Remember the “rolling coal” jerks — the morons who modify diesel pickups so they belch out extra-toxic pollutants, thus owning Prius-driving libs and their effete virtue-signaling about breathable air and inhabitable landmasses?
That crowd’s bloated orange cockwaffle is attempting to install sooty smokestacks on U.S. fuel economy standards, and his goons are threatening automakers who have business reasons for not wishing to go along with Trump’s plans to sabotage the planet because Obama (Bloomberg):
The White House has issued an us-versus-them challenge to carmakers: back an administration plan to roll back fuel-economy standards or risk President Donald Trump’s wrath by siding with California’s stringent emissions requirements.
That message was delivered during a tense conference call between Trump administration officials and auto executives in late February, according to five people familiar with the call who spoke on the condition they not be identified discussing the private conversation…
The request has added to industry anxiety about getting caught in a conflict between Trump and the nation’s biggest auto market, the people said. The president is also reviewing the findings of a Commerce Department inquiry into whether imported cars and parts threaten national security, which automakers worry could provide the basis for new tariffs.
A President Harris could rejoin the Paris Agreement, reinstate rolled-back emissions requirements, etc. But I’m not sure how we dissipate the toxic cloud of self-destructive stupidity that has engulfed 40-ish percent of our fellow citizens.
Open thread.
Frankensteinbeck
The only solution I can think of is for the majority to be as angry and motivated as the minority, and regularly vote them out. That’s a slow solution, but every time it succeeds enough to break gerrymandering it gets easier.
EDIT – As for the emission standards, Trump is out of luck. Car manufacturers do not want to waste time and money on cars meant only for Trumpland and not the rest of the world. This has been tested many times, and not just with cars.
OzarkHillbilly
I do.
Mike in NC
I wish when Fat Bastard went to Helsinki to grovel in front of Czar Putin, he was instructed to have the Navy go back to burning coal on its ships like around 1900. Hilarity would ensue.
Martin
Well, Trump may think it’s just California they have to deal with but 16 other states have joined us on the emissions. CAs other mandate is that 10% of new car sales must be zero emissions. We just barely hit that in Dec of last year. The automakers know that CA is considering a ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine cars. There is another bill coming up to do that. There are also regulations for zero emission commercial vehicles being developed.
But what’s also driving this is that countries like Germany have already announced their ban on gas cars by 2030. It is expected that in the next 2 years, the production cost of low-end EVs will fall below that of low-end gas cars, meaning that the discount end of the market will flip to EV for economic reasons. And ⅓ of all gas stations in the US have closed, and that is now accelerating. Shell just bought an EV charging network company to help them pivot their operations.
Trump is at least 5 years too late to stop this. It’s a done deal. The best move now is to not put the consumers and the market in conflict like this. Give everyone a clear roadmap for the transition so that we aren’t left in the kind of shitshow that the UK is in because they never planned Brexit.
BruceFromOhio
Heh. Much like trying to save the coal industry, this will also fail as the automotive industry simply moves on. Looking at my 2012 Honda Fit with 66k miles, I expect my next new vehicle will be electric. Probably around 2022 or ’23.
Go ahead, climate-killing morons, huff and puff and do yourselves in. The future is already written, and while some parts will always be internal combustion powered, much of it will not be.
hueyplong
Perhaps a solution rests in their anti-vax tendencies.
I remain bitter that the Obamas never inveighed against the hazards of chugging bleach.
dr. bloor
That’s not going to be nearly as easy as it was to type. See also: Bed, unshitting.
The only compelling case for a Biden presidency in my mind is that the wreckage the next POTUS will have to deal with will make Obama’s clean up of W’s reign of error look like a cakewalk. I’d rather not see some of the younger talent get squashed for not being able to perform miracles.
JoyceH
Not possible, I fear. I remember when the Trump administration did something (can’t remember what) that was pro-coal, and his fans were going to celebrate by firing up the charcoal grill for a cookout. They think charcoal… is coal. (Just FYI, for those that don’t know, charcoal is a wood product, and has been for thousands of years. You mine coal, you make charcoal.)
A Ghost To Most
Economics is already killing coal power plants. The Navajo Plant just announced it will be shutting down. It can’t compete.
Wind and solar are cheaper, with NG for demand peaks.
They are pissing into the wind.
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: Seriously? LOL! Never heard about that.
kindness
Yow…..Not sure I like the new look. Will give it some time.
BruceFromOhio
@Martin:
That sounds like exactly the plan. Conflict, lack of clarity, unplanned shitshow – all hallmarks of the Art of The Deal.
Fair Economist
Trump must not watch the news because GM has already said it will phase out gas powered cars in the near future. They would be delighted if Trump made CA’s standards national. Ditto Tesla, obviously.
A Ghost To Most
@BruceFromOhio: I’ve got my eye on the Chevy Bolt for our next car. Consumer Reports says it is a promising car.
Mandalay
There isn’t going to be a President Harris unless Pelosi and the spineless leadership of the party back the fuck off immediately.
Their vile and shameful overreaction is going to hand Trump a second term.
ET
Perhaps instead of making most of their cars overseas they will instead start making ALL of their cars overseas.
Kraux Pas
@Mandalay:
Back off what specifically?
Brachiator
Does this mean another wall is coming?
catclub
@A Ghost To Most:
and liking it
Mary G
He might issue a nasty tweet! Oh noes!
They got a humongous tax cut and a neutered EPA. They could care less now.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin:
Indeed, but Trump the a guy who can lose money running a casino. What is the utterly most stupid choice to make, Trump will make it.
hells littlest angel
OT, but credit where credit is due: hats off to the DNC for telling Fox News to stick it.
catclub
@Fair Economist:
what about pickup trucks? They care less about cars. Because profits in cars have gone away. Not pickups, though.
A Ghost To Most
@Mandalay:
It’s good to have this conversation, and now, before the hearings truly crank up.
catclub
I think either diesel or gasoline engines can be modified to put out black smoke – very rich fuel mixture.
cope
@BruceFromOhio: I bought my ’07 Fit in October of ’06 after much, much research (that’s how I go with major purchases). 130k miles and I am still getting anywhere from 35 to 39 mpg out of it. I, also, fully expect that when my wife and I trade in our Fits (hers is an ’08), it will be for an all electric vehicle and that that transaction is still a few years in the future.
To tack back to the theme of this thread, I believe the markets will determine how quickly and how these major shifts in transportation infrastructure will happen. The bleating of the orange one will likely dissipate in the wind and I can only hope to live long enough to look back on these dark times as an historical aberration.
A Ghost To Most
@catclub: There is already an electric pickup coming to market.
I expect to convert my 4×4 to electric at some point in the future.
Also, for anyone who thinks coal-rolling Prii is an urban myth, it has happened to me twice in metro Denver. Jacked white pickups both times.
Another Scott
@catclub: I suspect that the only reason pickups are profitable is because of the Chicken Tax:
There are some ways around it, but having that 25% markup built in makes them very, very profitable.
And there’s no reason (other than politics) why that tariff can’t quickly go away. There’s nothing inherently profitable about pickups.
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
I see lots of those Rolling Coal pick-’em- up truck assholes in rural northern Cal. I have dark fantasies about spontaneous engine combustion every time.
Martin
@dr. bloor: It won’t be that hard to fix. We rejoin Paris. We already have close to ⅓ of the states in the country committed to meeting the agreement, so it’s not like we’re having to spin up from nothing.
As for how to get the 40% along, we don’t give a shit. California learned a long time ago that politicking them was pointless. We simply bury them economically. California is 1/5 off the US auto market, and with allied states it’s nearly ½. Automakers can build to CA standards and know they’re meeting all state and federal regs, or they can build to federal standards and risk leaving half their market out. We don’t give a shit. Let them fail. We’ll help Tesla fill the gap. We’ll bankrupt their coal companies and push them out of jobs if they are too ideological to see where the economy is heading. They can hire CA solar companies to provide them with power.
Talk is cheap. Economics is much more effective.
Ryan
Can’t we sue Fox for false advertising for claiming to be a news outlet?
evodevo
“bloated orange cockwaffle ” LOLOL I am SO stealing that!
Matt McIrvin
@cope: I’m only getting 30-31 mpg from my 2010 Fit… but that’s almost all in hellacious stop and go traffic, the kind an electric or hybrid would do much better with.
Matt McIrvin
@A Ghost To Most: I’ve seen people rolling coal in northern Massachusetts.
Duane
Trumpov told the CPACer’s when the wind stops blowing no more electric. The crowd cheered wildly.
It’s unbelievable the rock-hard stupid we have to fight. Anthrax and tire rims (and coal) everytime.
karen marie
Would someone please explain to me how importing foreign cars threatens national security?
I’ve seen it stated before but I’ve never read or heard any explanation, it’s just presented as “conventional wisdom” that it is so.
karen marie
@BruceFromOhio: It really is the only way he’s ever functioned.
Chris T.
The best response to someone who has deliberately installed a “rolling coal” mod to their pickup truck is to take a dump in the bed.
If they complain, point out that they’re deliberately making the air stinky. You thought you would just help them out.
(do I need a “/snark”? should I point out that this is risky, don’t drink bleach, don’t lick the light bulb socket, etc?)
ElegantFowl
Dems just articulating clear policy and determination also adds significant risk into industry calculations about long-term strategy and investment.
Kent
This is utterly ridiculous.
The development time for any new car model (or even just a new engine) is longer than 2 years. Anything the automakers might do at this point in response to Trump will not come to market before 2020.
It is all just “vurtue signaling” or whatever the opposite of virtue is with respect to Trump. Vice-signaling?
SRW1
If the US automakers are not going to give up on world markets voluntarily, Trump is going to make them by forcing fuel inefficiency.
Utter genious, that dude.
emjayay
@karen marie: Maybe because then we won’t have the factory capacity to crank out P-51’s and B-17’s again when WWII The Sequel comes out?
burnspbesq
A good opportunity for Guv Gav to prove he has Brownian stones.
Raven Onthill
Returning to Omar for a moment; it appears she has a history of using anti-semitic language; see: https://www.twincities.com/2019/02/12/mn-jewish-leaders-talked-with-ilhan-omar-about-anti-semitism-last-year-why-they-remain-frustrated/.
Before I saw that article, I spent some time listening to the talk that Adam linked and she skirted the edge. I heard subtle echoes of the anti-semitic language that was more explicit previously. She may not, personally, be an anti-semite, but she apparently doesn’t care enough to drop the anti-semitic language, either, though she has made it more subtle.
:-(
Raven Onthill
I also like this Forward article explaining why this is of such concern to Jews: https://forward.com/opinion/420269/for-jews-ilhan-omars-attack-against-allegiance-to-israel-is-all-too/
Ruckus
@Kent:
The republicans and their leader really are trying to fuck up everything that was ever touched by logic. In this case it’s lower emissions, fuel economy and more secret deaths by drones. Next, passenger safety. Last year it was taxes so the uber wealthy could become more uber and immigration so that more brown people would die. They really are scum of the earth. And that’s offensive to scum.
enplaned
Democrats need to adopt, as a plank, Every Adult Citizen Votes. In other words, it should be the goal of the govt to take such measures to ensure that every adult citizen votes.
What that means is that DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands need to be incorporated into the US (I’m indifferent how – make Guam and American Samoa part of Hawaii if need be, for instance, just get them in the dang door). That the govt makes voting as easy as possible and implements incentives to do so. That even prisoners and ex-cons vote.
sigyn
@BruceFromOhio: Conflict, lack of clarity, unplanned shitshow – all hallmarks of the Art of The Deal.
Oh, please forgive me, I’m stealing this from you.