John:
As I understand it, there has been no discussion of retroactively
applying
emissions standards to old cars. Anything is possible I suppose, but it seems
unlikely.
A more real possibility is the so called "cash for clunkers" program.
California ran a pilot program using one form of this concept. The concept is
simple, give people cash or some sort of tax incentive, to toss an old car in
the crusher.
California's pilot paid something like $2500 for any car you cared to
turn
in, provided that: 1. It had current registration. 2. It was old (25 years or
more?). 3. It was insured. 4. It had functional safety equipment (wipers, turn
signals, brake lights, etc) 4. It was driven, under its own power, to the
collection point. 5. It had a clear title.
Calif then performed an emissions test and asked how many miles per
year the
car was driven, bought the car and crushed it. They then totaled up the
estimated number of tons of pollutants that the cars would have emitted and
number of dollars spent to remove those pollutants. The conclusion was that
crushing old cars was a screaming bargain in terms of dollars spent per ton of
emissions removed from the air per year.
The car collectors howled because potentially collectible and/or
restorable
cars were being destroyed, even though the cars were no owned by collectors.
The reasoning was that the pool of potentially restorable cars would be
drastically reduced. The program was not renewed when the pilot expired.
There are other variations on this. Offering trade in incentives, tax
credits, etc. I suppose it might be cheaper for governments to simply instruct
classic car owners to update their cars to current standards, but it seems far
fetched to me. But then, I thought it was unlikely that Obama would be our
next president too.
Vance
Vance Navarrette
Cogito Ergo Zoom
I think, therefore I go fast
-----Original Message-----
From: 6pack-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:6pack-bounces@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of shewfamily@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 5:10 PM
To: 6pack@autox.team.net
Subject: [6pack] Mileage and Emission Standards
Has anyone seen or read anything about the Obama administration's proposed new
requirements for new car mileage and emission standards that would indicate
plans to apply those to existing cars?
<snip>
John Shewmake
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