MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘VW’

VW Cancels a Device

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2025

By eric

CAFE has been used for decades to dwindle down the size of vehicles and of engines available in mass-market vehicles that working and middle class people used to be able to afford and with the doubling of the “standards” under the Biden Thing the pincers were about to close completely, effectively forcing everyone into a device.

The 2024 election just prevented that.

Here Duffy touches on something of critical importance in that CAFE “standards” are not constitutional because Congress didn’t pass a law requiring vehicle manufacturers to meet them.

More good news from the front lines – in the war against the pushing of devices.

VW has just announced it won’t be bringing one of its newest devices – the ID 7 sedan – to the United States. On account of “changing market conditions,” by which is meant there’s not much of a market for devices – and because of the changes ushered in with the ushering out of the Biden regime.

The new Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, has “directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reconsider rules covering the 2022 model year through the 2031 model year for cars and trucks. The agency in June said it would hike Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements to about 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031 from 39.1 mpg currently for light-duty vehicles,” according to a report published by Automotive News

The headline of the Automotive News article reads: “Newly confirmed U.S. Transportation chief moves to repeal Biden vehicle fuel economy standards.”

Elections apparently do matter.

The 2020 election – if you want to call it that – brought us Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the outgoing secretary of transportation. That brought us a near-doubling of federal CAFE “standards” – as these edicts are styled. They are not optional suggestions. Vehicle manufacturers are forced to comply with them. And the only way to comply with a 50.4 MPG CAFE requirement is to manufacture lots of devices – i.e., electric vehicles such as the ID 7.

This “works” to create an “incentive” to manufacturer devices. Not a mandate, per se. So President Trump hasn’t got it quite right when he talks about ending the “EV mandate” because at least at the federal level, there isn’t one. Per se. But the regulations – especially CAFE regs – effectively mandate EVs. It’s an extremely clever ploy by the car-hating Leftists that infest the DOT and EPA and the entire federal bureaucracy. More finely, who hate that people who aren’t them and most especially the working and middle class Deplorables who insist on driving V8-powered trucks and SUVs like the ones government apparatchiks get driven around in.

CAFE has been used for decades to dwindle down the size of vehicles and of engines available in mass-market vehicles that working and middle class people used to be able to afford and with the doubling of the “standards” under the Biden Thing the pincers were about to close completely, effectively forcing everyone into a device.

The 2024 election just prevented that.

“Artificially high fuel economy standards designed to meet non-statutory policy goals, such as those NHTSA has promulgated in recent years, impose large costs that render many vehicle models unaffordable for the average American family,” reads Duffy’s memo. “They also put coercive pressure on automakers to phase out production of various models of popular (internal combustion engine) vehicles.”

Italics added.

“Non-statutory policy goals” refers to edicts that were never passed by the legislature – Congress, in this case. Here Duffy touches on something of critical importance in that CAFE “standards” are not constitutional because Congress didn’t pass a law requiring vehicle manufacturers to meet them.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

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Well, Now We Know . . . – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk

Posted by M. C. on October 5, 2018

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2018/10/04/well-now-we-know/

By Eric

…But back to the point of all this – the reason for the hysterical, exaggerated abuse leveled at VW out of all proportion to any tangible harm caused by their “cheating” – and the brutal effect of the “fix” applied to the “cheating” cars.

They were just too god-damned good for their own good. The latest escalation of “bins” and “tiers” was meant to make it impossible for diesels to be both compliant and fuel-efficient and affordable.

VW – to its credit – attempted to get around this vicious, evil business.

I test drove every TDI-powered car VW made, pre-“fix” – including the TDI-powered Jetta. It exceeded the EPA’s city/highway numbers, as people who own these cars will also tell you. I got better than 50 MPG on the highway out of them.

And you could buy one for about $22,000.

Well, you used to be able to.

VW doesn’t sell TDI-powered anything anymore – except for dealers unloading the backed-up inventory of “fixed” 2015 and 2016 cars, which have been “fixed” just as a steer is “fixed.”

There’s not much reason to buy one anymore – because these cars no longer deliver the huge mileage advantage vs. gas-powered cars that they used to deliver.

And that, dear reader, is the point of all of this.

To geld the resurgence of clean, efficient diesel-powered passenger cars – especially the affordable ones which VW uniquely specialized in.

These cars made hybrid and electric cars look bad.

Made them look stupid.

Excepting the virtue-signalers, who would choose to spend a couple thousand bucks more to buy a gas-electric hybrid that only had a slight mileage advantage? And who would spend $30,000-plus on an electric car with literally a third the range – that also required its owner to wait for hours while its battery recovered charge – when he could have been hours down the road in his diesel-powered alternative?

Now, perhaps, you see.

And if you do, it all begins to make sense.

Be seeing you

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Cash For Not Clunkers – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk

Posted by M. C. on February 3, 2017

http://ericpetersautos.com/2017/02/02/cash-not-clunkers/

As usual the real clunker is the government. You and I get clunked.

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Kill People, No Problem… Just Don’t “Cheat” Uncle – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk

Posted by M. C. on January 6, 2017

http://ericpetersautos.com/2017/01/05/kill-people-no-problem-just-dont-cheat-uncle/

It’s OK if the government does it. I have still not seen specifics of what the 40 times means. A 70s car just sitting in the driveway likely put out more pollutants than a current car on the highway.

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