Incentive and tradition are against it, but auto executives occasionally blurt out important truths. The now retired Bob Lutz, who served in top roles for Ford, GM and Chrysler, regularly suggested the government should stop its fuel-economy nonsense and impose a gas tax if it wants Americans to buy high-mileage vehicles.
The late Sergio Marchionne of Fiat and Chrysler correctly called the Obama fuel-economy rules an “electric vehicle mandate.” Not for public consumption, a Toyota executive complained the same rules were also a “second bailout for Detroit” due to a carve-out for U.S.-built gasoline-powered pickups and large SUVs.
Last year, a splenetic industry insider emailed me attacking a column by basically repeating my own argument back to me (a typical phenomenon): Americans want big cars. Detroit is incentivized by the so-called chicken tax to wring all its profits from large, gas-fueled pickups and SUVs while making “compliance” vehicles for the government that lose money.
