

Another example along these lines is asthma inhalers. The reason asthma inhalers cost so much in the US, even though it's for a dirt cheap drug that's long since out of patent protection, is because pharmaceutical companies lobbied to get rid of the CFC based delivery mechanism for "environmental reasons." They lobbied on this hard, for years. And finally succeeded. And once the new rules passed they immediately threw a hoard of patents at the new mandated HFC delivery system and jacked the prices up skyhigh. [1] So you'd think rolling back drug regulations would have the pharmaceutical industry jumping for joy, but in this case they specifically utilized regulations and environmentalism to create a massive profit that would not have otherwise existed.

Ultimately a lot of these issues are a lot more opaque than they might seem at a glance.

[1] - https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-you...