Featured It turns out that Akio Toyoda was right

People should be free to promote alternatives precisely because people can be on many different sides of an issue. Ultimately, the CA rule wouldn't allow for consumers who wanted ICE vehicles to buy them new.

Like the incredible prosperity of Hong Kong before the CP got it? We shouldn't need to embrace an argument of the excluded middle to recognize that most consumers will deem themselves to be the better judge of their own consumers choices.

As nearly as I can determine, the average Tesla owner is very happy with his car and Bolt owners have a lot of good things to say about that more affordable choice. I'm not confident they need to be bribed into it.

 

People are free to promote alternatives.
You’ll have to be more specific about hong cong, I have no knowledge.
Are you ready to drop the epa? fda? nhtsa?
Other safety agencies?
Do you trust corporations to do the right thing?

 

I really think the notification system on my 2017 Prius. It was so much if a distraction I think the car should have not been legal. The Radar cruise on my 2025 Camry is much improved over my old Prius Two but some of that may be due to the additional sensors on the Camry XLE.

 

In fact under the recently proposed CA rule, people would not be free to promote the sale of ICE vehicles (the effective promotion of which would include sale) in CA after the deadline.

Hong Kong was a sleepy and backward area on the coast. It was governed by the brits with a very low tax environment and became a economic powerhouse. Unfortunately, it reverted back to the CCP almost 30 years ago.

I don't trust corporations or governments to do the right thing. It doesn't require "dropping" the EPA to question whether its proper authority extends to classifying Co2 as a "pollutant" or vehicle market compositions.

More pertinent, it doesn't require trust in corporations to allow consumer preferences to be reflected on the consumer products provided in a market, right?

 

People buying hybrids now wouldn't have the option if Prius sales hadn't grown from the early adopter stage. Without the help of governments, that growth may not have happened. It would have been slower without the aid.

California's ZEV program started in 1990. The initial target was just 2% of new car sales being a ZEV model. What counted as ZEV in the early stages was pretty lenient. Some ICE (PZEV) models qualified. Over time, the percentage target grew, and ZEV requirements got more stringent. During its peak sales, the Prius counted towards the ZEV target. In order to count, hybrids had to have a 10yr/150k mile warranty on the system. That warranty also applied to other CARB states hybrids. This was important for assuaging consumers concerns over the new technology. Plus, it made the hybrids eligible for other state incentives, like HOV access.

There were also federal incentives during this time; tax deductions and credits. The cash for clunkers program was also a boon to the Prius. Japan was subsidizing the Prius since the gen1, and continued hybrid incentives years past when they stopped in the US. Fuels had a major impact, but Prius sales always dropped with them. The incentives helped move the Prius out of niche product. If that didn't happen, Toyota would have delayed, or cancelled, hybrid spread to other models.

The 'EV mandate' is just an extension of the ZEV program that helped out the prius and hybrids. The target just goes to 100% with BEVs, PHEVs, and FCEVs counting towards. As long as it has a plug, you can buy a new ICE car. The program does have mechanisms to allow CARB to adjust those targets.

People are buying plug ins. BEVs were at 8.1% market last year. Add PHEVs, and it will be close to 10%. Hybrids about equal that, but the numbers include mild hybrids from Ram and Jeep. Plug ins are growing faster than hybrids. Lack of affordable options is hindering them, but that is more an issue with car companies wanting more profit per unit. The selection of affordable ICE models is shrinking.

 

Remember too, the Prius was originally designed for low pollution. In the process, it just happened to be fuel efficient too.That is why when the engine first starts, it keeps running until it is at its optimum temperature, whether or not the charging & drive are needed.

 

Fair point as the actual complaints would have predated Jan 6, 2025. I've I've had three updates since Christmas, 2024, so those investigated complaints are against earlier versions. Sad to say, "summon" is not high on my FSD use cases. It is hard to know if something I so seldom use was broken or fixed.

My FSD uses cases are on streets and highways. Summon is useful in a rain or when I'm parked further than I want to walk back, the same distance I walked from the car. I would not recommend buying FSD just for summon.

Bob Wilson

 

IMO the government needs to add a category for issued resolved automatically by OTA software update, IMO it is deceiving to classify them with actual vehicle recalls.

 

A mechanical problem system does not work for software problems.

Bob Wilson

 

Corporations often insist that what products they provide in a market are purely determined by consumer preferences that the corporations would never dream of trying to manipulate or shape through their development choices or billions of dollars in overt or covert PR. And I guess if you buy all of that, then you're not required to trust the corporations (... any more than you already have).

 

Of course, it is a product of Japan's decades long Low Emission Vehicle program that was started to reduce emissions in cities. That is also the point of the ZEV program, and plug ins can do a better job of this than even hybrids.

 

Hybrids & PHEVs are so much more affordable though.

 

Depends. The Rav4 PHV costs more than the bZ4X. The Kona Electric is the same as the Prius PHV. The Leaf as much as a Prius. The Equinox EV is under $2000 more than the Rav4 hybrid; about the difference between the Corolla and Corolla hybrid. The next Bolt should be arriving soon. There are even more affordable BEVs that simply aren't for sale in the US

 

If you find a corporation asserting just that, you should engage them on what they've insisted.

That was clumsy. Since observing the coercive effect of government mandates or market influencing effect of a subsidy doesn't require a belief in your strawman, it isn't even logically connected to your conclusion.

You don't need to "buy" any that to purchase a product you do like or pass on one you don't.

 

Agreed. Whether you buy that or not only comes into play when you start asserting that corporations merely respond to preferences that originate with consumers.

 

1) proposed is the key word. but yes, there are people who believe that hydrocarbons are a major source of pollution and climate change, and we would be better off without them.
2) that's too simplistic a view of hong cong
3) someone has to designate pollutants
4) how do we know corporations are supplying products that consumers prefer? they could be supplying the products that are the most profitable

 

Yes, that is the rule under discussion.

As it pertains to your assertion about liberal economies, it's apt. Hong Kong economic liberalism stood in contrast to the disordered feudal warlord system of the interior then command economy of the CCP. It wasn't a failure of that system that delivered it to CCP control.

Some can designate pollutants. That does inexorably lead to a conclusion that it should be a litigant or an executive agency. 15 years after MA v. EPA precipitated a significant policy change, WV v. EPA found that a similar policy shift regarding Co2 generated by power plants, the Court that kind of major policy not within the rule making authority of an agency.

As the dissent in MA v. EPA noted, these policies are correctly resolved in politically responsive parts of our government rather than the courts. The rollback of the rule previously proposed for CA is consistent with that reasoning and the majority in WV. EPA.

Happily you and I don't need to know whether corporations are supplying products that consumers prefer if those corporations face competitive pressures and buyers are free to pursue their preferences. It should be tough to make a lot producing things people don't prefer unless someone with the power to prohibit preferred alternatives uses that power. That was the specter raised by the proposed CA reg.

 

You could try, but they would first say it is marketing speak and then ask you to prove it. If you have the proof of false advertising, good luck convincing the government & courts.

 

The rule wouldn't ban the sale of ICEs in PHEVs. Allows the continued sale of used ICE vehicles. Allows new ICEs to be imported from other states. Then these rules only apply to passenger vehicles.

This is simplistic. You assume the hand off to China resulted in economic collapse of Hong Kong. The CCP didn't mess with HK's financial and industrial sectors. In that regard, HK hasn't changed much.

The founding of California's ZEV program and Japan's LEV one had nothing to with CO2. They started to curb the accepted harmful pollutants coming out of tailpipes; CO, hydrocarbons, other VOXs, and NOx. If there is an ICE in the car, there will be some level of such harmful emissions. Even when burning renewable fuels and hydrogen.

Moving to reduce the number cars with an ICE to improve public health and standard of living is no different than banning lead paint, asbestos, and CFCs.

As for CO2, the federal government is already regulating it in cars. The only way to reduce its emission in cars is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burns. Reducing the amount of those is precisely what the CAFE does.

Again, California is not proposing to prohibit ICEs.

Then the loss of choice happens on the flip side when markets aren't regulated. Companies will collude, and monopolies will form. California has given the market time to meet the new regulation, and CARB has the means to delay the speed of implementation if it proves too burdensome.

 

A couple of decades back distracted drving was mainly due to cell phone usage, and it was an easy, concrete target. Now we've got dash controls and video/audio distractions that eclipse that. It's a nebulous, hard to police issue, and it's nuts.

We're going backwards.