Ok, so let’s pretend that all governments (and public interest groups) had always decided to absolutely stay out of the automobile business, and let it do its thing completely unfettered: no EPA, Clean Air Act, NHTSA, CAFE, or any Euro regs. Can we use our imaginations and have some fun with this, without falling into negative black and white politics? A couple of things to keep in mind: one or two manufacturers–like Ford in 1956–tried to “sell safety” well before it was mandated, but that was quickly withdrawn, due to negative/apathetic reaction from the consumer – please don’t remind us how unsafe cars are...And the manufacturers repeatedly said they couldn’t meet future emission (and some safety) regulations without making cars completely unaffordable. So here we are today after 50 or more years without any regulations. What would manufacturers be selling and what would buyers be buying?
I doubt any of the current EVs would exist (maybe Tesla?).
No E10 mandates would be very nice.
The truck/SUV boom was in part attributed to loopholes in regulation, so lacking them we might still have cars with a towing capacity.
Some cars would be cheaper in absolute terms because you wouldn’t need to put stability control on a Spark.
You could buy a car from anywhere without government hassle. So I could get my Chinese Park Avenue and Paul could get his Avantime.
No dealer franchise protections would change the way we can buy our vehicles- I’d say for the better.
About 30% of the country wouldn’t have auto insurance.
I’m sure the EVs would exist if the relative price of gas had done what it did. The first crop of EVs (and experimenting with hybrids) started right after the first gas crisis before CAFE was on the radar.
Working for a taxi company in 1964 taught me that, with the right equipment, American cars could be equal to, if not better than, anything on earth.
What made the ’64 Dodge taxi my candidate for a gumment reg fighter? For a few dollars more than a non-taxi Coronet, the taxi version had big brakes, and a taught-but still comfortably-riding, suspension. I’m unclear as to whether our taxis had power steering or not. They probably didn’t, but the fairly light Coronet platform didn’t require it. Nor did the excellent brakes require a power booster. With the unit body it was a tight, squeak-free package. Add to that the slant six, the TorqFlite and a reasonably-sized package and you can understand why these cars were favorites of New York City fleet owners.
So why didn’t all Plymouths and Dodges come equipped with big brakes and good handling suspensions? Bean counters and the car company’s disdain for their customers, i.e., they were too stoopid to tell the difference from a wet dishrag and something better.
Pretty soon, the next year in fact, we began the Brougham era and it was all downhill from there.
I’m betting that we would still have arrived at the Camcord, it might have just taken a little longer to get here. No government agencies could have prevented the fuel crisis in the 70’s, scaring people into more fuel efficient cars. Likewise, people would have eventually grown tired of the brown clouds hanging over every major city, as well as pictures of the charred remains of motorists plastered all over the newspapers and internet. Having no regulations would have just prolonged the inevitable. Someone would have started installing airbags and crumple zones in their cars. Others would have followed if they wanted to remain competitive and have a slice of the Volvo and Honda pie. Although it is interesting to imagine a modern car having chrome bumpers and cup holders designed to keep your beer cold while listening to your kids climb around unrestrained in the backseat.
I go a step further to think then even the Camcord would had been “Broughamized” to the extreme.
That sounds like alot of people who are driving around here on a day to day basis.
To be truly unfettered, you’d have to get rid of all interference from every country, not just US agencies. Otherwise, economies of scale would “leak” into this market.
That said, I think you’d have much what you do today, but more so — sportier sports cars, crappier crap boxes, and truckier trucks. Without CA and MA’s historical restrictions on diesels, they should be at least as common in the US as in Europe, and without the chicken tax, tiny Japanese trucks may have found a market here too. There would, of course, be no Tesla or Volt, though maybe the Prius would exist.
Good point; I’ve changed it to include no regs anywhere – a global free-for all.
looking forward to see what people come up with…I would hope that different companies would shoot for different segments of the market that view the purpose of cars in different ways, but I’d bet that what would happen would be a much faster change in style and technology.from year to year as companies strove to figure out what the next consumer taste fad would be. We’d see a return to the engine and option choices of the 60s era by some companies due to not incurring the cost of certification. But perhaps we’d also see some smaller company with less resources attempt the VW Bug method of building the same basic car indefinitely. This is a concept where it would be wonderful to be able to view alternative parallel universes to see what happens..would be the best gearhead TV ever
My prediction: Broughams would still be around, and Syke would go mad 🙂
But maybe we’d still have light, tossable little sports cars too. Even a 911 is near 3500 pounds today–an ’89 was about 500 lbs. lighter.
AND…maybe we’d have more of the cool European cars like Peugeot, Citroen etc. because it wouldn’t be such a bear to certify them for importation. I could go for a new ’13 Citroen C5 wagon…
There are anti-Brougham regulations? How much does a Miata weigh? And you think there would be a ’13 Citroen C5 if there had never been any regulations? Certainly not anything like the one that exists today.
My Brougham comment was very tongue-in-cheek, but those F150 Platinums and King Ranch F150s are what Broughams morphed into when cars were shrunken through CAFE, et al. I think many folks today drive big trucks that would probably have had a Delta 88 or LTD thirty years ago.
Oh, and the current MX5 is about 3100 lbs (3078–soft top version). The ’89 iteration was about 2100.
Broughams didn’t die for that reason. There’s still of few folks with white hair Broughamizing their new cars in Florida, right? Most folks drive those trucks because they’re fashionable, like Broughams were back then. Fashion is by far the biggest driver in what folks buy, unless of course they’re strictly using their left brain.
The new Miata is a considerably more substantial car in a number of ways. If Mazda really wanted to make a smaller/lighter Miata, I’m sure they could get it back to close to that. But as has been pointed out elsewhere, most buyers today prefer their cars to be bigger than the ones that were sold 20 or 30 years ago.
Definitely agree with Tom on modern trucks. The full size truck and SUV are the modern full size car and wagon, and mostly because of govt regulations. What we refer to here as “Broughaming” is just a style thing, like differing whitewall widths.Like I said in the other thread, it will be interesting to see how the public reacts once the upcoming regs hit the big trucks. The trucks serve to mollify the traditional car customers. What will happen when they are taken away?
Disagree: the best selling cars of the seventies weren’t the full-size cars, but mid-size coupes like the Cutlass Supreme. How many folks towed with them? You guys are re-writing history. Regs didn’t kill really big cars: they got tto big for their own good, and buyers started shunning them for mid–sized cars (and smaller).
Look at sizes. The 70s Cutlasses were about the same size as 60s fullsizes, and the first wave of downsized fullsizes or recent Panthers. The NEXT wave of downsizing the fullsizes after that started the truck as replacement for fullsize car boom and the next one after that cemented it as the “fullsize ” car shrunk to Impala/Taurus size (which were originally considered downsized intermediates) and all became front drive V6s. If you wanted a fullsize rear drive with a frame and V8, you wanted a truck. Especially because due to CAFE, the car companies tried to steer you away from Caprices and Panthers.
+1
I agree Paul, but regs certainly did hinder any chance of a comeback. SUVs didn’t really take off for well over a decade after CAFE and by the time every soccer mom had one, most were as big and wasteful as a barge made in the 70s. Weather or not the SUV fad would have happened anyway without CAFE, who knows, but the light truck exception certainly made it possible.
Paul, your thoughts on this would probably be a good post all on its own.
The timeline I’ve always used was that in ’76 the Caprice/Impala was the number 2 selling car. From ’77-’79 it was the number one selling car. The LTD was in the top six for that period.
In ’80 GM dropped the 350, and brought in the V6s, diesel and smaller V8. While this move wasn’t 100% regulation driven , they certainly played a role in the decision. The Caprice fell to 5th.
In ’81 small cars ruled the world.
In ’82 the F-series became the best selling vehicle in the country, it has stayed that way, and full-size cars never again tasted success.
So my thought has always been that the trucks replaced the full-sizers.
The Ford F-series was the best selling Ford a lot earlier than 1982. In 1940, and possibly earlier (and later), the F-series Ford outsold its passenger car counterparts.
It was the gas crisis that first made compacts the best selling cars in the US (Pinto 1974) and when people tired of being cramped, and got used to gas prices they moved to mid size cars for a balance of economy and size/comfort. Regulations had nothing to do with that it was the gas price spike that drove first compact and then mid size cars to the top of the sales charts.
Good point Paul.. Corvairs, Falcons, Chevy II, and Valiants and Mustangs came long before regulations. And most of those “interesting” european cars came and went before regulation as well.
I think we’d definitely have more variety of cars and from smaller manufacturers. When I watch UK Top Gear, I see all the cool cars available in England that aren’t available here (Caterham, Noble, Morgan, etc). We’d probably have more kit car type manufacturers.
You can buy kits, and have them assembled by a pro. And there are other ways to get around those import regs. But most of those cars aren’t exactly cheap, though…
Regulations-Shegulations. Who needs ’em? My experience has shown me that corporations are the most responsible people in the world, and remember, they are people! Corporations will always do what is best for their bottom line, which is always the best for the health and safety of the consumer. For example, all those silly regulations have caused:
-Safety glass. I’d bet my car could have been $25 cheaper without it.
-Seat belts. Not really necessary. They should be optional.
-Drinking driving laws. If people want to drink it is legal and they should be free to do what they want until they make a mistake. Then punish the hell out of them.
-Leaded gas. Cars ran better on it. I want it back.
-Clean air laws. Any time I visit Beijing, I get on my knees and thank Mao they don’t enforce the limited clean air legislation China has. People are making money!
-Air bags. I could save like $500 if my car didn’t have them. I have never used them and since I am such a good driver, I never will. Government waste!
-Crash standards. We all know the big, old cars from 60 years ago were infinitely safer because they were so big. We’d be saving thousands of lives if we let the market decide!
Bravissimo!
Encore! Encore!
Ok, so everything but the drunk-driving law opinion is satire, right?
I don’t think safety glass came into being due to regulations.
No, safety glass was voluntary. Introduced by Ford in 1930.
I still want a choice. That will save money. Let the market decide!
Pretty sure the market did decide that one.
Certainly, using my logic, cars will be cheaper and better if we can have a choice on every major feature of the car.
-I can accept the model the manufacturer sells, as it is my choice.
-However, I must be able to delete any piece of equipment on the car that I choose.
-This will make all cars cheaper because I can order only what I want. For example, if I want to delete a parking brake, I should be able to. Deleting such extraneous twaddle would make cars lighter and thus more fuel efficient.
-The only way we can do this is by strict Federal Legislation to make it LAW in the USA, to make it an offence to force a consumer to buy anything he/she doesn’t want and make a la carte ordering the rule on all cars.
-The punishment must be life with no parole. We have to get the message that we are sick and tired of rules and regulations!
You know, I could be wrong, but do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
I get the whole “wild and crazy anti-regulation” act that you are trying to do because of the Fury post yesterday, but I don’t get why you can’t be more diplomatic and say that some regulations have been very good, while some have been over-reaching or had unintended consequences.
That’s what Paul is doing and it seems like that would be a better way to discuss this topic than going full Andy Kaufman.
Wishing we could still have pop-up headlights is not equivalent to saying we want anarchy.
And option packaging has nothing to do with regulation.
ajila, I am just poking fun, so please don’t take it too seriously. I find the whole anti-regulation crowd pretty funny at times and I really don’t think that many people want to go back to a country without regulations. That’s because Canada and the USA have always had regulations. They have always been mixed economies with a myriad of regulations on many things.
I am not saying all regs are good but I don’t think people want to go back to an era without basic regulatory safeguards. For example, in the year 2000, the Premier of Ontario was regulation buster extraordinare Mike Harris. He stopped Provincial tap water testing in the name of efficiency, saying the municipalities were doing it anyway. One, in Walkerton, Ontario wasn’t. They had a nice beer fridge in the water treatment plant and imbibed regularly. The water samples were not being correctly tested and the water supply got infected with E-coli with 3500 infected and 21 dead. The Health Department of the Province of Ontario would have almost with 100% certainty caught the infection. The lawsuits to date have cost the province over $150,000,000. The water testing office cost them less than $2,000,000 a year.
Sure cut regs but make a really good reason for it. I am very satisfied with the regulations on the auto industry as cars have never been safer, cheaper to buy and run and cleaner.
“They have always been mixed economies with a myriad of regulations on many things.”
Heresy! Until [insert decade/presidency/cultural trend I don’t like] this was a libertarian utopia!
Would anyone here like a list of the good things REGULATORS brought to the marketplace? It’s a long list. I’ll hold it for now; but it starts with sealed-beam headlights (required by regulation from 1940; and later BLOCKED use of the excellent Cibie and other European non-sealed headlight designs) and on to ethanol in gasoline.
Corporations ARE people. If you think they’re not…what are they? Alien life forms? Cyborgs? They are people working together under an organization charter to a common purpose, generally to make money. Which is what people need to do, if they want to keep on eating.
A corporation that kills its customers doesn’t last long. Now, a quack-medicine wagon might…but he’s off to the next town, and has no plans of ever returning. Not so a large consumer-goods manufacturer with a permanent presence.
But…the difference between record sales and shutting down, for an automobile corporation…is about twelve years. Just ask any AMC or Studebaker survivors.
If the consumer is exploited…he will run. If he’s killed through product malfeasance…ASIDE from legal remedy, the involved car is castigated and generally driven out of the market. Corvair…Pinto…(almost) Audi.
And if a product, a car, is an obvious ripoff, it won’t even take that long. The Yugo’s record plunge took all of two years.
“A corporation that kills its customers doesn’t last long.”
“Exactly!”
– Phillip Morris
Corporations are organizations, like governments. Corporations are quite as capable of controlling governments as vice-versa. Actual individual humans have a tiny bit of sway over either. Both types of organizations have it in their power to abuse actual humans. Sometimes, we’re able to get these organizations to work on our behalf and restrain themselves or each other, sometimes we’re not.
““A corporation that kills its customers doesn’t last long.”
“Exactly!”
– Phillip Morris”
Maybe that ought make you take stock of the smoking hysteria.
Yes, there are plenty of frightening statistics out there. But it’s not an absolute cause-and-effect; not a straight correlation.
Some people get cancers who’ve never had a cigarette. Nor breathed secondhand smoke. And then there’s my old man…he started smoking in the Army. Age 17. Cigarettes came with ration packages.
He smoked all his life; and died at the tender young age of 75.
His mother…my grandmother…was a saint. Didn’t smoke. Drank only on Christmas…one glass of wine. SHE died…at 79.
Genetics.
What kind of business knowingly kills its customers? Let’s skip tobacco companies; which were established over 250 years ago. What cosmetic company is going to poison the skin of users? Or car company, make a car that’s obviously unsafe?
Now. What government agency is going to cram-down regulations that WILL harm the public? If CAFE, with the higher fatality rates of lighter, flimsier cars, doesnt’ convince you…other, coming regulations will. Very soon.
Pretty much every heavy smoker I have known has died from it at an early age. That includes my father, his brother, this sister, my cousin and my best friend. My ex-brother in law dropped dead last Tuesday and he was also a heavy smoker. Two high school friends died last week and both were smokers. In fact, the healthy, active people I see in my age group are not smokers, exercise regularly and eat well.
I don’t see any linkage, though….
Has anyone here ever read John Keats’ book “The Insolent Chariots”? Written sometime during the late 1950s or early 1960s, it completely skewers American cars of that time period for the gaudy, oversized, overweight, overpowered, ill-handlng, gas-guzzling tailfinned monstrosities that they had become.
He also attacks American automakers for building them, as well as American consumers for buying them.
Sorry, just bought the last cheap edition on Amazon.
Jealosy. 🙂
Volkswagen would still be making the air-cooled Beetle!
Yes; like they did in Mexico until they were finally banished by regulations.
For once I read some and didn’t just open my mouth. I think it was the position of the windshield that was the straw that broke the camels back with the beetle in the USA. If they still had an air cooled beetle but one with EFI and an AC, I think I would buy it. I think it would have lasted long past Mexico if not for regulations. I understand it had to be four door to be a taxi there that was the last nail in it’s mexican coffin. (may have read that here)
In other words it was not EPA stuff but safety and convenience regulations that killed the beetle in it’s best markets. Who knows what direction it would have taken but I’m with you in missing it Ed.
When I worked in Mexico City in 1979, the most popular taxi was the Beetle. Hard to believe Mexico would have regulated it out of existence. You don’t know what pollution is all about until you have been to Mexico City. And not just the smog, but the noise! Unmufflered trucks and buses and the constant horn blowing. Mother of Mercy!
Having seen Mexico City pollution, it is in fact easy to see why the air-cooled Beetle was legislated off the road. Bad move since that air pollution could be much better dealt with by the free market. Just look at how successful India and China have been in this regard and their economies are growing at very high rates.
So what if baby formula is poisoned. Regulations on such things, in the long run, just cost too much!
I got a kick out of your post on the hand brake. We could take it a bit further and banish the whole hydraulic brake system replaced instead with a couple of 2×4’s applyed to the rear wheels. if they arent effictive enough for people they could just hit somthing, heck that what they do even if they have a competant braking system!
“I got a kick out of your post on the hand brake. We could take it a bit further and banish the whole hydraulic brake system replaced instead with a couple of 2×4′s applyed to the rear wheels. if they arent effictive enough for people they could just hit somthing, heck that what they do even if they have a competant braking system!”
Well…yeah. Those who WANT a cable-linkage brake system can buy a car so equipped. But better-equipped tort lawyers will be at the ready to sue the snot out of the driver; the owner; and the builder of such a rig.
Regulations that stipulate equipment hinder, not foster, development. Someday soon some braking system may make hydraulic friction brakes as old-fashioned as yoked oxen…but regulators may still stipulate it.
The other part of having the freedom to take chances not presently allowed…is the obligation to take responsibility for those choices.
To my understanding, what killed the Beetle in Mexico was that 2-door taxis were outlawed. With a 2-door, it was too easy for someone to make a fake taxi and kidnap the passenger. It wasn’t environmental legislation that did the Bug in.
The second version of the Super Beetle solved that, with a curved windshield.
Not Volks, anymore. They’d have farmed it out.
And with engineering and tooling paid-for, a contract company could have had a very small production run and still made it pay.
And THAT…is what regulations kill. Small startups…you’ll never see another Henry Kaiser or Preston Tucker…or, for that matter, John DeLorean or Malcolm Bricklin…ever even attempt a startup. (Although no DeLoreans or Bricklins might be a blessing.)
The most that can be done is customization of a production model. Entrepreneurship doesn’t do well in a micro-regulated industry.
This would mean the N/A automotive market would have a ton of smaller car companies making cars for people who want that kind of car or truck. If you wanted a sports car you could commision one from any number of small companies. Same with trucks be it a kei or fullsize. If you had a good idea you could technically get a couple of good friends together and make a go of it, kinda like it was 110 or so years ago.
The only problem with that is that regulations aren’t actually the biggest hurdle to that; the economics are. 100 years ago, when there were hundreds of car companies starting up, cars were very expensive and (potential) profits were huge, for those that succeeded.
Think back to the PC business in the eighties: there were hundreds of small IBM-clone PC makers. Prices were very high. See what happened. Same thing with cars.
If you want a boutique car, be prepared to pay very serious money, like for some of the small makers in England. And note how many of those have gone bust: Bristol, TVR, Lotus, etc….
AMC would still exist!
When I moved to LA in 72, a few years before catalytic converters, etc., air pollution was still pretty horrendous, culminating in the summer of 79, one of the smoggiest I can remember. Within a few years after major changes in standards for cars, manufacturing, and fuel, things began to get much, much better. Although I’m sure there is still bad stuff in the air we can’t see or smell, life in SoCal is way better than 40 years ago thanks to these regulations (the traffic situation is another matter).
In a totally free market economy I doubt seriously that similar measures wouldn’t have been taken by producers and manufacturers simply to protect capital investments, consumers, etc. Would the changes have happened as fast – I don’t know. Advances in technology certainly would have had a major role in making cars cleaner and safer, regardless of the type of economy. Insurance companies would have pressured for safety measures for cars. Perhaps with a less regulated market in all forms of transportation, mass transit, originally often run by private companies, would be more prevalent and competitive.
The US has had a mixed economy from the beginning, with government, at various levels, having a major role in the development of railroads, air transit, highway construction, education, etc. Decisions made in collaboration between government and private industry have determined much of the shape of things today, some for better (I think of the growing, prosperous middle class as a result of specific policies pursued regarding education, housing, federal subsidization of infrastructure projects following WWII), some perhaps not. I think overall our collaborative, semi-democratic processes have worked far better than those in more autocratically run economies like China. But, as outgoing President Eisenhower warned about the potential consequences of the growing power of the military-industrial complex in 1961, the predominance of wealth and private power in determining the overall direction of things, including increasingly unequal tax policies, should be of great concern today.
Private mass transit was in a total death spiral soon after WW2, because of suburbanization, car ownership, and increasing costs. In fact, WW2 just propped them up for a few more years. In the fifties, many municipalities had to start giving subsidies to private transit companies, otherwise they would have just walked away. There really was a reason why mass transit is not in private hands: it’s just not profitable, by a huge margin. Fares now equal between 10-25% of their costs.
Paul, I don’t disagree with what you say and certainly there is research to support your point of view (e.g., Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City, a UCLA dissertation by Scott Bottles that I recommend). But I was trying to think in terms of a completely free market situation that you posed – and that would include no subsidies or regulation of fares for mass transit and no government support for highways or government subsidies and support for the oil industry (including military and CIA activity in the Middle East) that favored the auto industry. UCLA’s Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup’s research shows that even regulated, subsidized below market parking rates have negatively impacted development and support for mass transit.
I see what you mean. Well, it might be like the jitneys and very crowded buses that are so common in less-developed countries.
It gets a bit difficult to imagine just how our country would look like without all of the fed subsidies for highways, transit, fuel, etc….
I bet on more pillarless hardtops. Who worries about side crashes and rollovers anyway?
Since a roll-over has never happened to me, and never will, I am not worried about such things. I detest the government for doing such things since bad stuff only happens to other people, who by definition deserve what is coming to them.
I believe that the desire for well sealed windows and freedom from wind noise had as much to do with the death of the hardtop as any sort of side impact and rollover regs.
BuzDog, never confuse a good conspiracy theory with reality.
So, you’re saying hardtops disappeared because buyers REJECTED them? All at once, in 1973…when they went from one of the top-selling body styles to nonexistent?
Never let logic interfere with a good narrative.
What really changed the direction of auto manufacturing wasn’t the Federal Regs as much as the double whammy of first the rise in insurance costs of the muscle cars, and then the oil embargos. To get an idea, look at the current websites of European manufacturers suuch as Fiat, Ford of Europe, Peugeot, etc. Check the Indian sites of Tata and some of the Japanese sites. Cars would have been smaller, and we would have more mico cars like a modern version of the Metropolitan. Remember it was the rise of small cars, (Falcon, Valiant, Chevy II) that brought about the mid size of the 70s. We would probably have more World Cars because a Ford in Germany, Australia, GB could be sold here and reduce production costs.
The Falcons, Valiants and Chevy IIs of the early ’60s had nearly as much interior room as the Impalas, Galaxies, and other humongoloids. The Dodge Coronet and Plymouth Belvedere had marginally more room than the compacts and were similar to “full size” cars in 1955-1957. Why did we need the blovification that we got in the late ’50s and into the ’60s? The car companies knew that building a mid-size car cost just as much as full-size car, but that full-size cars could be sold for much more because of their perceived value and resale value, so they pushed the boats they so well loved.
The fuel crises in the ’70 put an end to Americans wanting broughamesque-sized vehicles. A guy that I worked for had a 1974 455 Olds station wagon-it got 4 mpg.
Market forces changed the types of cars Detroit built, not the gummint.
The EPA and the Clean Air Act impact far more industries than just Automotive. I assume this thread pertains to regulations solely targeted at the automobile, so that leaves NHTSA and CAFE. So what would today’s cars be like without any regulations?
Pretty nice.
For starters, it’s not like automakers weren’t making advancements prior to NTHSA or CAFE. Fuel injection, disc brakes, ABS, seat belts, central high mounted stop lamps, air bags were all created by the “evil corporations” before our friendly incorruptible government started wetting their beak. It’s not like automobile advancement would have just stopped in the 60s hadn’t the Government asserted themselves from then on. If anything they probably impeded advancement by forcing development focus onto cars that not everyone necessarily wanted.
In terms of the potential effects? American automakers wouldn’t have been singled out by CAFE in the 70s and be forced to make Europeans and Japanese like cars while the actual European and Japanese automakers already had them without any teething worries. Instead they could have continued building what the market demanded. When Japanese cars in particular really started eating marketshare, there could have been a much more competent fighter than, say the J cars. Battering ram bumpers would have never existed, SUVs may not have become as popular as they were, same with minivans for that matter(correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t those fall into the light truck loophole too?) and raised hoods and high beltlines wouldn’t be here to stay.
Personally Instead of safety standards, we should have higher driving standards. You can practically be blind and still get a license to drive here in the US. All you have to do is sit in a ridiculously poorly run DMV building for a few hours, pay a renewal fee, read the second line of an eye chart and have your picture taken. As the saying goes, making something idiot proof only creates bigger idiots. Fix the idiots, not the things.
Fixing idiocy is even harder than making cars safer, by a long shot. Studies have shown that more/better Driver Education doesn’t correlate to a lower accident rate. There’s a difference between having been exposed to information and choosing to act on it.
All of the actual driving done in a high school drivers ed class is parking, using turn signals and driving the speed limit. Accident avoidance, Counter steering, ect? Yeah we read it in a book, and yeah I’d agree that doesn’t give you much of an idea. Hands on though would be much more rewarding, although I’m sure the dealerships would be less keen on lending out cars lol
How many accidents are caused by someone not knowing how to counter-steer vs. texting, eating, talking, drinking, showing off, or just not paying attention?
Here’s the reality: it takes very little skill to drive reasonably safely and avoid creating accidents. Many millions of Americans do and have done that all their lives with very little Drivers Ed. It’s almost all about judgement, not skill.
+10
And staying off the [insert your word of choice here] phone!
Designs from the 60s would have evolved to where the GM B-bodies were without the detour into bloated and isolated. But the engines would have been more powerful. And RWD would have lasted longer.
We see exactly that in the Detroit truck and SUV world where, relatively unhindered by bumper, safety, fuel economy and emissions concerns, things have evolved rather straight line from the 1960s.
Even in this make believe world I would have welcomed competition from overseas, otherwise the Big 3 would have gotten even fatter. Their fat from having it so easy all those years made them unable to deal with the challenges of the real world and its customers were shortchanged in terms of design and production quality.
The 1971 GM B-Bodies were so big because of regulations? How so?
I meant the ’77s. I believe most early 70s domestic cars, including the ’71 Bs, were oversized to make them ride smoother and be more isolated since that was the one thing you could hang your hat on if you were Ford, GM or Chrysler.
Emission rules weren’t going to let them attract people with performance. You can’t dial up a nice handling car overnight. Fuel economy wasn’t much of an issue so differentiating on isolation was a decent come to market strategy.
The smaller imports introduced the delight of “good handling” to US car buyers and that by itself would have resulted in some debloating to get to ’77 B body levels. Even with no CAFE pressure.
Fuel economy would have naturally evolved (who likes having to fill up?) and sizes would have shrunk to pre-60s levels to deal with increasing populations and the resulting smaller parking spaces.
Cars had become physically too big. Like smoking we didn’t know until alter that it was bad for us.
There would always be a market for the efficient cars preferred by teachers, professors, Nader-types, etc. VW Beetles, Corvairs and Volvo 120s were very appealing cars for the right reasons, and many, many motorists simply walked away from big detroit iron and never went back. That is one factor that drove the big 3 to begin thinking about efficiency but it was mainly the fuel scare that pushed car buyers out of their land yachts.
Of course this is the case. As more and better cars came on the market, the consumer had much better choices. The three basic model GM of say, 1964 was soon a multi-model business in itself. That choice alone doomed land whales, since the cars had reached a size that was no longer either sustainable or expandable. As fuel cost became more of a factor in running a car, big sleds with 455 CID motors in them were doomed. It wasn’t CAFE, it was their pure ponderous proportions that made them relatively low sellers even before the 1973 fake embargo. Smaller stuff was greatly outselling sleds by then because nobody likes driving a Bonneville with said 455 that gets all of 7 mpg in city traffic with the a/c on. It just hurts too much at the pumps as people have a set budget for gas.
I have been playing devil’s advocate but really, does anyone want to go back to the days there were no product safety laws? I don’t for a moment think that any company is going to produce the safest product it can without regulation. Cars now are tremendously cleaner, safer and more efficient due to government standards. It’s actually made them cheaper, it’s made your insurance cheaper, too. The old refrain that “all new cars look alike” has been sung since cars came out. Have a look at a bunch of the much beloved 1950’s cars. Are they really any different? Six cylinder standard, V-8 and automatic optional, all rwd, all with fins. Even then, the Chev II and the Falcon were pretty similar and the Valiant was a laughing stock because it looked so weird. Any wonder why huge car companies don’t take any chances? Well, the rarely have and when they do, it usually flops on them. Think Corvair, on which they never made a dime, to the 215 V-8, all technically interesting but duds. For years it was V-8 and 3 speed auto. Is this different?
You know, you put ten old guys in a room and they have change a lighbulb, one will do the job and eight will say the old one was better. The last one will chalk up the burned-out bulb as a government conspiracy.
7 mpg in the city? OK, Imperial gallons. Far less for US gallons. Can anyone screen these responses?
My Uncle Bill bought a new car every year and the last Big One he bought was a 1973 Buick Centurion four-door hard top with 455 under the hood. He complained loudly that it got 7 miles per Imperial gallon. Being a true Irishman, he may have been exaggerating one way or the other. It was also a quality disaster and was the last American car he bought. The next was a MB 280E which he drove until the day he died in 1998.
I had a big Pontiac from 1976 also with 455 for a week or two many years ago. It drove like a very fast tank and with the Radial Tuned Suspension it drove quite well. The real downside was it horsed gas at a rate I had never seen outside a 5 ton truck.
You know, I’ve learned a lot from this. And you know what? Freedom-Shmeedom. Who needs it? My experience has shown me that the Government is full of the most honest, most responsible, non-corruptible people I totally voted for. And remember, they represent the people! The Government will always do what is best for the the people, who are always informed and have a broad choice in who they vote for. The Government then can only have the best motivations for the health and safety of the consumer. If we didn’t have regulations:
-I would be left to my own devices and have to think before I buy!
-I wouldn’t be bombarded by those informative television commercials telling me I’m a criminal if I don’t wear my seatbelt.
-There’d be too much diversity. The last thing we need are tacky eclectic roads.
-There’d be no E10! I’m glad to have less efficiency, as long as it gets us off that durn furrin oil! We’re supposed to foist democracy on those countries, not buy anything from them!
😀
At first I missed your sarcasm. I lived and worked in DC for 23 years. I called the gummint workers the “gray people”. They lived in my neighborhood. They scared me.
Well big picture, I’d argue fleet fuel economy right now would be about where it is. In the 80s and 90s, CAFE was forcing people to buy smaller cars than they wanted. Probably not now, with gas bouncing between $3 and $4/gallon. The mix between cars and trucks probably would tilt more towards cars, although now that the SUV craze has subsided, that seems to have happened too. The CUVs that are so popular now are (ssshhh!) station wagons by another name, so really count as cars under my definition.
Safety eqiupment probably would have been adopted, just on a different timeframe. I think the 50s were a unique time when Americans felt triumphant and invulnerable, and didn’t want reminders that they weren’t, so appeals to auto safety fell on deaf ears. By now we still would have cars with 4-wheel discs, shoulder belts, air bags, crumple zones, and safety cells.
The big difference I see is that, in the absence of the EPA, cars still would be producing 60s levels of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, and nitrous oxides. The LA basin, but also, Denver, Salt Lake City, Houston, and other cities would be uninhabitable.Why? Imagine a world of no mandated emissions controls, but in which today’s controls are available as an option for $5,000. Now imagine that if every car has the controls there is a $10,000 benefit to me. That’s fine, but it only works if every car has the controls. If I buy them and nobody else does the benefit to me probably is fractions of a cent.Why would I do that? My assumption is that my neighbors wouldn’t buy the controls, so I’d be a sap to buy them just so I could feel virtuous.
Donny Baby,
There’s a thing in Salt Lake called “inversion”. Happens during the cold months. The smog that has been accumulating hangs in the valley and doesn’t disappear until a typhoon or tsunami rescues us, neither of which ever happens. Industrial pollution is by far the major cause of inversion in SLC today.
We’ve got two petroleum refineries and one of the highest concentrations of meth labs in the nation. Maybe if I tried meth it wouldn’t matter. Ya think?
I’m not saying there never was a pollution problem, and that nothing should ever have been done about it. However, we have created a monster in the EPA. Any bureaucracy is interested in perpetuating itself, and growing itself. Cars are now 98% cleaner than they were. So are we done? No, because that would mean that the EPA’s job was done except for simple observation to see things didn’t redeteriorate. New dangers must be discovered, and new regulations must be created and enforced. Nothing can ever be clean enough. No cost is too high to get that next level of perfection. Unless, of course, the thing creating the pollution is somehow benefiting the politician that is in charge of the bureaucracy. Then that thing can be overlooked.
I agree. But Canucklehead would take out a visa and come looking for me. I must remain anonymous.
And what killed the SUV craze literally overnight? $4 per gallon fuel.
While it wouldn’t have happened as quickly or as aggressively lower emissions would have followed with the advent of modern EFI which would eventually came to market due to efficiency demands brought about by gas prices. Low emissions does follow hand in hand with maximizing the energy obtained from a gallon of gas. Now NOx levels would not have been reduced and catalytic converters that give us near zero levels of HC and CO wouldn’t have come since there is no MPG benefit to them. On the other hand the precise fuel control due to EFI accounts for the largest amount of reduction in HC and CO emissions.
I think Jack Baruth answered this question best.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/01/fiction-the-cafe-continuum/
That’s a fun story; thanks for the link (I don’t spend much time at TTAC anymore).
I imagine that gas prices would have been the main factor impacting what cars would be like today. If CAFE hadn’t been instituted, Detroit still would have had to respond to the rise of the imports after the two oil crises of the 1970s. (If hardball oil politics hadn’t reared its head then, it would have eventually.)
One could argue that CAFE actually helped American automakers respond more quickly and aggressively than they otherwise might have done. Indeed, given the depths of the early-80s recession, if Ford and Chrysler had been slower to downsize, one or both might not have survived.
I also suspect that, in the absence of regulations, we’d have more diversity of approaches. For example, I could see premium-priced brands such as Mercedes and Volvo making a big deal about offering “advanced” safety features. Such features might not always sell well enough to be adopted by the volume brands, but I would very surprised if the market wasn’t big enough to support at least a few niche brands.
I’d also be wary of drawing too much from Ford’s 1956 focus on safety features. First, sales weren’t that bad — and can be partially explained by a variety of other reasons, e.g., Ford had arguably overextended itself in 1954-55 in an all-out effort to beat Chevy.
Second, Ralph Nader (can I mention him?) argues that Ford prematurely pulled back from its campaign due to pressure from GM. True? I don’t know, but in general the big boys tend to have ADD when it comes to pitching features that deviate from Detroit’s holy trinity of “bigger, glitzier, more powerful.”
Third, over time the market will evolve e.g., one decade wagons are the thing; 10 years later it’s minivans. If I recall correctly, Chrysler jumped ahead of the federal mandate on airbags because it thought that might be a competitive advantage. Don’t recall how much it helped, but it didn’t hurt, no?
If I recall correctly, the safety features Ford offered in 1956 sold fairly well, but the supplier wasn’t prepared for even that level of demand. There was some problem with having sufficient supply for customer demand.
The real problem, however, was that the 1956 Ford was simply outclassed by the 1956 Chevrolet, as the latter’s new V-8 was kicking up a storm of favorable pubilicity.
Saying “safety doesn’t sell” was easier than admitting that the 1956 Chevrolet was simply a better car than its Ford counterpart in most ways. At any rate, McNamara’s association with the 1956 safety effort doesn’t seem to have hurt his career at Ford.
Regarding the Chrysler decision to offer airbags, the federal government required the installation of some sort of “passive restraint system” in new vehicles. That regulation could have been met by offering air bags or motorized safety belts. Chrysler conducted a survey, and supposedly discovered that drivers did not like the motorized safety belts. Meanwhile, the Japanese were using this approach to meet the standards (my 1990 Civic EX sedan had them).
Chrysler decided to offer air bags instead as a competitive advantage, and effectively promoted them as the latest safety feature. The approach worked. I remember People, of all publications, running a story about a head-on collision between air-bag equipped Chrysler vehicles, and both occupants walked away with only minor injuries. With that kind of favorable publicity, air bags became a feature customers demanded.
The other reason Ford’s 1956 efforts fell to the “safety doesn’t sell” slogan was that 1956 was a down year for the entire industry. IIRC, Ford was actually down less than the rest of the industry. But for HFII down was down, and the safety ads stopped. However, the deep dish steering wheels, redesigned door locks and optional seat belts stayed.
This is a broad category. You mean, ANY regulations?
…no equipment requirements? No traffic laws? No state inspection requirements?
No tort laws, allowing damages for reckless operation, including obviously-unsafe vehicle operations?
What there would be, is – for a short time – chaos Then, we would have many, many regulations; better-thought-out or less so; but we’d have them.
Now. What if the FEDERAL acts, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, were never passed?
For openers…consumers would have more choices. No more would regulatory-compliance burden small manufacturers or cottage manufacturers. Studebaker would almost certainly be with us; they had reached a soft bottom and were “sustainable” in 1966. I believe the Studebaker Board pulled the plug because they knew what was on the horizon; and knew they could never afford to comply.
Companies like Kaiser Jeep could continue as independents. Niche European brands would be encouraged to import, as every car would represent a profit. No more engineering to comply with American laws.
Cars of the 1970s would have been better-built and more-imaginatively designed; since most of the available capital would not have been spent on regulatory compliance.
Would we all be choking on dirty air? I think not. First, in general, vehicle operation is a SMALL component of air pollution. Now in certain settings it’s a major factor; LA in rush hour; Denver during an air inversion.
But then, if I heat my home with a boiler system that runs on discarded tires…the air around my neighborhood is going to be yellow and acrid. That doesn’t mean burning rubber is the major source of pollution in the general; only in those six blocks.
Eventually, demand for cleaner air would percolate down. There was no ORDER for Toyota to build a Prius, either. They just did, to gauge market reception and to field-test engineering. In general, once digital engine controls came into being…they’d have been used. Because the combination of cleaner exhaust and lower fuel usage would have made them highly attractive. After all…emissions is just wasted, incompletely-burned fuel.
We’d have more diesel cars today…from the European market. We’d have more convertibles. There would be more low-volume models like the Corvette; since all the designers had to worry about was pleasing buyers…and meeting costs with available parts.
“Yeah, but what about all the unsafe cars that those CORPORATIONS would put out?”
Yeah, like the Corvair. Killer car, that. It died in the marketplace before regulations could kill it.
Like the Pinto. It and its ramrod, Lido, were both sent down the road. Ford took decades to live that down…and it was tort law, and criminal-liability law which was invoked. The Pinto met safety standards.
So…I, for one, think we’d be better off, with more choices. Airbags HAD been developed; for those who wanted them, they’d be put into some line of cars or other. Those who didn’t want them…could have their SUVs or Subaru 360s.
The difference between regulation and no regulation…would be the difference between Ma Bell, with a dial-tone and an attitude, and all the cell-phone companies with their services and innovations. Ma Bell has been heavily regulated for a century. The cell-phone companies, far, far less so; and only recently.
Agreed 100%
I like what you have to say.
It’s not instructive to compare our existing mixed public/private economy under a relatively functional republic to the best of all possible stateless free-market worlds. There aren’t any.
Our air is cleaner than that of oppressive places like China and the former Soviet Union, and also better than that of anarchic failed states in the developing world.
Governments, businesses and individuals all work together to create problems or solve them. An oppressive state doesn’t do its job, and neither does one that’s too weak and corrupt to set ground rules for individuals AND corporations to follow.
“But then, if I heat my home with a boiler system that runs on discarded tires…the air around my neighborhood is going to be yellow and acrid. That doesn’t mean burning rubber is the major source of pollution in the general; only in those six blocks.”
What?
” “But then, if I heat my home with a boiler system that runs on discarded tires…the air around my neighborhood is going to be yellow and acrid. That doesn’t mean burning rubber is the major source of pollution in the general; only in those six blocks.”
What?”
What I mean there is, a localized, situational problem is not a systemic, national or worldwide problem and shouldn’t be addressed as such. Inversion smog in Denver under certain weather conditions isn’t something that should have remedial consequences for me, far away.
My example was to show that my burning tires for energy is a local nuisance; not a worldwide problem requiring policy and law changes.
Cell phone companies were heavily regulated from near their infancy. Initially the govt would only issue two licesnses for a given geographic area, 1 to a traditional wired phone service provider and one to a non wire line provider. It took a number of years until the market was opened up to true competition.
W/o regs I could have this –
http://piaggio.co.in/Category/products/cargo-vehicle/4-w/porter-1000.aspx
Just about the perfect vehicle for me, though I’m sure a lot of Japanese small trucks would fit the bill as well, perhaps better if equipped with 4WD.
I’m not allowed to drive something that “small” on the road. These are of course the same roads where I can ride my Raleigh. My Raleigh is a nice bicycle (70s Super Record) but it has significantly less crash worthiness than a Kei-type truck.
you must consider that w/o (japanese) regs these little Daihatsu-based Piaggio trucks wouldn’t even exist! Kei trucks are product of a very restrictive regulation! At least for me, a kei-less world wouldn’t be the same. I somehow love these little cars and their little turbocharged 660cc engines…
Should have credited the great Bruce McCall. “1958 Bulgemobiles” first appeared in the April 1972 National Lampoon and then in his 1982 book Zany Afternoons (which also includes his 1934 and 1946 Bulgemobile brochures).
Well most of us here love the style and pizzazz of the cars between 1950 and 1980. That says something about regulation. Anyway I feel Detroit made the decision about the same time Cafe came along to chase after the Euro brands instead of being the trendsetter they were. Now we have hugely inefficient truck type cars and 5 jujillian variations of some sort of Mercedes or Honda.
Yes – it’s a mindset. Instead of asking themselves, and researching, “What does the customer WANT?” businesses start asking, What will the regulating agencies ALLOW? The product may please the regulators but the customer leaves in disgust.
There are many, many industries you can see harmed this way. Railroads…where it’s all about the FRA, the STB, the state agencies. The shipper is an incidental. Which is why trucks, with eight times the cost, have most of the freight business in America.
INCLUDING…moving railroad diesel fuel, and locomotive components! You’ll see a steady stream of welded units proceeding northeast through Ohio and into Erie, PA…for GE to assemble in their locomotives. They don’t ship by rail; they want it to GET there!
Then, cellphones, versus the Baby Bells, which I touched on above.
Autos? Styling innovation went out the window with the bumper requirements, No sooner were those eased than CAFE came to be. And Son-Of-CAFE…engineers STILL don’t know how they’ll meet those requirements. One incremental assist…is a teardrop shape. Which is why all cars look basically alike now…with a few exceptions, which will probably disappear.
One of the most important things that has drilled its way into my skull and proven itself true time and time again through my time on earth has been this:
Forming an opinion is a good thing. Subscribing to an ideology is dangerous as fuck. Many people feel they’re the same exact thing, but to feel that way is to ignore several crucial nuances. I had a much longer and much more politically brutal comment here, but I just wiped it out. All I can say is that reading many of the responses, I can get a pretty good idea of what ideology and cable news program many commentators subscribe to. I’m all for legalizing every drug, gun, hooker and abortion clinic in America too… but that only works as an idea, not an ideology. Apply it to the automotive industry and it doesn’t work, because there’s no way it will ever be the same kind of market.
What evidence is there that the auto industry would ever have implemented the safety and emissions regulations we have today, which make the roads and the world a much better place? None. The fact that disc brakes, ABS, fuel-injection, traction control, ESP, airbags and crumple zones were all designed by these companies before they were federally mandated is irrelevant. Where were they actually available at a price normal people could afford until the gubmint forced them into it? If they weren’t all forced to build cars that way, those technologies never would have trickled down from the lab to your Hyundai. The engineers who designed them may have seen the benefit and campaigned for their inclusion, but the people who actually sell the cars never would have seen eye to eye with them until it made fiscal sense. It never would have made fiscal sense, the market never would have demanded it because the market never had an alternative.
How the safety and emissions regulations were implemented was, in many cases, a misguided and irresponsible disaster. I completely agree with that, but on the whole they’ve done more good than bad. At the very worst, you could say that they have rapidly accelerated the adoption of safety and emissions technology… and what has it cost us as consumers? Fins? Chrome? Live axles? What a loss.
Lastly, a guy who is way smarter than me once said that “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”. If you don’t like the regulations or laws, don’t follow them. Don’t be a pussy. Rip that catalytic convertor out, rip those airbags out, drive wasted all the time. I used to drive blasted off my ass and high as a kite everywhere, because I didn’t agree with the law that said I (personally) wasn’t capable of operating an automobile beyond 0.8 bac or whatever. I don’t anymore because I now feel it’s reckless and irresponsible, but I never got caught so I guess I was right. I also never got an emissions inspection done (until NYS changed the law for pre-OBDII cars), because I didn’t agree that my Honda or whatever with rust holes the size of a fist and an open exhaust was a detriment to anyone but myself. I learned how to make fake stickers on the computer and I never got caught, so I guess I was right. Want to drive a car that is just like the cars from 1965? Hit autotrader.com, you can still buy them. Maybe if the market demands enough cars from 1965, that’s what we’ll go back to eventually.
A lot of those things would have made a come back w/o regulations. Sure ABS and Airbags failed due to their high price initially I think that people would have eventually started buying them as the price of electronics came and effeciencies of scale brought the price down. All those items did come to market and gain some acceptance w/o any regulation requiring them. Disc brakes are a great example of something that was just on high end cars and then trickled down first as options that got cheaper and cheaper and once their benefits were seen by the masses they became standard w/o any gov’t intervention. ASB, or Anti Skid Brakes, as they were initially called, also came to market w/o any regulation requiring them. Sure the first systems were very expensive, didn’t sell that well due to their price, and were dropped because of that, but then made a comeback and gained wide acceptance w/o any regulation requiring them. Stability Control came to market and started gaining market share before the gov’t started mandating it. Air bags were another of those items that were dropped when they didn’t sell due to their high price but then they started being available again on higher end cars where they didn’t represent as large a percentage of the price of the vehicle but then trickled down to lesser models. Sure passive restraints were mandated but bolting the seat belt to the door was acceptable to the govt, which by the way came before there were any regulations mandating it and was much cheaper. However people started demanding air bags instead.
Sure, eventually (“At the very worst, you could say that they have rapidly accelerated the adoption of safety and emissions technology…”). Would we have all those features across the board right now and at the cost they’re available without any prodding? Seriously doubtful. Look at feedback carbs and the great lengths that were gone to getting them to just skim under emissions regs way past the point where they no longer held any logical benefit on the consumer end. Safety equipment would have gone the same exact way.
Look, I’m not into free for all deregulation. I just think there’s point where things getting regulated are done purely as smoke screens to appease the lobbies who bought their bosses votes. I think the EPA and clean air act did far more good than bad, CAFE I feel the opposite, and NTHSA I’d call 50/50. The latter two’s positive effects are at best based on specious reasoning and I highly doubt the modern world would be an utter madhouse without them, really I doubt it would even be noticeably different at all. The problem I have with them all though is that they’re insoluble, and deal in regular and arbitrary goals based on statistics favoring their conclusions.
The mandating of subsystems like ESC are case and point. Here’s a system developed by a manufacturer, with no requirement to do so, and widely copied by other automakers well before getting mandated. Is any credit given to the automakers for developing these systems? No. Instead automakers are regarded as evil corporate tycoons who would just inevitably take away these innovations if not for mandates, while the regulators get the praise for recognizing it’s importance and forcing the continued use. It’s like a good actor getting typecast; “hey you’re giving the public the character they want from you. You better do it if you ever want to work in this town again!” /end big studio executive voice.
FWIW, I do rebel. I simply don’t buy cars I don’t like. Sadly I’ve realized voting with the wallet is far more powerful and satisfying than voting with the ballad.
CAFE, out of everything, really has been the worst… and I think all factions outside of the government itself agree that nothing good has come of it. I forget the exact numbers, but the actual difference between when it was implemented and now has resulted in a barely perceptible true overall gain since trucks are calculated on a totally different scale. Most of the rest of the world increased fuel economy significantly during the same time period without any sort of similar regulation, by taxing gasoline at a much higher rate… which is just as much a regulation as CAFE, just a seemingly more effective one.
I don’t think anybody is trying to give the government credit for anything. The credit for all of these innovations belongs with the people who invented them, the individuals and the people who signed their paychecks. The corporations aren’t evil for not introducing these things sooner… it’s not a matter of good and evil, it’s just a matter of how people actually buy cars and how this particular market works. Safety and emissions are a tough sell, emissions especially. They aren’t really tangible things like chrome, 300 horsepower and Corinthian leather. A corporation, by nature, exists to maximize profits… so any safety or emissions devices need to improve the bottom line in order to exist. If no one else offers it and you’re not selling cars that are actually substandard deathtraps, then where is the incentive? Eventually, the public may have been able to be convinced that these were things they wanted, and that they wanted to pay a premium for. How long would that have taken? I’m pretty confident in saying it would have taken much longer if the free market had its say. The government, and really it wasn’t even the government, it was regular people making a stink about it, deserves credit only for recognizing that there was a better way than allowing that to happen.
It certainly would have taken longer and they might not be on the cheapest cars yet but eventually it would have went that way. Fact is all those things you mention came before and gained acceptance before there were any regulations requiring them. The only exception was feed back carbs that were a response to regulations. Sure most of those items had false starts when they were introduced before technology the technology was really mature but the automakers didn’t abandon them the regrouped, waited and went forward when the time had come w/o any regulations requiring them. Many regulations were enacted due to seeing the technology that was gaining acceptance. The average bureaucrat never could have dreamed that something like stability control was possible, they just reacted to it being available on some vehicles and then mandated the phasing it in on all cars. .
Well said.
Sean,
I’m becoming a fan of yours. You ought to write feature articles.
One thing we share in common is that we both are former counterfeiters. I used to make parking hang tags for my office until the property agent figured out something wasn’t quite right. I even found out where the parking tags were printed so I could get the same colored paper stock to print the bogus tags on.
It wasn’t until later on that I found out that this was a felony! Don’t make no nevernohow on what level you are doing it, it’s a federal crime. Some kid here in Utah was printing up lunch passes for his friends and he got busted. I don’t think that he ended up busting rocks at the big house, since he was a minor, but it was a wakeup call for me.
Without the seatbelt laws and early crash performance tests that were around here in the late 1970s I probably would have been the corpse of a seven year old child…I honestly distrust the people who take the libertarian position on such laws, even though some of your rules like CAFE seem to be counterproductive. Most manufactures would have eventually brought out improvements in safety and emission gear, but how many of us here would have been dead or crippled by then?
Late to this discussion. We would still have Studebaker, and R-12 in old air conditioners would not be a problem. OK, seriously:
I suspect that the reg-free trajectory of 1960-present would have been something like the one from 1920-1960, with some diminishing returns built in. In other words, cars would continue to become more powerful, more durable, more comfortable, with better brakes, tires, handling and ride. There would have been more ways tried to accomplish these things, some more successful than others. Would the unregulated car be all of the things that a regulated car is today? Not likely. They would be in some ways worse and in some ways better. There would be more cars and fewer trucks, whose sales over the decades have been skewed by CAFE.
There would also be more variety. There would probably still be some rwd V8 powered cars (more than there are now) while at the same time, the many niche vehicles of the world would be easily imported to satisfy demand for them. Air cooled, diesel, electric, or a cast iron V8 – take your choice. Pretty much every regulation has done some good, but they have all resulted in unintended consequences.. It’s just what happens.
(done in deep, movie trailer narrator voice:) Coming this summer, to an internet near you! In a world full of regulations, one blog will try and turn the clock back….
One decision…one desire..will change EVERYTHING!
Starring Morgan Freeman as Paul Niedermeyer and Ryan Reynolds as Tom Klockau!
Don’t miss it!
Okay…one parting thought:
If we had “no regulations”…whatever is meant by that…we’d never have to worry about sites and discussions like this one, degenerating into purple-faced polemics and positioning! Cars would be cars; and politics politics; and never the twain should meet.
When politics interjects itself into non-political personal choices, life becomes politicized.
The more power government has, whether “left” or “right”, the more politics becomes life, because it becomes harder and harder to avoid politics and mind your own business. Politics won’t leave YOU alone.
So if there were no regulations, including no mandatory insurance, do you think we would have ever had the 454 LS-6 Chevette SS? 🙂
I’m sorry, I can’t buy that. It’s a popular narrative, to claim the “other” side is just as bad, only on different details…and in some cases, some individuals in political life, that’s more true than it should be.
But I, and many other people of my orientation, don’t stand for different regulation – I stand for LESS regulation and MORE individual autonomy.
That was my point, not that one political side or the other is necessarily the one that wants to regulate and control, but that both do, just usually in different areas of life. It is the nature of politics. It is what they have to sell, control.
The Chevette SS comment was intended to steer the direction back towards cars. I love politics, and I’m as guilty as everyone else as wanting to discuss politics and cars if not more so, but yeah, this site is usually a refuge from the battle.
“So if there were no regulations, including no mandatory insurance, do you think we would have ever had the 454 LS-6 Chevette SS?”
I addressed part of this earlier – “no” regulation, including no equipment standards or financial-responsibility requirements, is anarchy and wouldn’t last long. Nobody here is suggesting bald tires be permitted or vehicle registration be abolished.
Your insurance question is interesting. I…have some savings. More in savings than I’m required to insure for in most states. Years earlier, it would have been permissible for me to post a bond with the Secretary of State in the state I lived in, in lieu of buying auto insurance. And it would have saved me money…even earned me money, as U.S. Treasury bonds would have been acceptable.
I was young and broke then; and I had to pay $400 a year in liability insurance. Now, I can afford to self-insure – BUT I AM NO LONGER ALLOWED TO!! Why NOT? THAT is where “regulation” takes us…I STILL have to pay $400 a year for insurance, instead of earning that amount in interest on surety bonds held by the authorities.
Would the Chevette SS be made, in a world without regulations? OF COURSE. The engine was there; just pop it in. Since all the expensive, onerous EPA testing and publication of specifications would no longer be required.
Regulatory standards helped ameliorate the automobile’s impact on the environment – the air is much cleaner than it was 30 years ago, even with more cars being driven more miles than ever before, and lead has been eliminated as major air pollutant – and helped make cars safer.
Competition, however, is what ultimately made cars BETTER in ways that drivers really appreciate. The 1975 Chevrolet Vega, 1980 Chevrolet Citation and 1975 AMC Pacer were designed and built after the federal government began issuing safety and emissions-control regulations for automobiles sold in the United States. Those vehicles met all applicable federal safety and emissions standards. Most people would agree that they were pretty lousy cars.
The government ultimately doesn’t care how wide the panel gaps are, whether the paint is evenly applied, how refined the engine sounds and whether the dashboard looks as though it was fashioned out of recycled soda bottles and assembled by bored 11th graders. Our cars are much better built, more pleasurable to drive and much more reliable because of foreign competition – particularly the German and Japanese competition. Federal regulations really didn’t have anything to do with those trends.
Which, to some extent, is why we have federal regulations in the first place. People will pay more for a better paint job or a razzle-dazzle dashboard. Most people won’t pay more for pollution-control equipment, and a fair number will not pay more optional safety equipment. Having federal regulations covering these areas makes the “take rate” 100 percent, and also prevents some automakers from “under cutting” the competition on price by leaving these features off their vehicles.
If there were no federal regulation of vehicle design, I could see more large cars and fewer light trucks being sold, although the “large cars” would be about the size of the 1977 GM B-Bodies. People were getting tired of the bloated, full-size mastodons even before the first fuel crunch. They were cumbersome to drive and park, and 10-11 mpg “economy” was too much for plenty of middle-class Americans.
As others have noted, sales of domestic intermediates were booming in the early 1970s, for precisely these reasons. I still think, at the end of the day, that the Accord-Camry-Fusion-Sonata-Malibu class would still be the default vehicle of choice for middle-income buyers, and in their present configuration (front-wheel-drive, unit-body, and mostly sold with four-cylinder engines hooked up to an automatic transmission).
All vehicles would still feature improved build quality, operation and reliability, even absent federal regulations.
The air quality would be worse, however, and the presence of safety features would not be nearly as uniform in all size and price classes.
I’m also pretty sure that GM wouldn’t build the Chevrolet Sonic here. It might be a “captive import” sold under the Chevrolet brand, or, at best, imported from some place like Mexico (as Ford does with the Fiesta). That is assuming, of course, that Ford and GM even bother to sell those cars in this country, absent CAFE regulations. I doubt that they would do so.
Had we not had regulations our cars would be more like cars from third world countries; less dependable, no recalls, less efficient, less quality, safety features would not even be a consideration, the list goes on and on. To think there would be anything else would be to expect an industry to have a conscience that does not even have a soul.
If we had no regs cars would look like cars instead of rolling suppositories…..
Hopefully we’d still have four-door pillarless hardtops…
My 1950 Packard got 24mpg on the highway and the exhaust did not seem any more noxious to my nose as my present 2001 Toyota. And for crash safety, I would put the Packard’s tank-like front fenders up against any new car today!