Is Toyota conspiring to kill the planet?
 

My phone and laptop suggested some interesting articles today, including the ones about Ford and GM losing business to Asian brands that still make sedans. I felt like rage-quitting when I read an article about a prominent politician claiming that saying "I won't do X unless you do Y" is a bribe.

No, that is blackmail:

The first part definitely fits. The second part seems too narrow.

Anyway, my phone also suggested an article about Toyota conspiring to kill the planet. Apparently Toyota and GM agree that California should not be able to define their own pollution standards. I do not know why, it definitely did not say, it was just a collection of tweets. I do not understand why articles quoting tweets write out the text and then show the tweet.

I already read that and I did not care the first time.

They claimed that seven whole people swore off Toyota forever because of this evil scheme.

They said they were hybrid and EV owners. How many Toyota EVs are there?

The Mirai, so... none.

All of the vitriol was targeted at Toyota, but at least one of those people apparently drove a Volt, so why did they obsess over Toyota, and not GM?

It was an annoying and completely one-sided article. I am not linking it or giving much information about it because I do not want to give attention to them.

Trying to find Toyota's reasoning, the first Google result is Wall Street Journal's paywall. This is the second:

The New York Times: General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Fight, Splitting the Industry

All that I learned was that Fiat-Chrysler sided with GM and Toyota.

Basically, those three want to make vehicles to one standard nationwide. The other manufacturers want to build to California's standards.

I did not learn anything here: Wired: The Fight Over California's Emissions Rules Just Got Real

PBS: Why Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom thinks revoking emissions standards could be "catastrophic"

Apparently, it is illegal for carmakers to set common goals: The Truth About Cars: Justice Department Subpoenas Automakers Over California Emissions Pact

WBUR: The Fuel Economy Standards Fiasco Is Classic Trump

People regularly argue that cars would be cheaper and more reliable without endless efficiency and environmental standards.

I have heard of newer cars having more and more complicated and expensive catalytic converters and oxygen sensors. Let's say that a 2020 car costs an extra thousand dollars because of those factors, compared to 2000.

How many buyers would need to buy cars one year old instead of new because of those factors? How much does safety vary from year to year?

The MSRP on a 2020 Civic is $21,650. That sounds high to me, but in2013dollars.com assures me that it is $14,047.50 in 1999 dollars. What percentage of the $21,650 cost is from emissions and fuel efficiency systems?

However, the second sentence is pure garbage. Larger vehicles are safer?

For whom?

Wikipedia: Criticism of sport utility vehicles

They suggest that the drivers of large vehicles drive safer than drivers of low vehicles?

How?!

How many drivers use large vehicles to make smaller vehicles move out of the way? How many drivers drive more defensively in small vehicles than in larger ones?

"[W]hen a driver feels unsafe when driving a vehicle, it makes the vehicle safer. When a driver feels safe when driving, the vehicle becomes less safe."

"US SUV drivers were found to be less likely to wear their seatbelts."

I cannot find any other articles about it. Why do you guys think that Toyota, GM, and Fiat-Chrysler are trying to forgo California standards? Do you feel that people are safer in small cars or SUVs?

SUVs roll over easier than cars.

New Mexico is adopting stupid California emissions standards. Which does absolutely no good here as the only time air quality is anything other than good is when there is a dust storm, grass fires and wild fires.

Adopting California emissions in new Mexico is pointless virtue signaling.

If there weren't 7,500,000,000 eh holes tearing around or worse yet, idling all their cylinders, expensive emission controls wouldn't be necessary.

Why should California be forbidden to impose stricter emissions laws than the federal laws?

I've only been to the USA once in 1987 and I clearly remember entering the LA area, down from the hills on a sunny day, diving into one thick blanket of brown air and once in the city, the sun coloring dirty orange right in the middle of the day.
It did not smell very nice either.

LA fixed that by getting stricter laws than the rest of the USA.
I cannot imagine they'd allow the clock to be turned back.

This somehow inconveniences or annoys him?

Now people crap in the streets there, the stench hasn't improved.
The air quality is better but you can get typhus.

They want people to buy electric vehicles which should be a great way to reduce at least the HC, NOx and O3 related vehicle borne air pollution but then pg and e turns off the power.
We don't need this type of stupidity infecting other states.

What does PG&E stupidity have to do with clean air standards?

My first visit to L.A. in the early '80's resulted in being sick the whole time because of air so thick you could see it.

It's quid pro quos all the way down, not turtles.
Garbage.

Meanwhile Elon Musk and the head of VW are onstage together talking about Gigafactories. The only real players at this point are Tesla and Arcimoto.

Pg and e has been over regulated to the point where they can no longer do their job effectively.
With pg and e turning off the power to millions of people that is going to give people on the fence about buying an electric vehicle one more reason not to.
The California nimbys have made it nearly impossible to build a power plant with in the state, in the name of saving the world. This caused pg and e to build thousands of miles of transmission lines to bring power in from out of state.
Their overy built neglected infrastructure has sparked several wild fires, that was pretty disastrous for air quality.

It's like every pointless virtue signaling move the people of California have made in their little fantasy world has had disastrous consequences in the real world. It's not pg and e fault they are just dealing with the junk hand they have been dealt by stupid voters and activist politicians.