WASHINGTON DC – President Barack Obama wants Detroit’s Big
Three automakers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles getting ahead of future
vehicle demand, rather than trying to catch up.
“Detroit needs to be focused on capturing, you know,
the lion’s share of the market for fuel-efficient cars. And you know, they
worked with us to double fuel-efficiency standards. And I understand that
American consumers sometimes are resistant. We like big cars and we like
driving long ways and we like cheap gas,” Obama told the Wall Street Journal
Monday. “I’m also confident that over the course of 10 or 15 or 20 years
that the American auto industry can continue to thrive. But what we’ve learned
is that the American auto industry does not thrive when it tries to avoid the
future. It thrives when it seizes the future. And that’s true of our economy
generally.”
U.S. automakers – like the industry in general – have seen
small car sales decline this year in the face of low gas prices. U.S.
automakers are running pickup and SUV factories overtime to try to meet soaring
demand for bigger vehicles. And U.S. automakers make significantly higher
profits on larger vehicles than smaller ones.
In the first three months of 2015, car sales are down under
1 percent, while pickup and SUV sales are up 11 percent. Automakers agreed in
2011 to double fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 mpg – a mandate that will cost
the industry about $200 billion through 2025.
