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Comment by ApolloFortyNine | Hacker News Reader

I think it makes sense to limit how much impact one large state can have on the whole country. It sounds very much like California overstepping the government's authority to regulate interstate trade.

I know people in this case will want to support California because this has to do with emission standards. But look no further than the countless items that now print "Known to California to cause cancer" for another impact.

California is so large that it can practically dictate terms for the rest of the U.S. I do not believe that's a good thing, and I believe eventually there'll come a case that will make that abundantly clear, if it's not already.

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Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

These are the states that mirror California's emissions standards.

We're not talking about one state. We're talking about the entire west coast of the US and the lion's share of the eastern seaboard.

And about 2/3rds of the population

Don't forget Colorado.

> It sounds very much like California overstepping the government's authority to regulate interstate trade.

The federal government allows California to set their own standard, and allows any states who want to follow the California standard. How exactly is that overstepping?

Because California knows that if it forces any car maker to make a car only for California emissions the cost of making any car will go way up. California would roll it back in an instant and start suing if all the manufacturers said ok, fine, none of our cars work for california, no cars for you.

There will always be other manufactures willing to build and sell cars that are legal in California.

> … the cost of making any car will go way up.

Citation needed.

Citation needed. [1] It's always cheaper to build two of the same thing than two different things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

>It's always cheaper to build two of the same thing than two different things.

Not if the second variant is cheap enough and/or will be sold in enough volume to recoup the fixed costs (engineering, tooling, etc) and still turn a profit.

If that weren't the case you'd only be able to get cars in black.

Edit: Is my math wrong or is reality inconvenient today?

Recoup fixed costs is a requirement, but not cheaper to build. It can be more expensive so long as it recoups the costs. Cars often come with a choice of 4 vs 6 cylinder engine - it is cheaper to have just one, but some customers want the power from the more expensive 6, while others want either the cheaper or more fuel efficient 4 cylinder. Since enough of both variations are sold to pay for the costs they make both.

Manufactures go both ways on this. There are a lot of cars sold in the world, and California is a large enough market that it is worth designing an emissions system that works for them. Sometimes they have one car that works everywhere, sometimes they have a California car and a rest of world car, sometimes they have a model that they don't sell in California (this is rare). It gets more complex in fact: cars in Brazil often have two fuel tanks, a small one for gas (starting), and a big run for ethanol (running when engine is warm), as just one example of a market that gets something special.

Most parts on a car are the same, and car makers know the differences. They often account for left vs right side drive in the design phase so the same general car can be sold either way. They often have many different engine variations that meet different legal or market needs from the same general engine castings. The trick is to figure out what variations are worth the cost and then manage them.

Seriously, look at the packaging of anything that California thinks causes cancer nowadays. Chances are it notes it, specifically because it's not worth the money to print different labels.

And those are labels, we're not talking about a car, which is obviously going to be more expensive.

> It sounds very much like California overstepping the government's authority to regulate interstate trade.

No, it's companies being pragmatic. If you want to sell in California you have to comply with certain standards. If you then want to create a separate, inefficient, polluting car to sell to the rest of the US where they don't care about those things, have at it. If you don't think that makes economic sense, then don't.

This is about as pro-states-rights as you can get.

> But look no further than the countless items that now print "Known to California to cause cancer" for another impact.

Nobody here cares about that.

Flip side of that argument is: why would many small states with few people dictate what level of air quality should 40M Californians get?

> I think it makes sense to limit how much impact one large state can have on the whole country.

You mean, much like Europe has had an impact on the whole world by introducing GDPR? Borders are no more when the issues are global. Privacy, health, wellbeing, …

When a group of people decides that something has an impact on their lives (health in this case, or anything else for that matter), and introduce regulation because the industry doesn't give enough fucks, what's so bad about it?

California is the fifth biggest economy in the world.

I would daresay that its impact on the country is too small, given its contributions.

I have to agree. I also think it's crazy how california is blocking old trucks from being registered. Imagine you have a 2009 truck, sorry it's 2020, you can't register it here.

Sounds fine to me. Just because it's a state and not a country doesn't mean you can do whatever you want there.

I mean by that logic as long as 49 states allow you to register a truck sold in 2009 that still runs and drives and hasn't been modified that it's ok? Imagine if it were a 2009 prius? Would you be ok with it then?

edit I guess I've been shadow banned for wrong think in here, can't respond to comments.

Yes, because in theory, to borrow a Republican talking point, the federal governments authority is explicitly limited to interstate commerce, defense and piracy on the high seas. This has nothing to do with any of those things, so each state is free to decide what they permit or deny within their borders, so long as it's, you know, constitutional.

Some states criminalize possession of substances others don't. Some criminalize certain behaviors and practices that others don't. Why should that stop at the freeways?

If California regulation de facto prohibits out-of-state cars from being sold or operating inside of it the rules may run afoul of the interstate commerce clause.

At least in the history book I used there is a direct parallel: a precedent setting case had to do with regulations about tractor trailer wheel mudflap sizes. States would set different conflicting values so that they could restrict the traffic through them (or force a waste of time before coming in).

There may also be another argument based on how states must, in general, respect each other's licenses (marriage, driver, etc; but interestingly not concealed carry, something I suspect will be tested again soon).

> If California regulation de facto prohibits out-of-state cars from being sold or operating inside of it the rules may run afoul of the interstate commerce clause.

Right, but in our scenario they're not prohibiting them, they're prohibiting registering them. That's different than the mud-flaps issue, which does actually seem problematic in my opinion for exactly that reason: it inhibits inter-state commerce.

The test is one that doesn't care about intent. If it can be found that, say, bespoke car makers (do they even exist?) based outside of California have a much harder time selling to California residents because of this law then it could be struck down. It would also be possible to use the lack of any small car makers as evidence against the law in question.

> edit I guess I've been shadow banned for wrong think in here, can't respond to comments.

Keeping your post visible while disabling replies is the exact opposite of what shadow banning is.

I must have been rate limited or something, it came back.

My dad didn't have any trouble registering his 2008 truck this year. Emissions standards aren't retroactive— if you take a car to get smogged it only has to meet the emissions standards from the year it was made

California decided that's not the case: https://www.ccjdigital.com/carb-to-begin-blocking-certain-tr...

Gotcha. My dad's truck weights less than 14,000 pounds so it sounds like he'll be OK.

Absolutely false.

California has categorized entire model series (spanning years) as "Hugh emitter profile" years after release regardless of what your individual vehicle has ever measured. My small pickup truck is one such victim. I've had to get the full dynamometer test every other year for over 20 years, costing over $80 each time. It's always passed.

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