I have been spending a lot of time recently considering in the plight of the American automobile manufacturer and wondering whether I’ve been unduly harsh on them or not for their lack of movement on cleaner cars.

Yes, they could have had an opportunity to take the lead here, but maybe the recent ad campaigns like GM’s “Live Green, Go Yellow” show that they do “get it” and are trying to do the right thing.

Then all of a sudden an article like this comes along and convinces me once again that the American automobile manufacturers just don’t get it.

Let me try to quickly summarize the issue.

In response to the Arab oil embargo of the 70’s Congress passed the “Energy Policy Conservation Act” which established the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for automobiles. (Apparently our “addiction to oil” isn’t anything new.)
The CAFE standards are a very broad measure of the fuel effeciency of the cars produced by a manufacturer.

Between 1974 and 1985, the CAFE standards were agressively increased with the goal of doubling the fuel efficiency of cars.

By 1985, the CAFE standards were set to 27.5 mpg.

For the last 20 years, the CAFE standards have never gone above this level.

Let me just repeat that. For 20 years, the fuel efficiency standards required of automobile manufacturers have not changed.

Then, along comes the Energy Security Leadership Council, a group of “prominent business and military leaders” focused on establishing a “comprehensive, long-term policy to reduce U.S. oil dependence and improve energy security.” They released a report entitled “Recommendations to the Nation on Reducing U.S. Oil Dependence” and one of their first recommendations is to institute a 4% annual increase in the CAFE standards.

For example, go from 27.5 mpg to 28.6 mpg to 29.7, etc.

And what is the reaction from the American auto manufacturers? Did they agree that a 4% annual increase, after 20 years of no increase at all, was reasonable? Did they say that this was the least that they could do to help avert a global crisis? Did they step up to the challenge to put America’s best minds on solving this problem to help solve a national security issue?

No.

They threw up their hands and whined that “the customer made me do it.”

Bob Lutz, a vice chairman at GM, wrote an open letter to the community in which he complained that raising the CAFE standards would “put … the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles.”

He continued his whining by saying, “The Japanese government is spending huge amounts on advanced battery research. It would be nice if our government would do the same.”

I’m sorry, but I have very little sympathy for this sort of attitude. GM has been raking in money hand over fist for the past couple of decades selling over-sized cars that the public simply doesn’t need. This is the company the has convinced suburban moms and dads that they literally need a military vehicle to drive little Johnny and Suzy to school.

We are at a point in our history where we need to have leadership. We need smart, thoughtful executives to look into the future and understand that the long term economic benefits are aligned with environmentally conscious business decisions.

It doesn’t take a genius to predict that with all of the political instability in the Middle East and the emerging threat of global warming that we are going to continue to see a big upsurge in fuel efficient vehicles.

But, apparently, the folks at GM refuse to see that the world is changing. Rather than seeing this as an opportunity for innovation and leadership, they are happy to just keep pumping out the same vehicles.

Honestly, if GM and the other manufacturers had taken the lead on this issue and done more to proactively increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets, then we wouldn’t be in a position where we are talking about raising the standards for the first time in 20 years.

Personally, I believe in the innovation and intellectual capabilities of Americans. I believe that if put to the test, we’ll find a way to solve this problem.

Apparently, I have a bit more faith in American ingenuity than GM does.