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Comment by simplecomplex | Hacker News Reader

Car companies know the writing is on the wall with regards to pollution and EV.

> The administration’s plans have been further complicated because major automakers have told the White House that they do not want such an aggressive rollback. In July, four automakers formalized their opposition to Mr. Trump’s plans by signing a deal with California to comply with tighter emissions standards if the broader rollback goes through

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/climate/automakers-califo...

> The Justice Department has opened an antitrust inquiry into the four major automakers that struck a deal with California this year to reduce automobile emissions

> Now, the Justice Department is investigating whether the four automakers violated federal antitrust laws by reaching a deal with California, on the grounds that the agreement could potentially limit consumer choice, those people said.

That makes no sense at all. “We will comply with stricter emissions control without government intervention, so we signed a deal with California to formalize it.” Where would better emissions control harm consumer choice?

It kills the used market (as older vehicles are generally non-compliant) forcing consumers to buy at least relatively new vehicles.

That's not how these regulations work. There are no controls on the resale market in California. There is an emissions inspection regime but it's for SO2, not CO2.

No it doesn’t. An agreement to make new cars with better emissions does not affect the used car market. Now, a regulation about enforcing those emission standards... that would affect the market.

Surely the "consumer choice" argument doesn't apply to the used market? Besides, since LA is the city that practically invented smog why don't they have the right to regulate their air quality as they see fit? An emissions standard that works well in the great plains may not work so well in the great cities.

It would harm consumer choice to buy a cheaper car that has lower emissions standards.

It’s the market solving the problem without government intervention. Isn’t that the whole premise of the Republican Party? “Let the free market solve itself”?

> “Let the free market solve itself”?

This specific situation violates anti trust law.

It is illegal for a bunch of companies to come together and say "we all agree to not sell below this price", or "we all agree to not sell this cheap thing".

Anti trust law is something that both parties support. It is not controversial to say that price fixing should be illegal. And this applies to both Republicans and democrats.

It has to do with anti collusion laws. Companies are not allowed to all agree to raise prices together, for example. And tougher pollution standards is more expensive to manufacture. So if any one company decided on their own to raise their own standards, they would be at a competitive disadvantage if everyone else was selling cheaper cars. So the only way to do this is to get everyone else to agree to the same thing. But that type of agreement is illegal, which is why companies will often lobby for tougher legal standards because everyone else would have to comply also.

yeah, I think they realize that as soon as someone reasonable is in office again that the rules are going to immediately revert. If they have made design changes to their production lines that aren't immediately compatible with CA's regulations when that happens they are going to have to spend a lot of money to fix those inconsistencies. I imagine that the accountants are saying "just make the cars cleaner anyway".

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...

Your understanding of the second-hand car market is incorrect. Promulgation of standards for initial sale of new vehicles has no impact whatsoever on the resale of cars.

> Make a car that will be noncompliant with expected regulations in 'x' years and you now have a guaranteed revenue cycle.

But that's not actually how it works? You can continue driving a car legal for sale under 2019 emissions regs, effectively forever. Yes, every so often they 'have to' redesign the cars to meet newer regs, but nobody's forced to buy them. They buy them because they have cool new features that people want, or a new body style, or whatever.

> 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

Not sure about other countries, but in the US, emission regulations don't work like that. Cars only must meet the standard that was in place when they were originally sold.

Where are you getting this idea from? Most really old cars are exempt from emissions rules, and I've never actually heard of someone failing an SO2 test (smog, which _isn't_ CO2) unless something was egregiously broken with their engine, like a missing cat. They even have state-certified mechanics that can fix your car if it fails smog. It barely affects the used market at all.

Inhalers without CFCs are cheap in every other country in the world. Your problems with the cost of healthcare here have little to do with some rules around CFCs.

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