US should consider gas tax: Ford chief

TRAVERSE CITY, United States (AFP) – The United States should consider imposing a European-style gasoline tax if it hopes to improve energy security and tackle global warming, the head of Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday.

“The way to get at is to make an economic decision just like in Europe where the fuel prices are seven or eight dollars a gallon,” Ford chief executive officer Allan Mulally said. “Then our behavior would change dramatically.”


The current policy of forcing automakers to maintain an average fuel economy level across their product lines is not sufficient to cut gasoline consumption and is harming the industry, Mulally said at an automotive conference in Traverse City, Michigan.

“I’ve never seen a market distorting policy like CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy),” Mulally said.

To keep average fuel economy standards in line, automakers have been forced to produce more smaller cars than there is demand for to be able to produce the larger models that customers really want, he said.

AFP