Green Car Conference: 'We Need a National Energy Policy'

We asked Bill Visnic, our sometimes contributor and full-time senior editor for Edmunds AutoObserver to spend the day in Detroit attending a conference on green car issues. His report looks at the "wish list" that would result if various industry figures were able to present President-elect Barack Obama's team their own suggestions for fixing the industry.
Surprisingly, most eschewed the idea of handouts and protectionism in favor of something with a much broader reach than just the auto industry:

Reuters new service reported today that President-elect Barack Obama is seeking a "point person" for his administration on auto industry issues, "somebody who would have the authority to bring about reforms that would lead to an economically viable auto industry."

We wondered what one could tell that person that the auto industry (or the nation) needs to make sustainability a workable business model?

That's the same question several participants in this week's Green Car Conference in Detroit tackled.

The broad consensus was not surprising: the United States needs a viable energy policy to make a lot of things, including the ailing auto industry, function better.

Here are solutions various attendees at the Detroit confab said they would pitch to Obama's potential auto and/or energy czar:

 A "Manhattan-project"-type initiative to drive auto-industry research for fuel efficiency solutions, develop new technologies and create corresponding jobs.
- Dave Vieau, president and chief executive of lithium-ion battery developer A123Systems (lithium-ion battery developer).

A focused and strong national energy policy.
- Sue Cischke, Ford Motor Co. group vice president-sustainability, environment and safety engineering.

Invest in research and use incentives to build customer demand for high-efficiency vehicles.
- Jaycie Chitwood, senior strategic planner-advanced technologies department, Toyota Motor Sales USA.

Use the auto-industry crisis as a springboard for fundamental industry change and institute a fuel-economy based CO2-tax modeled on those used in many European countries.
- Patrick Oliva, corporate vice president-prospective and sustainable development, Michelin Group.

Develop a "cohesive" energy policy - a complete, broad, universal energy policy from A to Z. And institute a "floor" price for gasoline and diesel fuel to guard against what may be happening right at this moment: plunging fuel prices marginalizing the business case for developing alternative fuels, more-efficient powertrains and alternatives to the internal combustion engine.
- Tim Manganello, chairman and CEO, BorgWarner Inc. (presently most famous for innovating the dual-clutch automated manual transmission).

Others at the conference also advocated the fuel-price "floor," including Michael Brylawski, vice president and practice leader-mobility/vehicle efficiency practice at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

But few want to call it what it really is: a gas tax.

Of course, not everyone at this conference agreed on the matter of a price floor or gas taxor even on how to build more interest in efficient small cars.

Gregg Sherrill, chairman and CEO of Tenneco Inc., a major supplier of emissions-control components, said it's "a little premature" to start talking about such a system because when economies around the world begin to recover, demand for gasoline and diesel will rise again - and so will the price.

And Chitwood, after suggesting the government help build demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, cautioned that many national objectives may not necessarily be initiatives that work in the market. Efforts to induce people to buy smaller or more-efficient models are not always embraced by customers, and "small vehicles only work for certain lifestyles,"
she said.

Bill Visnic, Senior Editor, Edmunds AutoObserver

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John O'Dell November 14, 2008, 3:00 AM

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Fuel Economy, Legislation, Tax Incentives

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Ailing Auto industry, National Energy Policy