...to save auto manufacturers money on Environmental and crash testing? If all 3 countries could sign an agreement when it comes to Crash testing and environmental testing it could save the manufacturers possibly million$ and speedup car releases. Canada already gets every car and truck the US gets from US automakers.
Here's what Ford offers in the US & Canada www.Ford.com
and in Mexico
ford mexico
Here's the USA & Canada Chevy's
www.chevy.com
The Mexico Chevy's
Chevy Mexico
The USA & Canada Dodge's
www.Dodge.com
Mexico Dodge's
dodge mexico
This is also a double edged sword however because more foreign manufactureres could be sold in the USA but I Don't think that is such a bad thing.
Just to name one Fiat sells cars in Mexico
Fiat Mexico
Well, you have to take into consideration that the original intent of all these complicated, diverging regulations is precisely to make it so that manufacturers have to spend a ton of money passing "tests" in each country, and to grease people's palms. Canada has roughly the same pollution controls as the US but our bumpers have to survive a 5 or 15mph (Can't remember exactly) crash unscated. It's a pointless niggling rule that doesn't do anything except allow some sociopath in the rules department to fap away at himself while thinking about how he managed to squeeze in one more retarded meaningless hurdle for the American sellers and Canadian consumers. Most US manufacturers pass it without even trying, but some cars didn't and were never imported. The 1984 Ferrari 288 GTO, the retro lookin' Ford Thunderbird, the 2004-2007 Pontiac GTO, ect...
What we need to do is something like Europe. Where if your car is certified in one country, you can drive it in another. That way you can import anything you want as long as you pay the import tax. A friend of mine from France used to tell me that people would go to Spain to buy SEATS because they were insanely cheaper than Volkswagens while basically being the same thing, and they never had a single problem driving the cat straight home. Remember the Canada VS US debacle where the Canadian dollar was worth more than the US one so some car manufacturers out and out forbade their dealers to sell cars to Canadians?
It's all about money and when money (and especially bribery) is involved there's no incentive for anyone to "fix" the problem.
I mean, every green minded ecologist I talk to is always shocked to hear that the US has stricter pollution rules than the whole of Europe. There's not one country there whose pollution controls are more restrictive than California's, yet Europe has more cars and a hell of a lot more reason to control emissions and protect itself against smog and whatall. Which means that Cali's are artificially bumped up solely for the reason of squeezing more and more money from both consumers and automakers.
We need to end individual state emission requirements. The way I see it is that if it passes Federal regulations its good enough for everyone else. California (and the others that adopted their regulations) need to get their head out of their ass and realise that they are not saving the world, just putting an extra burden on the manufacture.
