“Don’t shit where you live”—how can anything be more clear than that? Seems pretty fair to say that no one likes shit, especially where they live. it’s certainly a situation I try and avoid at all costs, anyway. But then again, I’m not an American auto executive. Last month at the 2005 Frankfurt Auto Show in Germany, nearly every European car manufacturer massive spending programs aimed at boosting fuel economy and lowering emissions as soon as possible. The Dons of Detroit also announced a vision for the future of their industry during September— namely a continued reliance on rolling OPEC wet-dreams
for a sizable portion of their companies’ profits (It’s been a great plan so far, after all). Why is it that the European carmakers are so anxious to clean up the mess they’ve made while the Americans seem content to have their incontinence on public display—does the Old World know something the New World doesn’t? The surprising answer is no. The not so surprising answer is why not.
Even without all of this year’s talk of scientific innovation and environmental concerns, the Frankfurt show sounds like the stuff of a Bush Administration nightmare—building after building full of people craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the latest four-wheeled testament to Old Europe prosperity, secure in the knowledge that any back pain the overextension might produce will clear up in six-and-half weeks of paid vacation they have left before its back to the 28 hour work-week grind. Yikes—better get the crash cart ready before Cheney shows up. But the behind-the-scenes reality of Frankfurt would be more familiar to Dick than you might expect. Most Americans already know that the average car sold in Europe is much more fuel efficient than the average car sold here, thanks mainly to the higher gas taxes across the pond that make Detroit-level horsepower a possibility for only the most decadent on European highways. So most cars over there are just a lot smaller than ours (everybody Yugo!). But lately Europeans have started wanting cars more like ours—turns out, they’re getting fatter just like us. All that nudity broadcast on commercial-free public airwaves tends to staying inside and watching TV an easy thing to say yes to, I guess. In the larger cars, the standard European 33-horsepower souped-up washing machine motor just can’t get the job done. But that 7-buck-a-gallon gas makes it nearly impossible to use anything more powerful. Like so many times before, Europeans found themselves owing a debt of gratitude to the Germans—enter the diesel. (While we’re on the subject, a quick aside—I’m certainly no expert when it comes to public relations, but I’d guess that the briefest passing glance at the cover of PR For Dummies would lead anyone to advise a German car company trying to gloss over some of the more, shall we say, awkward moments of its history against an unnecessarily high profile at a show deep in the heart of Autobahn Country. Yet Frankfurt’s the largest car show in the world, due in part to huge, flashy displays by each of Germany’s native firms. They’re just a ballsy group over there.)
Diesel-fueled engines produce the same amount of power from a much less fuel than an engine designed to run on gasoline in virtually every performance category besides acceleration from a dead stop—five diesel cylinders produce the performance of the average US Planetkiller-V8. But there’s just one teensy, tiny downside—diesels require fuel that’s a lot less clean than modern gasoline, which makes the exhaust very, very dirty. It’s not just the smell—diesel exhaust fumes are full of carcinogens and toxic chemicals not found in the average US tailpipe. But European gas prices mean anything larger than a Vespa needs a diesel for ownership to be economically feasible. So today, depending on where you’re looking, diesel engines can be found in 65% or more of the cars on European roads, making the air those drivers breathing unhealthier than most American metropolitan areas.
There’s been public outcry in Europe for years about the environmental threat posed by growing size of the vehicles manufactures are producing. The response by European companies has been the same one used by their American counterparts, but turned oddly on its head. Consumers want larger cars no matter what, they say. If the government lowered the cost of gasoline, people would be less interested in buying diesels. Until that happens, there’s nothing we can really do, they say. And just like their friends in Detroit, they decided against funding large-scale research into improving the environmental impact of existing technology through the use of things like hybrids, choosing instead to keep making the profitable old stuff and place token funds toward decades-away, pie-in-the-sky projects like hydrogen power to appease the Greenies.
So how, then, was the month of September all about research into Clean Diesel and hybrid Benz’ and BMWs for sale by ‘07 in Frankfurt—and all about GM’s “make or break” multibillion dollar redesign of full-size trucks and SUVs in Detroit? Because the leaders of the EU decided 25 years was too long to wait for a better environment, and since higher gas prices weren’t gittin-r-done, it imposed strict new regulations for emissions and fuel economy on all cars sold in Europe in the coming years. Put another way, Europe started acting like America. Up until the rise of Newt and the dark hand of the Bush Dynasty, the American environmental regulation was the most successful—and most stringent—in the world. Rather than simply force cars to be smaller through gas taxes while ignoring emissions like Europe, the US regulatory plan actually made cars better by putting the costs of reducing emissions and increasing gas mileage to consumers at the dealership, not at the gas pump. Through the use of the CAFE system, companies were forced to innovate improvements in gas mileage if they wanted to compete by giving people the larger cars they wanted. Eventually, of course, Detroit found a loophole—the SUV—and thanks to their unwavering allegiance to evil, the Republicans in charge of the government refused to shut it and get the CAFE system back on track despite its impressive history of success.
Detroit got its way in Washington and a decade later the press is talking about which of the Big Three will go bankrupt first. In Frankfurt, where the European auto industry is still reeling from how screwed it just got, the press is talking growth and profits, popping champagne and raising their glasses to the future. Because they know that they’ll make a fortune when they bring their gas sippers across the pond in a couple of years. With pump prices approaching European levels, we’ll all be lining up outside their dealerships, desperate to buy an American car.