Imagine: Suburban commuters all driving plug-in hybrids they charge overnight, city dwellers squeezing micro cars into the smallest of parking spots and rural residents having switched to biodiesels that can power less frequent — but longer — trips they make.
It’s not fantasy if you ask Don Hillebrand, director of the center for transportation research at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. The lab is leading the U.S. Department of Energy’s development on plug-in hybrids. Diversifying sources, in fact, is in Hillebrand's mind the solution to the nation’s transportation fuel crisis.
“There is no longer any single fuel, any single type of car, but a whole bunch of different types of things, all of which interact and are inter operative,” he said. “Ultimately, I think that’s the face of the future.”
Perhaps. But how far off? And at what cost to automakers and taxpayers? The answers may come quicker than expected since this alternative fuel future is one the leading presidential candidates have said they are best suited to deliver. Energy and gas prices have increasingly butted aside issues like the war in Iraq, and that has been reflected in the time both candidates are devoting to the topic.
Democrat Barack Obama chose Lansing, Mich., about 90 miles west of Detroit, in early August to reveal his latest energy plan, which included a call for one million plug-in hybrids on the roads by 2015. John McCain, the Republican hopeful, gave his energy proposals — such as a $300 million prize for a battery package capable of powering plug-in hybrids at 30 percent of the current costs — in Fresno, Calif. But, like Obama, he has not been a stranger to the Detroit area.
In July, McCain toured a General Motor’s Corp. facility in suburban Warren, Mich., where the Chevy Volt — the kind of electric vehicle Obama and McCain are touting — is being developed for its expected 2010 release.
In an election where the candidates are trying to put some distance between each other on the issues, it appears they are often caught on common ground when it comes to refueling tomorrow’s automobiles.
McCain recently announced his support for legislation to provide $25 billion in loan guarantees to help Detroit’s Big Three retool their plants for a transition to meet changing consumer demand and higher standards in fuel efficiency. Obama had already endorsed the measure in July, boosting its chance to pass through Congress this fall.
“Washington has stepped in to help Wall Street face these conditions,” McCain said in a statement this month, explaining the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program, which will provide low cost loans to automakers if Congress approves the funding. “I believe we should fund it and take action that will assist Detroit and its suppliers in making it through this difficult time.”
It’s one of a number of proposals for the transportation sector — another being consumer tax credits for buying low emissions vehicles — that both candidates support. In doing so, it would appear as if both were interested in moving the automotive industry forward without leaving Detroit behind.
But that can be a tough balancing act for McCain and Obama. Both want to appear to be at the vanguard of an environmental push to reduce the industry’s carbon emissions, which currently account for 20 percent of all carbon emissions in the U.S. On the flip side, neither wants to saddle Detroit’s Big Three with more obstacles in already critical economic times.
A chief example of this shaky ground is the candidates’ shared stance on state authority to regulate tailpipe emissions. Currently, national standards set the mark that passenger cars and light trucks of each manufacturer must meet in terms of a fleet average. That number is set to go to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 thanks to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
California and 16 other states have adopted, or are considering, state laws that would regulate tailpipe emissions and thus require higher fuel economy numbers than the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. But enforcing those stricter requirements is on hold until the courts declare whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must grant a waiver to allow them.
Giving states this ability is a popular stance with environmentalists, but it’s a harder sell in Detroit where automakers argue that a patchwork of standards could cripple the industry.
“This creates very costly and very confusing regulatory schemes for automakers, dealers and consumers,” said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 10 automakers including the Big Three, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and BMW of North America, LLC.
“The scary thing is that you got a couple guys out there all the sudden saying let the states do what they want,” said Reg Modlin, director of environmental affairs for Chrysler LLC. “But, I would hope that at some point somebody is going to realize what that means to the economy and to businesses and figure out that you really can’t survive very long that way.”
In their quest to court voters in a potential swing state like Michigan, Obama and McCain have stressed similar goals of moving cars away from oil dependence but doing so with American research and development. Just as important, both want to do it with American jobs, many of them in Michigan.
Still, the candidates’ plans for revamping the U.S. automotive industry are not identical.
Obama, for his part, favors annual increases in CAFE standards while McCain is for keeping the current standards — which automakers call aggressive and challenging — but increasing the penalties for not meeting them.
Obama’s goal of doubling fuel economy in the next 18 years with 4 percent annual increases is “on the edge of what would be possible to do,” according to Hillebrand, who formerly worked in research policy for DaimlerChrysler Corp. Such a lofty goal would require a great deal in terms of government support for technology and consumer incentives, he said.
As for McCain’s call to raise penalties for not meeting CAFE standards, Hillebrand said it wouldn’t make a difference for the big automakers that already meet yearly standards.
“I’ve never murdered anybody and if you decided that we would be tortured to death if we murdered somebody, I still wouldn’t murder anybody,” he said.
Although Hillebrand questioned the efficacy of McCain’s proposal, it does seem to strike that happy medium of appeasing the environmentally conscious voters without alienating the automakers who are less likely to oppose higher fines they probably won’t have to pay than higher standards they must meet.
Inevitably the candidates will rub one group or another the wrong way since not all policy proposals can be so benign.
Obama boasts that he first called for greater fuel economy standards not in air-quality conscious California but at the Detroit Economic Club.
"And I have to say that when I delivered that speech, nobody clapped,” Obama later said in Indianapolis. “The room was really quiet. But that's OK, because that's part of what is the task of the next president.”
Obama’s account of the audience response came into question when a YouTube clip of the speech captured applause. But clearly not everyone in the Motor City is enthusiastic about the prospect of increasing CAFE standards beyond the 35 mpg mark by 2020.
“The standards that they proposed for the cars and trucks under the current regulatory development are really challenging,” Modlin said. “And what they’ve done is frontloaded this performance requirement headed toward 2020, which sets us up for performance that is way beyond what the industry’s history is for fuel efficiency improvement.”
But while they may not approve of each aspect of the nominee’s respective energy plans, the automakers are certainly glad to be part of the conversation.
“The good news,” said Bob Babik, GM’s director of vehicle emissions issues, “that we see from both parties is they’re recognizing the role of advances in technology in meeting our goals here in the United States for energy efficiency, for petroleum reduction, for energy security,” and a “willingness for the federal government to provide support.”
Of course, Obama and McCain are looking for some return on that support at the ballot box.
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