Soble Discusses U.S. Automakers' Regulation Strategies in Nimonik Podcast

Partner Jeff Soble was interviewed for a Nimonik podcast, “What do American automakers want?” about the strategies U.S. automakers are pursuing with respect to regulation.

Soble said the U.S. auto industry is caught in the middle of an ongoing dispute over existing fuel economy and emission standards between the EPA, which has proposed freezing or rolling back the standards, and California officials, who want to keep them. “All of this will get altered over time depending on how electoral politics in the U.S. move in the next two to four years,” he said.

The automakers, which have spent years preparing for progressively higher standards, want certainty above all else, he added. “[W]hat they want more than anything is to know what it’s going to be and have it stay that way for awhile,” he said.

Soble also said he wouldn’t dare predict which standards will eventually prevail, but that whatever they are, they will have to be the same from one state to another. “I don’t know how you could sell a car that would meet the standards of California, but have different standards in Colorado,” he said. “The supply chain and the manufacturing chain is just too intertwined in North America to be able to do that.”