Reply #4: Costs

[orwell]

Costs will ultimately be born by consumers, whether directly, or indirectly through higher prices in the products they buy due to manufacturing industries passing on compliance costs in the price of goods sold.

That being said, it seems that it is clearly in everyones best interests to dramatically increase CAFE standards globally as both a check on GHG emissions at the tailpipe per mile traveled, but also to decrease usage of a resource that by anyones measure will be in short supply by mid-century.

High oil/gas prices will push the consumers to start demanding far more fuel efficient vehicles, but the lag time could be considerable. It would be better for all concerned if world governments treated this as the major problem it is and began pushing manufacturers toward energy efficiency now rather than later.

But ultimately, all costs will be borne by consumers. It would be best from a market perspective if the costs were born directly by those who use the resource instead of spreading it out among all consumers, whether they use the products/services or not.