Why 60 MPG Can Be as Standard as Catalytic Converters, Airbags, and Seatbelts

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Above, Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, in a 1971 meeting with Richard Nixon and John Erlichman, claimed air bags and emissions requirements would harm the US economy.

"One of the first cars I drove was my dad’s Buick Regal. I was only 14, but my older brothers let me sit behind the wheel. After college, I moved to DC and was happy to have an old VW Rabbit to wedge into tight parking spaces. I have fond memories of both those cars—they brought me a taste of freedom—but they can’t hold a candle to today’s models. Neither the Regal nor the Rabbit had the antilock brakes, power steering, or fuel injection that has since become standard.

The auto industry has pioneered remarkable innovations in the past three decades. Nearly every new car on the road is wired with a computer more powerful than the ones that sent astronauts to the moon—a development my dad couldn’t have imagined when he bought that Buick Regal.

And yet, now that the Obama administration is considering raising clean car standards to 60 miles per gallon, automakers claim they don’t have the ingenuity to do it."

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