I have argued before¹ that laws tend to lead to unintended consequences. In fact, it has become enough of a refrain on this site that I find myself repeatedly arguing that "should this country be destroyed it will be from an excess of good intentions." Well, today I have yet another example. This one is how a combination of "practical" bureaucrats and greenies combined to create the green crowd's worst nightmare. Yes, it is...

How Eco-Pressure Created the SUV²!

Way back in 1975, the government passed the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. The reasons were twofold.

First, following the OPEC embargo of 1973, bureaucrats in the Ford administration were looking for ways to decrease oil consumption. The administration did not think oil production could be increased (and never considered removing the two-tier price caps which discouraged domestic drilling), so their only option was to decrease demand. As automotive use was thought to be the largest consumer, or at least the largest consumer amenable to change, cars were the target of choice. Thus, it was decided that we would weaken OPEC by enacting fuel efficiency requirements³.

The other group pushing for CAFE standards was the then fledgling ecological movement. Having won some power with the formation of the EPA and their almost immediate banning of DDT, the eco-movement also threw their support behind CAFE.

However, where the eco-movement really started to exercise their political muscle, and where they ended up giving birth to their bogeyman du jour, the SUV, was in later CAFE "adjustments". Year after year, the eco-movement pressured for ever more stringent CAFE standards, forcing increasing fuel efficiency on the auto industry⁴.

So, how did the eco-movement create the SUV? And what do CAFE standards have to do with this?

Well, due to political considerations, the CAFE standards for light trucks required much lower fuel efficiency than they required for passenger cars. The result should have been foreseeable, but no one anticipated it. As fuel economy standards rose, larger cars, such as station wagons became impractical to manufacture, but consumers still desired a vehicle performing a similar function. This was how the SUV was born⁵. As consumers needed a large, multiple passenger vehicle with room for cargo, and as CAFE made station wagons impossible, the manufacturers tried out several possibilities based on the definition of "truck" (eg. the Ford Bronco, the Isuzu Trooper), before striking a chord with consumers in the modern SUV.

So, if the greens are upset with the SUV as it exists today, they should not blame manufacturers, as they were just responding to consumer demand. Instead they should blame their predecessors, who killed off the station wagon.

Then again, this should come as no surprise. Those who rely on laws to alter behavior they see an undesirable tend to think that passing a law will do away with that behavior. Nothing could be farther from the truth. People desire what they desire. If a law is passed, it does not remove that desire, it just channels it into paths that are less satisfying or more costly. (In this case, people who wanted gas guzzling station wagons substituted less appealing gas guzzling SUVs.)  Passing a law does not change human nature, it simply cuts off some avenues for expressing those desires⁶.

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1. These articles can be found here, here, and here.

2. While I was writing this, I did some quick checks to make sure I had the facts right. In the process I see that I was anticipated by at least one other essay. Nice to see that others are thinking along the same lines.

3. This is an area where we have a whole slew of unintended consequences. The CAFE standards lead also to lighter and  more fragile vehicles, increasing highway deaths. Of course, better design has mitigated this somewhat over the years, but would have actually reduced deaths had we not mandated lighter materials. But those unintended consequences are fodder for another article.

4. This should come as no surprise as we STILL see them pushing for higher and higher CAFE standards. If the trend continues, at some point CAFE will make all cars impossible, as they will demand more power from a car than a gallon of gasoline contains. Actually, it will be impossible long before that, as no engine is 100% efficient, and any car frame, even the lightest, still has some mass, as do the driver and the engine, and there are inevitable energy losses from friction, both with the road and between the moving parts inside the car. Of course, that point is far in the future, given the current rate of increase, but there is a limit to how high CAFE standards can be pushed.

5. Obviously, as they entered the market, other factors also increased SUV popularity. Some became status symbols. As SUVs replaced station wagon, some started using them for off road driving, and the popularity of that activity drove increased demand. And so on. My point is that SUVs would never have existed at all were it not for the CAFE standards and the lower fuel efficiency demanded of trucks.

6. In some cases, this redirecting is enough. No one cares if a murderer still desires to murder, so long as the law causes him to channel that desire into activities other than murder. The same applies for most criminal desires. Where this becomes a problem is with those laws associated with "reforming" man, mostly on the left. These laws need to change man to actually work, and the law is just a very poor tool for changing man's nature or desires.