Filed under: MPG, GM, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Legislation and Policy, USA, At Witz End
I recently visited "Maximum Bob" Lutz at his home to interview him for the summer issue of the quarterly Motor Trend Classic and found the 79-year-old energetic and outspoken as ever six months beyond retirement from General Motors. We talked mostly product stories from his long auto career, which began at GM Overseas Operations in 1963 and progressed through ever-higher responsibilities at BMW, Ford and Chrysler, then back to GM ten years ago. But we touched on other interesting topics, too, including the effect of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements on domestic automakers.
"The feds basically handed our market to the Japanese," he contended in his memorabilia-filled office adjoining the garage where he keeps his most important historic cars. "American automakers had to tear up their entire product lines, downsize, go from full-frame to unitized bodies, V8s to V6s, rear- to front-wheel drive with transverse transmissions. It was the biggest technological tear-up in history, and it triggered a lot of subsequent problems, like poor quality and reliability. You can't re-engineer that much that fast, test it properly and get the technology matured without dropping a lot of balls, and we clearly did.
"Prior to CAFE, American quality was as good as any anywhere in the world," he asserted. "We were still selling a decent quantity of American cars in Europe because Europeans considered a Buick or a Chevrolet or a Ford to be superior in reliability to European products, which they were. The Japanese experience was no disruption whatsoever. They were way on the good side of the CAFE fleet average, so they didn't have to change a single product. They just continued to build what they had always been building." Continue reading...
Continue reading Bob Lutz: A CAFE level of 42 mpg is "totally ridiculous"
Bob Lutz: A CAFE level of 42 mpg is "totally ridiculous" originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 13 May 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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