Union of Concerned Scientists

Automakers Pollute the Press
Auto Alliance Ad Campaign is deceptive and untrue

Automakers have been known to “stretch the truth” in their decades-long effort to obstruct needed federal and state environmental and safety regulations.  Unfortunately, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (a.k.a. the Auto Alliance), the legal and lobbying group for BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen, has taken this practice to a new level with an highly misleading advertising campaign claiming that, “Autos manufactured today are virtually emission-free.”

The ad campaign, started in the Capitol Hill insider publication Congress Daily, is coming on top of their lawsuit to stop California's landmark regulations on global warming pollution from automobiles.  The Alliance's advertising campaign is an attempt to shift the pollution debate away from cars and trucks. When in fact, whether it is global warming or smog or toxics, they are still a significant problem.

The Auto Alliance deceptive ad implies their products are clean and healthy for our children.  Automakers have not lived up to their responsibility to clean up their products and reduce risks for our children’s health and environment.  Further, with this dubious choice in ad strategy, the Auto Alliance is trying to hide harmful contents of their products much like cigarette makers did. Their blatantly false claims deserve a powerful response.  We have asked concerned citizens to petition the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to open a false advertising investigation and have created a response ad to expose their misrepresentations.

• Click here to send a message to the FTC

At the center of the Auto Alliance’s deception is their failure to acknowledge the heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from their automobiles.  So let’s take a look at auto emissions starting with heat-trapping carbon dioxide:

• Heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from light-duty vehicles will total more than 1,300 million tons this year¹;
• Only 4 nations in the world emit more total heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels than U.S. autos release alone²;
• That’s like burning 450 million tons of coal – enough to fill an area 1 mile square and more than 600 feet deep³;
• That’s more than 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per vehicle – 125,000 cubic feet per vehicle – enough to fill a 2,500 square foot house five times over;
• Progress on reducing heat-trapping emissions from the vehicle fleet has been stalled during the past two decades.  Even worse, the average new vehicle today is emitting more heat-trapping gases than 20 years ago⁴.

Global warming pollution is expected to lead to worse smog, an increase in asthma-triggering pollen and molds, and a substantial rise in the number of heat-related illness and death.

• Click  here for American Public Health Association study on global warming and children’s respiratory illness.
• Click here for UCS reports on global warming related health impacts in states such as  California,  Alabama,  Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, 
  Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.

But it isn’t only carbon dioxide coming out of today’s cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans.  Consider these facts regarding smog-forming pollutants and toxic carcinogens:

• New Tier 2 regulations, in effect in 2009, will force reductions in smog-forming emissions.  In the meantime, manufacturers continue to sell and manufacture dirty vehicles that are 7 or more times as dirty as the target average for 2009⁵;
• Even under the new regulations, the average vehicle will emit more than five times as much smog-forming pollution as the cleanest vehicles, such as the Prius, do right now⁵;
• The dirtiest vehicles made today actually emit 40 times the smog-forming pollution of today’s cleanest vehicles, which include hybrids as well as other conventional and hybrid vehicles⁵;
• Even if every single vehicle on the road in 2009 met the new standards, the fleet of vehicles would still emit 500,000 tons of smog-forming pollution every year⁶.   That’s like 20,000 dump truck loads at 25 tons per load;
• In 2020, when more than 75% of vehicles on the road will have Tier 2 emissions, EPA projects that passenger vehicles will still emit more than 85,000 tons of toxic emissions linked to cancer⁷;
• On a cancer-risk basis, this is equivalent to more than 350,000 tons of benzene every year⁸.

Not exactly “virtually emission free” is it?  As we note in our report, Climate Control, cost-effective technologies already exist for automakers to help turn their false claim into real fact.  However, as with the automakers’ ill-advised lawsuit seeking to thwart California’s landmark regulations on heat-trapping emissions from automobiles, the auto industry is more willing to invest in their PR agents and lawyers rather than in their talented engineers.  With the deceptions exposed and mounting consumer pressure, we hope that the auto industry finally realizes that giving the public greater choice in clean cars is better than pretending that they already do.

NOTES

(1) UCS analysis of projected 2005 tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from light duty cars and trucks using the LEAP LDV model.  Assumes 8.746 lb of CO2 per gallon of gasoline and 9.29 lb of CO2 per gallon of gasoline equivalent diesel, based on Argonne National Lab’s GREET model, version 1.6.

(2) Only the U.S., China, Russia and Japan produced more carbon dioxide from all fossil fuel combustion than U.S. cars and trucks alone in 2002, the latest date for which international emissions estimates are available.  National emissions from burning fossil fuel in 2002 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/env/intlenv.htm) compared to UCS analysis of tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from light duty vehicles in the same year based on the LEAP LDV model.

(3) Assumes a carbon content of 80% and a bulk density of 850kg/m3 (conservative estimates for bituminous coal  - http://www.powderandbulk.com/resources
/bulk_density/material_bulk_density_chart_c.htm; http://www.osc.edu/research/pcrm/emissions/coal.shtml; http://www.ncgreenpower.org/elements/pdfs/Calculator%20Methodology.pdf )

(4) Based on fuel economy information from EPA’s Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2004 (available at: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fetrends.htm) and alternative fuel use estimates from the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2003 With Projections to 2025 (available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo03/index.html).  Estimates have not been made for other heat trapping gases such as air conditioning refrigerant and nitrous oxide.

(5) Source: US EPA Tier 2 regulations from “Federal and California Exhaust and Evaporative Emission Standards for Light-Duty Vehicles and Light-Duty Trucks” (available at: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/stds-ld.htm)) and the EPA Green Vehicles Guide (available at: http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/)

(6) Based on Tier 2, Bin 5 emission levels of 0.07 grams of NOx per mile and 0.09 grams of NMOG per mile, and projected fleet vehicle mileage for 2009 of 2,709 billion miles from the LEAP LDV model.

(7) Toxic emissions from USEPA, Analysis of the Impacts of Control Programs on Motor Vehicle Toxics Emissions and Exposure in Urban Areas and Nationwide: Volume ll: Detailed Toxics Emissions and Exposure Estimates, 1999

(8) Toxic emissions converted to their benzene equivalent cancer risk based on cancer risk factors in USEPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS); and the CARB report Findings of the Scientific Review Panel on the Report of Diesel Exhaust, 1998.