Trump's energy policies

[stpioc]

The EPA and NHTSA are arguing that fuel economy standards would adversely affect American safety. Specifically, the NHTSA claims that halting fuel economy improvements would "reduce highway fatalities by 12,700 lives (over the lifetimes of vehicles through MY [Model Year] 2029)." The crux of the argument suggests that stricter fuel economy standards will require car companies to spend more to make these new cars. That spending will be passed on to consumers, and consumers will have to choose whether to buy a new car or not. The EPA says that fuel economy standards would increase the cost of a new vehicle by $2,340.

The administration then points to a 2018 study from the NHTSA saying that new cars are safer, resulting in fewer deaths and injuries compared to older vehicle models. Therefore, the EPA argues, the US government should not make cars more expensive, because then people will buy fewer new cars, and the US public will incur more fatalities and injuries than they would otherwise. In a phone call with Ars, John DeCicco, a research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute, explained that there are problems with this line of logic. DeCicco says that thus far, researchers have not been able to show "a statistically rigorous association between traffic fatalities and fuel economy." "To establish a statistical relationship you have to show it beyond a reasonable doubt that higher fuel economy impacts safety," and in the absence of hard data, the EPA has had to "contrive these things through modeling," DeCicco said.

Additionally, he says, the US has regulated fuel economy for decades. Every new regulation has been costly, and yet fuel economy standards have not been shown to affect safety. DeCicco also added that he was skeptical of the claim that implementing fuel economy standards would be passed on to the consumer directly. "This is kind of an Econ 101 thing, that price is not the same as cost," DeCicco said. Fuel economy standards are "almost always a cost that [automakers] can't pass on to the consumer, that's the nature of the regulation." That is, if customers are willing to pay more for a vehicle, automakers will make their vehicles more expensive to capture more of that profit. If customers won't pay more for a vehicle, automakers will have to cut costs elsewhere to be able to price their cars at a reasonable level.

Fuel economy standards kill people, Trump administration claims | Ars Technica