If we sell too many big cars, we’ll have to stop building them. Then we’ll have to ram small cars down consumers’ throats and use dealer incentives to get rid of them so that we can build big cars again. The public is going to rebel because these hard-to-get big cars will then sell for full list or higher when the small cars are being given away.
The conflict between government standards and market demands is increased by the rollback of petroleum prices and extension of petroleum price controls at the same time. By making gasoline cheaper, congress has encouraged consumer demand for larger cars, while at the same time imposing fuel economy standards that require stronger demand for small cars.
The danger is from those who believe that government should be the source of all economic hope for the individual. The danger is from those who believe that government planning is a better device than the free marketplace for distribution of goods and distribution of the nation’s wealth.
We have stated that the full-size car market can’t be ignored because it is accounting for 30 percent of domestic auto sales for the model year. Chrysler does not intend to, and would not, abandon a market segment of that size and importance to automotive buyers.
We have consistently opposed mandatory fuel economy standards as unnecessary. Because it is clearly in our self interest to meet customer requirements on fuel economy improvements, as demonstrated by our own high mileage m.p.g. small cars recently announced.
Absent a significant technological breakthrough. . . the largest car the industry will be selling in any volume at all will probably be smaller, lighter, and less powerful than today’s compact Chevy Nova…
My father ran a crew of Hindus in 1911 in the Salinas Valley in thinning and hoeing beets. Then Japanese. Then we followed with Filipinos. And then the Mexicans. The stoop [laborers], most of them are small or more agile than the ordinary anglo due to their build and the fact that they seem to have a stronger body for the job.
Rulemaking should not be based on conditions that existed in the past, but should be based on conditions as they exist now...we believe a temporary emergency standard would result in polarization rather than constructive definition of areas of concern and constructive problem solving.
Experience with a wartime excess profits tax indicates that it tends to encourage needless and wasteful expenditures. With government bearing 80 to 90 per cent of the cost of business operations, there is little incentive for a corporation to increase the efficiency of its organization.
An excess profits tax is not in keeping with our competitive enterprise system. It suggests that government can decide how much profits should be, which profits are excessive, and which are not excessive. If this is possible with the energy producing segment of the economy, then is it not possible with other segments of the economy? Where do we stop? What will be the shortages next year and the next, and which businesses will be subjected to government regulation and control of their profits?
