Q. I'd like to present three sets of facts which were adopted and found in the hands of the National Air Pollution Control Administration. These presumed facts are results of studies done with public funds and I'd like to get the General Motors comments on these.
The three facts are to wi?: in 1967 when air pollution controls first went into effect, there was a dramatic decrease of pollution of General Motors cars, significantly more than either Ford or Chrysler. In each successive year, 1968 and 1969, pollution went back up again, until now it is about equal to Ford and Chrysler.
The second fact is that virtually no General Motors car made today meets the Federal standards. Prototypes made a year ago did, but the production line models don't in four out of five cases.
The third fact is that the pollution control devices that have been installed are deteriorating relatively rapidly and 79 per cent of those in operation show very significant deterioration in performance when aged through 30,000 miles.
BOWDITCH: Well, I think you're got a few of your dates out of line, but basically I understand what you are saying. The first data that you are referring to was some that the HEW collected on our 1968 and 69 models rather than 1970 models.
We used that data, and if that is correct data, where I said there was an 80 per cent reduction in hydro-carbons that's 86 per cent and where I said a 65 per cent reduction in carbon monoxide, that's 68 per cent.
As far as the GM cars meeting the regulations, there's no doubt about that or we wouldn't have been certified to start with.
Q. The prototypes were certified, the fact is surveys show most production cars don't meet the standards.
BOWDITCH: Which HEW survey are you talking about, apparently you have other facts which I am not aware of. Certainly the cars built met the standards as they were specified. The cars on the average meet the intent of those standards.
Fire-Year Wait
Q. I believe in one year, 1963, GM met certain minimum standards in the state of California. Why did GM wait five years before you expanded that nationwide?
BOWDITCH: The reason we started in California is because most of the hydro-carbon problem in the nation is the chemical smog problem associated with Los Angeles. Los Angeles' part of that problem is tremendously greater than anywhere else in the country.
The consumer obviously must bear the cost of the equipment which goes on cars to stop this pollution. The problem then becomes how much of these controls should be placed on all cars. When that equipment was placed on those cars, the medical authorities in California and the federal government made the decision that they saw no requirement in the rest of the country in those days, at that time, therefore we did not put the controls on the cars.
Q. In other words, as long as the federal government is not going to require certain anti-pollution control devices, you're going to wait until they do?
BOWDITCH: No, that is not the case. The medical authorities saw no requirement in the other parts of the country.