California’s strict emission standards are poised to move the entire auto market towards more expensive, lower-emission vehicles, endangering the American auto industry, which is already posting huge losses in the electric vehicle market, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Top U.S. car manufacturer Stellantis sent notices to 2,455 workers in Detroit and 1,225 workers in Ohio on Dec. 8, notifying employees of possible layoffs to come in February in a move to shift its production to comply with California’s regulations that are increasingly cracking down on internal combustion engine vehicles, according to Barron’s. The projected layoffs from Stellantis could be one of many in the auto industry as California’s environmental regulations shift markets across the country, despite electric vehicles still not being affordable for many Americans and profitable for automakers, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF. (RELATED: Elon Musk’s Tesla Issues Recall For Almost All US Vehicles After Government Probe)
“The California standards have a huge impact,” Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “Both the [Environmental Protection Agency] in its proposed greenhouse gas motor vehicle standards and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in its proposed corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards cite California’s [zero-emission vehicle] mandate as driving vehicle electrification in the U.S. Moreover, under Clean Air Act Section 177, other states may opt into California’s ZEV and [greenhouse gas] standards — if those policies are lawful in the first place, which of course California and its state and federal agency allies claim is the case.”
