Gadgetory

it's called the transatlantic trade and investment partnership is being negotiated now between the US and European Union and seeks to increase the ease of trade between the two regions by addressing tariffs yes but more interestingly by normalizing product standards between the two markets no product is subject to more standards than automobiles one of the big assumptions was if we test US and European cars and find that they're basically equivalent if not equal in terms of safety standards we can call that a wash and let them cross markets and that would avoid expensive re-engineering and recertification of every car before it can be sold in the other market now stubborn differences between the two markets have existed for a long time we mean automotive Li just look at the first Jaguar e-type the series one had these lovely glass covered headlights by late 67 those were gone thanks to US regulations and the car never looked quite the same again same goes for those five mile-per-hour hideous US bumpers that luckily never got adopted in the EU but this is not some battle for the aesthetic high ground in fact it's a battle for the dollar high ground the Atlantic Council estimates that US car makers could go from shipping about 13 billion dollars of cars into the EU market to nearly 85 billion dollars by 2027 and by the way automotive would be the biggest single industry to benefit from this normalizing process so for now automakers are saying this study needs more study while the European Transport Safety Council says maybe we should leave cars out of the negotiation one thing's for sure regulators can now agree that it pays to double check if cars that seem equivalent in very similar markets really are more realities of modern driving revealed now at CNET on cars.com click on smarter driver