Republicans want to turn back time on automotive safety all in the name of saving a few bucks. Yes, it seems we’ve entered the “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!” portion of the affordability crisis. Republicans on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation invited the CEOs of America’s Big Three (plus Tesla) last week to face Congress and explain why cars are so expensive. The CEOs in question seem a bit wishy-washy on actually appearing, but the good news is they may not have to since the Republicans have already got their minds made up — cars are too expensive because of safety regulations, they say.
Traffic deaths were going down in the early 2000s and were flirting with the sub-30,000 mark only to spring back up in 2015 right around when cars began to get bigger and heavier overall. Now, over 40,000 Americans die on the road every year, with over three million injured, some of those injured Americans requiring expensive lifelong care. You’d think any developments that could reduce that number would be welcomed, but there’s only one number Republicans are interested in: car prices. But would nixing upcoming required safety features really save money for consumers?
The Wall Street Journal reports that Republicans basically believe car safety stalled in the 1980s, when traffic deaths breached over 50,000 at the start of the decadent decade and then came down to the low 40,000s with the introduction of seatbelt laws. Some of this is ignorance of the space — not everyone can be an expert on cars — but it’s also a Trump-style attempt at framing the solution as the problem.
Won’t someone please think of the children?
Republicans call out two technology requirements in particular. The first is automated emergency braking, the requirements for which will not come into effect until 2029 and have no bearing on current car prices. (The vast majority of cars on sale already either come standard with automated braking, or have it as an option.) The other is back-seat alarms to remind you if you’ve left a child or pet back there. According to Kids and Car Safety, since 1990 at least 1,165 children have sweltered to death in hot cars, and another 7,500 survived with varying degrees of injury. The cost of such a sensor? About $50 per car as of 2023, according to the Detroit Free Press. The Big Three plus several other large automakers even agreed to installed such sensors voluntarily in all their cars by 2025 because, you know, saving children from a horrific and entirely preventable death is a good idea.
When it comes to automated emergency braking, that technology is already saving lives. The Institute for Highway Safety estimates the technology could protect against 42,000 crashes and 20,000 injuries by this year. “But what of the costs?” I hear you say. The National Highway Traffic Administration says such technology adds up to only around $350 per vehicle, while car lobbyists claim a staggering $4,200 while putting drivers at risk with requirements for hard braking at high speeds. The argument that such sudden braking will actually make driving less safe is one I’m willing to entertain, but the cost seems extremely overstated. Let’s take the all-American example, Ford. To get AEB on its base trim Escape model, Ford charges customers $995 for the Tech Pack #1, which also adds a bunch of other features including Ford Co-Pilot360, which gets you adaptive cruise control, lane centering assist and blind-spot monitoring.
Republicans are taking the incredibly myopic view that automakers are better off focusing on full-self driving technology rather than installing such tech in cars today, as if today’s tech isn’t the bedrock of tomorrow’s self-driving personal passenger car. Instead, the senate commitee thinks simple safety requirements like AEB and back seat alarms have driven the average car price up to $50,000, from $38,000 in 2020.
It’s not regulations, but loopholes in regulation that are the problem
Republicans also seem to think that the changes via the cringe-titled “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” should have immediately brought down prices. The act removed EV tax credits for consumers and CAFE penalties for automakers. This did not immediately drive vehicle prices down, however, because this is the real world. Car prices were not high because of CAFE penalties, they’re high because automakers figured out long ago that they make more money on larger, more expensive vehicles, so now they mainly make those vehicles.
Those of us in the biz have been watching the car affordability crisis grow long before AEB requirements or child safety sensors. Car prices have been shooting up (along with the cost of everything else) for many years now, usually alongside the size of vehicles.
Regulations are part of the problem, but not safety regulations. A definition written in the 1960s lead to more U.S. automakers classing their products as a “non-passenger vehicles” in order to avoid stricter CARB standards. All they had to do was make sure the vehicle was capable of off-roading and that vehicle could get less stringent tailpipe emissions and safety regulations. It just so happens such vehicles have a much higher profit margin. This is why Ford doesn’t really sell small cars anymore, but is happy to sell you a $70,000 pickup truck. Now that cars are all huge, everyone feels the need to buy a huge car in order to protect themselves from being creamed by a huge car. It’s a feedback loop, one that is destroying our roads, environment and pocket books.
And then there are all of the other reasons
There are a ton of reasons why cars are more expensive these days. Cars have a lot more technology in general, not just for safety but for creature comforts like heated seats and touchscreens. Such technology must-haves require expensive components like computer chips and copper. ADAS systems require expensive cameras and computers to make the features all work together. There have been a lot more global supply problems recently, and just general inflation. When inflation goes up, the cost of everything, including cars, goes up as well. Ludicrous and probably illegal tariffs aren’t going to help the situation either, and neither will removing the $7,500 tax credit for electric cars.
The other argument Republicans plan to make is even more nonsensical; that automakers should focus on developing self-driving cars, rather than outfitting current cars with advanced driver-safety assistance systems. But my brothers in Christ, where do you think such advancements come from? Developing ADAS system that can all work together and be available for the owner to also drive is just self-driving cars in their infancy. Technology is developed in steps. If the Senate dislikes automated emergency braking, just wait until they hear how much emergency braking is done by self-driving cars.
Jalopnik saves the world
The good news? There’s a single answer to both affordability and traffic deaths! Just make cars lighter and slower. Reducing travel speed by just 5% can prevent 30% of fatal road crashes, according to the World Health Organization. And really, there’s no reason why a privately owned car meant for passenger car traffic needs to go over 100 mph, or reach 60 mph in less than four seconds. Just because speed tickles your bean doesn’t mean it should be allowed around just trying to make their way home at the end of the day and have no other choice but share the road with speeding lunatics.
And while lighter cars saving lives doesn’t seem to track, an IIHS study found that folks traveling in a car weighing 500 pounds more than the national fleet average were less likely to die in a crash, but that weight savings tops out around there. They were also more likely to kill other people in a crash. Smaller vehicles are safer for everyone on the road now thanks to safety advancements in things like body design and materials — you know, safety advancements made after 1980. If we all drove smaller vehicles, we’d save a lot more lives and a lot more money on things like infrastructure and gas.
But this is America, a place that defines freedom by what you can buy. Slower, smaller, cheaper cars as a policy is unthinkable in the land of GMC Hummer EVs and Jeep Grand Wagoneer Ls. Most of all, consumers would hate it. So congress can issue all the invitations it likes, I don’t foresee Mary Barra or Jim Farley jumping up in front of the nation and pledging to sell less safe cars for cheaper any time soon.
