Looking for cars with cleaner emissions and safer structures and cabins are costing automakers more and more each year and this additional costs is being put back in the selling prices of cars and so the consumer ends up paying for stricter regulations that are not of global standard. If all nations agreed on a set equal standard then car manufacturers could lower costs and share savings with the buyers.
Differing auto safety regulations in the U.S. and European Union cost global automakers as much as USD2.26 billion annually, according to a study commissioned by global automakers recently supporting alignment of the divergent regulatory regimes.
The study was conducted by the Center for Automotive Research and commissioned by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. It looked at 116 “vehicle variant groups” with models for sale in the U.S. and EU, made by U.S. and European automakers. The study found that those automakers incurred USD1.68 billion to USD2.26 billion in incremental costs from the differing safety regulations in 2014, larger than the USD1.6 billion in tariffs applied to U.S.-EU auto trade that year, according to the study.
