Autos: Clearing the Air

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Everyone in California seems to talk about smog, but no one has been able to do much about it—until recently. Aware that the eye-irritating, lung-smothering fumes are caused largely by the tail pipe exhaust from the state's exploding auto population of 7,200,000, legislators passed a law requiring all new cars to be equipped with a state-approved exhaust control system by the beginning of the 1966 model year. Four independent manufacturers rushed in to capture the potentially huge market, spent some $20 million to develop their own antismog devices, got state approval for all of them. Last week they suffered a severe setback, while California drivers got good news.

General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and American Motors announced that they will modify the engines of 96% of all cars they deliver to California for the 1966 model year, hoping to eliminate as much as 90% of smog-producing exhaust hydrocarbons. The antismog systems developed by the independents oxidize exhaust gases in a muffler "afterburner" and would have cost motorists between $80 and $120 installed. Detroit's system oxidizes the exhaust hydrocarbons before they leave the engine, will add only between $10 and $35 to the customer's auto cost and practically eliminate the independents' devices from the lucrative 700,000-a-year California new-car market.

Growing pressure in several states for similar antismog legislation may eventually move Detroit to put the devices in all of its new cars, or at least offer them as regular optional equipment. But the independents, who gambled that Detroit would not bother developing its own system, may yet recoup their development costs. By 1967, when state law will require installation of exhaust control devices on older cars, there will be 10 million used cars on California's highways.