Why Clinton Wants to Jump-Start a Clean Car : Venturesome attempt at industrial policy for auto making
Odd fellows indeed have joined in an amazing new venture. There was President Clinton with the heads of the Big Three auto makers, announcing a public/private partnership to usher in what they hope will be a new era in auto technology. The result could be a quantum leap in auto efficiency, manufacturing and global competitiveness. This is an alliance that inspires enthusiasm and hope.
In proposing a plan that is radical both in its approach and its end product, the Administration and the Big Three auto makers have sketched out a 10-year road map for cooperatively developing a vehicle capable of getting 80 miles per gallon. That’s three times the average fuel economy of cars now on the road.
The newly announced “clean car” alliance is not just about producing a better automobile. It’s also about reinventing the relationship between business and government. Too often the two have been at odds, at the expense of the national interest. Such conflict can prove costly in a global marketplace where other countries such as Japan work with business to shape new directions in products and markets. The unusual Washington-Detroit initiative is an attempt to realign government and business into cooperative ventures to add muscle to U.S. competitiveness.
It’s industrial policy of sorts, but not the “winners and losers” sort. We hope it will nurture private, cutting-edge technology with the help of government science and expertise. The goal is to transform command-and-control government regulation and get industry to take on new challenges that have no immediate pay-back.
The goals of the alliance are indeed lofty. Even the White House has called it “a technological challenge comparable to or greater than involved in the Apollo (moon landing) Project.” Vice President Al Gore explained, “The goal has been consciously set at a point that lies beyond what we know how to do with current systems.”
How better to jump-start research and development than to take now-idle Cold War technology and apply it to consumer and commercial uses? Imagine scientists from weapons laboratories huddling with engineers from the Big Three auto makers. Might the devices developed to store electricity for the Strategic Defense Initiative be used to help power autos and trucks? Can the light, super-strong materials used in advanced weapons be fashioned into an affordable, comfortable car that is highly fuel-efficient?
Success, as the Administration points out, would require radical changes in the way automobiles operate. The outcome is risky and uncertain. But the government is not spending new dollars; rather its share of the $1-billion cost will come from the hundreds of millions of dollars it already spends each year on auto research. Furthermore, this is not the usual top-down government project; it looks to be carefully designed so that industry sets the final objectives and identifies areas where government help would be most useful.
There has been little progress in fuel economy since the mid-1980s. The Administration insists that in moving to create the alliance it did not trade off further improvements in the current 27.5-miles-per-gallon fuel-economy standard for auto makers’ fleets. The Administration is attempting to use public policy to help and enhance the private sector. There is no precedent for such a large-scale alliance. Detroit is the first big test.
