Sunday, January 04, 2009
But … but … but … it's Europe! And here I thought we were just the greedy ones …
The fuel-economy rules apply equally to foreign brands, of course, some of which also specialize in big, powerful vehicles. But they afford themselves an out. BMW paid $230 million in CAFE fines from 1983 to 2007 to avoid building small cars at a loss to please Washington. Volvo paid $56 million. Daimler paid $55 million.
Why don't the Big Three take this out? Explains the Government Accountability Office, because they fear the political repercussions of being tagged with “unlawful conduct.”
…
This year, Daimler paid one of the biggest CAFE fines ever, $30 million—or $118 per car, a pittance to Mercedes buyers. By dumping Chrysler, meanwhile, it avoided its share of an estimated $100 billion in unremunerative investments the Big Three will have to make to meet the new fuel-mileage rules.
Via Instapundit, Let Detroit Build Profitable Cars - WSJ.com
You don't say …
I really didn't realize that foreign car manufacturers paid the fines for selling gas guzzling cars in our market, but The Big Three™ didn't even bother to make marketable cars for fear of being called bad names.
I don't know what this says of The Big Three™, the foreign car manufacturers, or our own consumer driven demand for large cars …
