The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reinstated strict fines for automakers that violate corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards.
The Trump Administration in January 2021 delayed a 2016 NHTSA ruling that would double fines for automakers who did not meet certain CAFE standards, beginning with the 2019 vehicle model year. As the decision was under review for the past year, NHSTA was not able to collect fines for automakers that were in violation of these standards between 2019 and 2021.
Now that NHTSA has signed this new final ruling, the federal watchdog will be able to apply much stiffer penalties for CAFE violations and will soon be able to collect stiffer fines from automakers that run afoul of the rules. According to Reuters, the fine is $14 for every 0.1 mile per gallon a 2019 to 2021 model year vehicle falls short of required fuel economy standards, multiplied by the number of non-compliant vehicles sold. The fine will rise to $15 per 0.1 mpg for the 2022 model year. The previous penalty for CAFE violations was $5.50 for every 0.1 mpg.
Automakers that sell vehicles with higher fuel economy ratings than CAFE standards permit are rewarded with credits that they can sell to other automakers. This ruling is viewed as a win for Tesla, which generates a significant portion of its profits from carbon credit sales, as carbon credits will now be worth more than they were previously.
Automakers objected to the higher CAFE penalties when they were first outlined by the Obama Administration in 2016. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group representing virtually every major automaker, said the revised fines would cost the industry upwards of $1 billion each year. Stellantis alone is thought to be on the hook for roughly $570 million in fines from the 2019 to 2021 model years.
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Comments
These pigs will not be happy until they bankrupt the industry.
The Auto Industry deserves to go bankrupt for their gross incompetence over the past 2 decades.
Let it be like 2008 but much worse.
Sooo we should make furniture instead?
It was the management that has been incompetent. Unfortunately, their bad decisions will not affect them- they will rape the coffers before the ship sinks. It is the other thousands of workers who just carry out orders trying to make a living that will be jammed.
This is just another tax on the working class. There is no reason for this. These bozos in washington are so dumb to think this will do anything for the climate. ITs just a easy tax grab by the government. This will all be changed again in 2024 and hopefully we can get away from this climate nonsense.
The BEV tax credits and the CAFE tax are both transferring money from ICE to BEV drivers and to the bureaucracy that administers these government programs.
Love this idea. Either minimize pollution or pay up.
Why are you using h4cksaw name? He called you out earlier. Anyone who has followed this website for several months knows you are not him.
Bit of you don’t you can buy non pollution credits to make everyone feel better with no results???
Hope you enjoy paying an extra $1,000 or so for a new vehicle and getting absolutely nothing for it.
You are not the real h4cksaw bozo
Who defines “real” though?
Got zero problem with this.
Corporations don’t pay fines or taxes; it’s passed along to the consumer, and the Green New Deal could care less. If the cost of any business rises it has to be passed along or the business will fail.
What a FARSE CARBON CREDITS are!!
Master plan to drive everybody into electrics.
Hahahaha.
Great news.
GM’s stupidity to kill off the fuel efficient spark, sonic Cruze & Cruze Diesel will bite them hard.
GM doesn’t care. GM’s answer to this was to raise the MSRP of their half-ton trucks by $3000.00 this month (March). Fines covered.
Shutting down Cruze production was a huge mistake.
So now we will have to pay more for the car and more for the gas too. Tanks Brandon, you just fixed Everything!
You don’t pay more if you refuse to buy these new GM vehicles.
GM/Ford should take this to the Supreme Court. This is a tax, and taxes can only be issued by congress. Unelected beaurocrates can’t write taxes or laws period.
Agreed. But it does not help when a Farley and Barra are too spineless to fight. They would rather have their noses up a failed president’s and governor’s backside.
Read the acronym NHTSA…National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . They should have nothing to do with fuel economy. We have another glorious government agency for that…the EPA.
Fuel efficiency and environmental concerns are very important for many reasons but this is not the right way to handle it. They will be rewarding automakers like Tesla for things that they have nothing to do with. ICE vehicles have been and will continue to become more fuel efficient overs the years; partly due to the price of fuel and the consumers more educated thinking on pollution in the environment. One idea to have consumers seek out more fuel efficient vehicles is to incentivize their buying them with tax credits similar to those expected on fully electric vehicles. Saving money especially in today’s economic conditions is very important to many consumers.
Nimrod’s far Left regime currently commandeering the White House is working overtime to destroy our nation.
Rent free.
Just say NO! NHTSA can go to h*#^!
I hope that GM is listening to it’s customers, I do not plan to buy an EV!
The problem with Libs is they’re too effin stupid to understand they’re being snookered by our Moron In Chief’s ‘administration’ over EVERY social and economic issue facing our country.
Rent free.
Good. Gasoline sales help to fund terrorists, Russian oligarchs, and climate change. It’s also amusing to watch conservative snowflakes get all butthurt about their $70,000 pickup trucks that get 13mpg. Capitalism can be a real btch.
I swear conservatives whine more than a Nissan CVT.
Fuel economy regs are the main reason why your car gets 20 mpg+ instead of 10. Downsizing would not have started in the late 1970s without those regs, because the Big Three did not want to take the risk of building more fuel efficient cars unless all of them were forced to.
Screw Nhtsa, WTF does fuel economy have do with safety. All of these idiotic government agencies should be disbanded.