Detroit Ignored Fuel Efficiency Demands, Says Ex-GM Economist

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"For years - and years, and years -automakers in the U.S. insisted that their studies showed that Americans didn't value fuel economy and preferred those fuel-swilling (and profitable) SUVs and pickups over gas-sipping compacts.

But that's not so, says former General Motors economist Walter McManus, now a professor and head of the Automotive Analysis division of the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan.

'The survey would estimate that people would estimate fuel economy fairly highly," said McManus. "Being a good economist, I said, "No, they don't," and I changed the results.'

And it wasn't just McManus. 'There was a systematic bias against such results," he said. "Our job was not to seek the truth, but to justify decisions that had already been made.'"

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2009/10/say-it-aint-so-detroit-ignored-fuel-efficiency-demands-says-ex-gm-economist-.html