Subaru says "screw the environment" (NRDC)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contacts: Jon Coifman, 202/289-2404 or 202/320-8026 (cell) Eben Burnham-Snyder, 202/513-6254 or 202/277-1045 (cell)

Go Truck Yourself: Outdoorsy Subaru Dodges Fuel Economy Rules

Reclassifying Sedans and Wagons as SUVs to Skirt Standards is Affront to Company's Core Customers, Sets Poor Precedent for Auto Industry

WASHINGTON, DC (January 14, 2004) -- Subaru, the automaker that built its name marketing to skiers, bikers, kayakers and other outdoor enthusiasts is telling customers to take a hike. The company is about to skirt federal fuel economy rules by officially reclassifying the sedans and wagons in its popular Outback line as trucks, making small design adjustments to exploit a loophole that subjects the car to much weaker efficiency standards. Decreased fuel economy means more pollution from the tailpipe.

Subaru's contempt for air quality and the environment runs sharply counter to the image promoted by the company. The story -- first reported in yesterday's New York Times -- will resonate most with the carmaker's core market: active Americans concerned with healthy quality of life and outdoor preservation, according to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). It also sets a poor precedent for the auto industry as a whole.

"Subaru has spent years building a reputation with people who care about a healthy environment. Cutting corners on fuel economy rules and increasing emissions gives buyers a big reason to think twice before walking into the showroom," said Dr. Dan Lashof, Science Director of the NRDC Climate Center. "Customers expect more responsibility from a car company that markets itself the way Subaru does."

NRDC is encouraging its members and others to contact Subaru to register complaints about the plan.

One probable reason for the embarrassing move: Subaru's average fuel economy has been falling steadily for several years, with their 2003 models barely meeting the 27.5 mpg requirement for cars. Light trucks must average only

20.7 mpg today, and 21.2 mpg in 2005. The Outback is based on the Subaru Legacy, which has been treated as a car under federal guidelines since its introduction as a 1989 model. Subaru is able to skirt car standards by raising the suspension and ground clearance of the current vehicle.

Last year, Subaru named Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong as national spokesman. The company sponsors a wide range of outdoor organizations including the American Canoe Association, the International Mountain Bicycling Association and the National Ski Patrol. Recent television ads made fun of SUV owners lumbering through the wilderness, positioning Subaru cars as the lighter-footed alternative.

Subaru also has a high profile cross marketing deal with outdoor retailer L.L. Bean. Other corporate partners include Dagger Kayaks, and the Gary Fisher Mountain Bike Team, along with ski equipment makers Swix and Nordica. Institutional partners include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society, the Geological Society of America, the Carnegie Science Center and the Franklin Institute Science Museum.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than

550,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. More information is available through NRDC's Web site at
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Reply to
John Eyles
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How does he make the leap that people who recreate outdoors (skiers, bikers, kayakers and other outdoor enthusiasts) are " people who care about a healthy environment" ? Some are and some are not, just as some who don't "get out" much care deeply for a healthy environment and some don't. TG

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Reply to
TG

People who identify with a marketing image and buy one brand over another to soothe their guilt are idiots and hypocrites. Like somehow driving brand x that gets higher mileage makes you an earth saver and driving brand y that gets lower mileage makes you an earth destroyer. I bet the NRDC parking lot is loaded with fuel sucking, earth destroying Volvo's.

Reply to
K5

Yawn...

I read where the PT Cruiser was classified a "truck" under the regs when it came out. I imagine it's still classified as such. Same reasons as Subaru faces. Subaru's setting no precedents... how 'bout the "seats" in the back of the Brat? That was a mirror image, classifying it as a car instead of a truck to avoid some kind of tariffs.

As long as the laws are as screwed up as they are, and people think they can have 6000 lb "passenger" vehicles, mega-hp engines, 4wd or AWD, and all the other goodies they seem to want, without admitting there's a cost in fuel economy, we're gonna see this stuff. Why is a 4-door C-2500 series Chevy with an open bed a truck, but you enclose the back end, swap the badge to "Suburban," and it becomes a car (at least according to the DMV here in California?) The list goes on and on...

Yawn again...

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

Dear Jon Eben, Your logic is very flawed. You must be appealing to the gullible people with IQ of Forrest Gump.

Nothing has changed in the Subaru lineup just because some paperwork was shifted around in Washington. Besides, the current regulations are pretty stupid anyway because they do not take into account how emission systems deteriorate over time. That is to say do you know how much

10 y.o Grand Am pollutes versus 10 y.o old Civic versus 10 y.o Impreza?

It's not all that difficult to calculate how much of emissions per vehicle (or per vehicle per model year, whatever) each manufacturer is reponsible for if you fish the data that California DMV collects from the smog check stations. But I guess Greenpeace enthusiasts are too stupid to write the required data mining application to support their case.

My uneducated guess is that just any given american model pollutes more on average than any given japanese car model (be that Subaru or whatever). Why? Because the vehicle inspections in Japan are comprehensive. California smog check pales in comparison.

In short, until someone has some solid data on cumulative pollution figures broken by car model, category, manufacturer environmental activists should probably shut up.

As I said DMV has the data. It's only a question of examining it closely and carefully.

Maybe it's a project for a trash publication specializing on scandals :-)

Reply to
John Opezdol

The real problem is that trucks/SUV's are exempt from tighter regulations...

CW

Reply to
CW

All in all, a totally stupid move by Subaru. A bad rep will cost them more in sales than what they will be saving via loophole. Someone needs to be fired.

DK

Reply to
D.K.

Maybe, but everyone is doing it. "NRDC" is a special interest group unlike any other. The have very little clout. The "article" doesn't even mention what exactly the loophole was. Is raising the suspension all that Subaru did? And how high did they do it? THe outback series has higher ground clearance for the occasional light offroad. That is no different from smaller SUV's. More than likely, this won't even make it to mainstream press because it is quite undeserving.

CW

Reply to
CW

Agreed. Let's start with the legislators who are bought by the bigger manufacturers and pass stupid laws that exempt so many vehicles... the guys at Subaru are so far down the food chain they don't warrant more than passing attention.

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

snipped-for-privacy@thanks.to.spam.net (D.K.) wrote: | >Go Truck Yourself: Outdoorsy Subaru Dodges Fuel Economy Rules | | All in all, a totally stupid move by Subaru. A bad rep will cost | them more in sales than what they will be saving via loophole. | Someone needs to be fired.

I don't think so. Nor do I think they'll get a bad rep from it, simply because the emissions rules in the US are the problem, not an arbitrary automobile descriptor. The rules, from what I know, do not give any credit to manufacturers that do more than they actually need to.

As an example, the US Subaru WRX not only has 3 catalytic converters, but is also LEV. All WRXs sold in the US meet the more stringent California emissions limits, too. Subaru obviously does care about emissions, but the US emission laws need work.

-bpb

Reply to
Brent Burton
Reply to
Rodrigo Diaz

You mean as opposed to the legislators bought by the enviro-lobbies? If it's such a good idea not to have gas guzzling cars then why do people buy them? As an eco-fascist, you expect the government to pass laws to save people from themselves, because you, as the all knowing keeper of morality know what's good for us all. Well screw you. You want to "save the earth?" Try putting a more cogent case for your POV and let people decide for themselves. So far, the predictive record of the enviro-apocalyptics has been somewhat worst than that of the apocalypic Christians. IOWs you can stick it up your Paul Ehrlich.

Reply to
Ready Mix

< snip article>

I'd like to suggest that the author of this article go "truck" him- or herself. I'll buy whatever car I damn please. Our air is far cleaner today than it was just 20 years ago, despite there being more vehicles on the road. A modern gas-guzzling 3-ton SUV puts out fewer tailpipe emissions than did a 1978 Honda CVCC, despite drinking down twice as much gasoline. Today's new cars and trucks are *not* the cause of whatever clean air problems the world still has. Those problems are caused by older cars, trucks, and busses, and by old fossil electric power plants. There's absolutely nothing the automakers can do about these *real* sources of pollution, and placing the blame for these problems around their necks is both unfair and counter-productive.

The entire concept of mandating fuel economy standards is asinine. People are going to buy the vehicles they want to buy. And right now, people seem eager to buy large and fuel-ineffiecient vehicles. This puts the automakers in the awkward position of having to try and force economical vehicles down the throats of a public that, for the most part, just isn't interested in order to avoid fines.

It is the promoters of fuel economy standards who are primarily to blame for the popularity of SUV's on America's roads. By raising fuel economy standards for "cars" as high as they have, they've forced automakers to build "cars" that just don't meet the wants and needs of the buying public. But the automakers *are* still able to sell vehicles that the public wants by calling them "trucks." Joe Average isn't going to care whether his new vehicle is classified as a "car" or a "truck." He's only going to care about what it delivers: Room for the people or stuff he wants to carry. Power to pull his toys. Power for passing and climbing steep grades. And prestige. As the public's choices in the "car" department become smaller and weaker (as they must in order to comply with mandated fuel economy standards), this public is going to find them less and less desireable. And they're going to turn more and more to "trucks." And this is exactly what has happened. And as fuel economy mandates creep higher and higher, it's going to happen more and more.

The Subaru Outback sedan and wagon aren't going to pollute any more as "trucks" than they did as "cars." They're not going to use any more fuel as "trucks" than they did as "cars." And people are still going to buy them. Not because of their vehicular classification, but because they're well-built, reliable, practical and safe. And something else that won't change on the Outback line: They won't get downsized into extinction by ever-tightening fuel economy standards. Subaru's reclassification of the Outback line serves only one purpose: It allows them to keep a popular car popular. And as a realistic alternative to much larger SUV that are currently available, it's presence in the marketplace could reasonably be seen as a benefit to the environment (if you believe that big vehicles cause big envoronmental problems, which I don't). So whether you believe that car emissions are to blame for our planet's environmental problems or not, Subaru's move to reclassify the Outback line is a good one.

- Greg

Reply to
Greg Reed

snipped-for-privacy@io.com (Brent Burton) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@io.com:

BWAH....you're using a WRX as an example??? The vast majority of people buying these MOD them to death burying their warranties in the process. The only reason the WRX (and EVO for that matter) is in the US market is because of a video game.

Reply to
Snowcatcher

Give me a break. That's the NRDC's interpretation of Subaru's move. Your post is interesting, but it's more political than mechanical.

Reply to
L. Kreh

Yawn.

Not any different than Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, and your Mom, etc. You should be complaining to your lawmakers instead, they make the rules allowing that. (Oh, I forgot your Governor is just going to blow stuff up. Good luck with that.)

Note, some of us (like me) drive cars with small efficient engines cuz we are cheap bastards and no other reason.

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Reply to
Sparky Polastri

Doesn't need mainstream press here. Most Subaru owners in my area don't listen to mainstream media... they listen to each other. Environmental issues here are #1.

Auto marketing 101: don't give the customer a reason to go anywhere else.

Looks like Subaru is giving its customers ALL the reasons to go somewhere else.

-- Pete

Reply to
Peter Berkey

Sparky tries to justify it.....

Yeah, only difference is that Subaru was marketing itself with the illusion of being "environmentally friendly". Now, Subaru can win top honors as being the master hypocritical auto maker illusionist of planet earth.

Me? I'm outta here..... just traded in my Subaru for a Toyota.

-- Wind Mountain Pete

You should

Reply to
Peter Berkey

(All kinds of drivel that ended with:)

Please write back when you're having a better day.

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

Right, for that special interest who gives a f*ck about the environment, and cares that the USA produces way more than it's fair share of green house gasses and other pollution.

Sorry to offend all the ditto-heads out there. But I thought this news would be interesting to all Subaru enthusiasts regardless of political persuasion.

John

Reply to
John Eyles

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