I think since they are used more, and burn more fuel generally more total emissions come from heavy commercial vehicles, so at least the more rigorous testing was introduced in the right sector first.
This is also part of the reasoning one of the Tesla founders used when they moved on to creating hybrid drivetrains for trucks with Wrightspeed.
Part of the problem is that basically the closer you run the diesel engine to its optimum mpg-wise, the more NOx it emits.
So, when you are trying very hard to make engines more efficient to get impressive mpg numbers, you also end up generating more NOx (Which you can then get rid of using urea, which I think is the preferred option in trucks and buses - think AdBlue or whatever it is called when used for cars.
I wonder how my old diesel (1998 Toyota Land Cruiser 1KZ-TE, 3.0l I4 TDi) would fare when compared to a modern diesel.
Obviously, it would soot orders of magnitude more - but I wouldn't be surprised if the NOx emissions were surprisingly low, seeing as efficiency was way down on Toyota's list of requirements; they just made a bigger fuel tank.
It was designed to just work(tm) - almost regardless of what happened to it. Gas mileage? Not as much.
> However it does consume more AdBlue and/or produces less power the cleaner it is
This is why it's more costly. In order to design a diesel car that meets the exact same specifications, they either need to add an entire urea system (costs more money to manufacture, plus ongoing AdBlue costs to the consumer) or add a larger less efficient engine to meet the same performance target (costs more money to manufacture, plus ongoing higher petrol costs to the consumer).
Making a non-polluting diesel car is certainly more costly than making an equivalent diesel car that you don't care about pollution on at all. You're adding a big engineering constraint, of course it gets more costly!
I should add that I'm all in favor of cutting down pollution, and that if diesel as a technology turns out to not be that practical anymore for small cars, then so be it. Eventually they should all be zero emissions anyway.
> if diesel as a technology turns out to not be that practical anymore for small cars, then so be it.
This is tricky because, in the US market at least, one of the major appeals of small diesel cars was their performance / low end torque. There aren't really any other options on the market right now that can offer the same mix of performance/efficiency. Diesel cars are definitely on their way out in the US but I'm not sure it will be a net gain in the end. Lots of people such as myself are choosing to replace their small diesel cars with bigger, less efficient, similar performing cars.
Gasoline TDI comes pretty close in terms of performance and low-end torque, although fuel economy isn't as good. I wish OEMs would implement water injection as a standard feature in those engines, which would significantly close the gap.
> major appeals of small diesel cars was their performance / low end torque.
Friend of mine is ditching his VW Diesel TDI for a Chevy Bolt at the end of the month. I'll be interested to see what he makes of that switch. Electric has if nothing but low end torque.
One problem with AdBlue is that the car makers decided that the car owners were not supposed to refill it, it was considered more like an oil change than a fill-up. So the tank needs to be large enough to cover a full maintenance interval - which either requires quite a large tank or creative solution to limit consumption. And - meh - the decision was made to limit consumption.
I think - mind, think - that car makers may be innocent in this particular instance; I am pretty sure I read some time ago (Just as Dieselgate blew up) that regulations required AdBlue to be refilled primarily by workshops - this as it directly affected the emissions of the vehicle, and as such shouldn't (couldn't?) be entrusted to Joe Q. Public to do.
However, at least around here they sell it at (some) gas stations, and the user manual (2012 Passat 3c) shows how you go about topping it up, so it can't be that much of a concern.
Just another step to the complete infantilization of citizens by the government. If you can't pour a liquid into another container, you have no business being outdoors.
Yes, and this does in fact infantalize people. But it's an unintended consequence of it's functional purpose: job creation (regardless of the stated justification for the law).
It's only partly a jobs program. Really, the jobs are mostly a side effect. Jersey people love their full service stations and are very protective of it. In and out, don't get out of the car, don't mess up your precious hair and hands dealing with the elements or the pump, back on the road. I don't identify with the attitude at all, but it's a real part of the culture. I've been chased back into my car by attendants more than once in Jersey. Nowadays I typically fill up before crossing state lines and drive across the state nonstop, even though the gas tax is lower in Jersey.
I can understand not bothering to drive to Jersey just to get gas (though it is cheaper), but spending more to fill up before crossing the border solely to avoid the experience of someone else pumping gas for you seems a little extreme. Is there more to your dislike of NJ gas stations? Whatever the reason, I respect you for having the courage of your convictions, especially this time of year!
On the other hand, when strapped for cash, many citizens will stop doing it. You can make it illegal to drive with that tank empty, but that still won't make many citizens do it. The environment is better off this way.
Perhaps they could mandate another additive to diesel that gives it a very apparent coloured plume in its exhaust; and then another additive to AdBlue that oxidizes/reduces that additive. Then you just tell police to pull over anyone with black fumes coming from their cars.
There's no need for any of this. DEF diesel engines already go into limp mode not long after the fluid runs dry (after ignoring many warnings). There are sensors such that just replacing with any arbitrary diesel-compatible fluid won't fool it (thought that would be stupid to do). And most states have annual inspections that include emissions, you would not pass with a dry Adblue tank. No need for dramatic exhaust; the cops can run your plates and see your inspection is expired.
That one is simple, just make the vehicle not run when certain conditions aren't met. Most diesel trucks already do this from the factory, if you don't follow the regen. cycle the truck just turns off.
Well, running the engine (or not to) with empty AdBlue tank has nothing to do with topping it up yourself.
- You can let the tank go empty and not turn up to the workshop for the fill up, how does disallowing to top it up yourself prevent that?
- Many current cars with AdBlue will flash increasingly annoying warnings at you, and although many people drive with check engine lights lit, running out of urea will display you a counter of remaining kilometers and the car will simply refuse to start when empty. Again, nothing to do with whether you push the car to the dealership on foot or fill the tank yourself from the bottle (and actually, there are very foolproof anti-spill bottles, which let the liquid go only when tightly screwed onto the DEF tank).
I thought there was an issue with contamination and efficiency, or at least a fear.
There are more fundamental issues though, the car needs to not run if it's empty, a lot of people drive around with their dashboard lit up and don't care. People will balk at having a full tank of gas and the car shuts down because of DEF.
AdBlue is the same as truck DEF, which can be purchased at most auto supply stores and fuel stations. In my experience, pretty much every car that comes with an urea system can be refilled by the user. That makes sense--it's not like you can make emissions worse by filling up the tank.
I'm not sure about any other cars, but Land Rover will happily sell you bottles of AdBlue and you can add it yourself. I wonder if that's because Land Rovers traditionally were expedition vehicles and you can't realistically expect to be able to find AdBlue in the middle of Kazakhstan for example.
I think it was more that they didn't want customers to have to fill it, as it's just one more annoying maintenance item to take care of it.
I've never seen any warning or notice stating that it should not be filled by owners. I have a diesel VW and refilling the tank is pretty easy. The dealer didn't have any qualms selling it to me.
Not generally true. In addition to those mentioned, the Chevy Cruze diesel has an Adblue tank easily accessible in the trunk. Refilling the Adblue is no harder than topping up your wiper fluid. It takes a standard bottle with a built-in spill-proof adapter. If for some reason you don't have such a bottle, you can just use a regular old funnel.
There's an idiot light type indicator that tells you when the change is coming up, just as with oil changes, and if ignored I think the engine will go eventually go into a kind of limp mode.
This all sounds to be entirely due to inadequate emissions testing processes and manufacturers doing the absolute bare minimum to comply with those tests as if they're gaming the rules of an automobile race.
One of the reasons, I am not proud to be a German, since it was/is my government (shame on them all!) that actively prevents real progress in the area of emission reduction of cars.
Reality is, that ADAC or TÜV years ago already warned, that EURO 6 cars may produce even more emissions than EURO 5 cars. So, decades of EU environment politics where just Potemkin villages to please German car producers.
Because they actively blocked (and still do) any attempts in the EU to release real-life regulations (not measure pollution in artificial environments, but on the roads!) -- for many years now. And still, they hinder that car buyers in Germany get the same compensation as US customers do.
The German news where full of it.
It is not helpful, when the labs are cleaner during car testing, but at the roads the people suffer from the pollution. VW is not the only brand, that optimizes the emissions for artificial environments.
The car maker lobby VDA even says today that stricter emission standards are not needed. Btw, the chairman of the VDA is Matthias Wissmann, wo used to be the German transport minister.
The sad truth is, that we would not need stricter standards, if the current standards would be met in reality -- that would be much better than another EURO 7 or 8.
The other sad thing is, that the praised German car manufacturers are about to loose against new comers from the US and China. Good for the environment and the health of the people of course .... but how said Gorbatschow: "Who comes to late ..."
But that is the trouble: Our ministers all have their fallback positions in the industry. Just have a look at the former Schroeder government and what happened to those people.
IIRC he wasn't a big fan of the phase out. We had to force him. Also natural gas is mostly used for heating in Germany. Something the German nuclear power plants never could provide.
Actually, the (East-) German plant in Lubmin provided district heating for the city of Greifswald. It has been shut down and the district heating is now provided by---wait for it---a gas burner. NPP Gundremmingen, which is still operating, provides district heating on a somewhat smaller scale.
Besides, while most natural gas consumed in Germany may be for space heating and/or industrial heat, it also provides about 9% of the electricity, which is still a good chunk of money for Gazprom Gerhardt.
By the way, who is the "we" in "we had to force him"?
The East German nuclear plants went offline pretty quick after the unification. And yes there are a few natural gas plants, they would actually much better now than those annoying coal plants which were build recently. They are faster and way more efficient. (faster in the sense that you can turn them on and off w/o much lag.)
The heating in Grundremming is new to me, only found a press release from 2012 in which is mentioned. Anyway.
We is the basis of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In which there was a majority agains the usage of nuclear power for a long time now. It was part of the party platform in 1998.
Also it was his home state of Lower Saxony. The Wendland region was the centre of the resistance against nuclear power. And it was never about the safety of the plants itself but about what should we do with the radioactive waste. A question still unanswered to this day.
The issue in this discussion about Diesel and Gerhard Schröder is a different one. When he was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and when he was the Chancellor, he always listened to the automotive industry. And this haunts us to this day.
Which is why lots of very smart people spend lots of money figuring out better ways to power commercial shipping; gas turbines for instance - and even sails may make a comeback.
The problem with cars (in particular diesel ones) is that their pollution causes problems locally, too. That is less of an immediate concern if you're plying the Yokohama-US Pacific coast route.
I don't negate that this is the case but bunker and "gas turbines" seems a bit on the opposite for fossile energy regarding the environment.
And this fuel does not seem to loose attraction due to its price.
"Worldwide bunker use in 2001 was estimated at 278 million tons, of which around 212 million tons were residual fuels. Between 2001 and 2020, total consumption grows at an average annual rate of 3.1% [...]" [1]
I (partially) agree; however, we have a saying in Norway that "The best is the worst enemy of the good."
In a perfect world, shipping would be emissions-free; however, it is not; the vast majority of the world's commercial shipping runs off heavy fuel oil.
Getting it to pollute less in the short term is IMHO better than holding out, waiting for zero emissions somewhere down the line.
NOx from cargo ships are not really a problem. Those gases aren't very stable and don't kill the climate. They're just unhealthy to humans. That's why they're a problem in cities, but not on the open oceans.
I'm thinking I care a whole lot more about particulates emitted in the city in which I live than about particulates emitted in the middle of the ocean.
The smoke/soot you can see is particulate matter, not NOx. That's only a problem with older diesels or if the owner removes the filter, modern diesels with intact DPFs emit way less particulate matter than an average gasoline car.
The health problem with NOx (as I understand it) is that it will react with oxygen producing ozone and therefore smog, if there is enough in the air.
Even new diesel trucks from Japan do this in places like the Caribbean. Maybe the standards are lower but I haven't seen a similar problem with new gas cars.
The US has way stricter new car auto emission standards than pretty much anywhere else, and I think lots of countries don't require DPFs at all, good point.
If the US standards get much stricter there will have to be PM filters on gasoline cars too.
I'm in Northern Ireland, and while I can't speak for the rest of the UK or Europe, I know the stats put diesel vehicles at almost half in Europe as a whole.
It sounds absurd, but I can see the increase in Diesel soot on the roads and pavements here, and more often than not, it can be smelt from passing traffic.
To be fair, that I've become more aware of it is making me notice it more - but I live now not so far from where I grew up and it's clear how much difference the last 10-15 years have made to the state of the local environment. It's disgusting, and no doubt a massive public health crisis 10-20 years from now in the UK, where we already lead the world in lung disease.
I live in London, and really noticed the effects of diesel exhaust (particularly buses along busy roads) on my breathing in the past couple years. I've lived here for over 8 years.
It's the NoX that I notice much more than the soot. I get breathing difficulties after walking past buses (the sharp smell of the NoX fumes is pretty noticeable). I've had bronchitis twice in the past two years.
I've even started changing my walking routes to avoid busy roads entirely due to the diesel pollution.
What adds insult to injury is that many of these buses advertise as "Enviro" because their Diesel engines produce marginally less CO2 than a gasoline engine.
People seem to block out the smell and just not notice, when they do it becomes obvious. Maybe a campaign of warning signs would help. Target areas with high pollution with "Danger" signs that outline the risks.
It's made worse by the fact that manufacturers don't offer, or offer worse petrol engines in the UK, pushing buyers towards diesel. For the past 10 years, you couldn't buy a petrol Land Rover in the UK, despite the fact that petrol land rovers are assembled in the Sollihul plant. The Latest Discovery 5 finally has a petrol option, but the Discovery Sport is still only offered with a diesel, despite the fact that the rest of the continent enjoys an excellent Si4 Petrol engine in the same vehicle.
It's the same story elsewhere - MB offers probably half of the engines that rest of Europe gets, if there is a petrol option it is hugely underpowered, and diesel is the only way to go.
It could be a market perception thing in the UK. "Diesel 4x4s are the best" and petrol versions just don't sell enough to warrant releasing them in the UK.
But then it's a self fulfilling prophecy,no? You can't buy a petrol 4x4 = petrol 4x4s don't sell = manufacturers don't release them in UK = you can't buy a petrol 4x4.
A big reason for that is that company car tax (which is paid by the beneficiary, not the company) in the UK is significantly lower on diesel vehicles. Fleet buyers are a gigantic part of the market for new cars in the UK and they wield a heavy influence over manufacturers.
I think the bigger scandal is that we continue to incentivize diesels.
Obviously no-one wants to admit that they were wrong, but to continue to tax existing diesel vehicles lower because of reasons we now know to be bogus is a disgrace.
Diesels need to be taxed MUCH higher than petrols, especially those without AdBlue injection.
Long range EVs can't come soon enough. Even still, my next car is a Leaf.
Diesel can be really nasty, much worse than modern gas cars. Even having a diesel truck in front of me is enough to make me gag. It's one of the things I don't like about Europe or certain Caribbean islands where diesel is very popular. Luckily it's not as popular in North America.
Article doesn't mention DPF(Diesel Particulate Filter) removal. Many owners don't wanna pay for new one, so they pay for removal. There are so many cars without it and emissions are completely sick.
Same applies to petrol cars, many don't replace the catalytic converter they just remove it. Don't want to get in a argumentation which one is "cleaner" afterwards, both are equally stupid.
How long does a DPF last? Replacing a catalytic converter is a rare maintenance item on a car. Most of the time they last the lifetime of the vehicle. In fact the only person I know who had to replace one had it stolen from under his car while he was parked on a city street.
It depends on many things, like car type, usage, maintenance (or lack of it) and for sure on what is the lifetime of a car? How many km/mi? For you it might be eg. 300k but have you checked the manufacturer's specs?
It depends on many aspects (car usage, quality, etc.) I recently bought a used diesel car (10 years old, 150k KM), the DPF was almost dead. Needless to say that is wasn't a pleasant surprise...
Edit: Also the DPF is not the catalytic converter, these are two different elements.
Anywhere from forever (towing heavy trailers on long-distance highway trips, urea injection to reduce NOx) to less than 10K (heavy pickup truck, no load, frequent short trips, exhaust gas recirculation to reduce NOx).
I don't know if it's a taxation or regulatory thing but replacing a catalytic converter isn't particularly expensive on the US. My vehicle has three of them. One is extremely easy to access, one is a bit more difficult to access and one is ridiculously difficult to access.
I have replaced two of them over the past few years. If the third one ever goes, I'm completely done with the vehicle.
But this is me, a home mechanic, doing the work. For a professional with access to professional tools, it would be a different story. The parts themselves aren't too expensive. The easy one can be purchased for <$50 online and the two others are <$200 each online.
I wouldn’t expect a catalytic converter to go bad during the lifetime of any car made in the last 10 years or so. That’s right around the time when manufactures started using wideband o2 sensors, which should help prevent one of the more common failure modes (clogging).
It can still happen if there are other issues such as a malfunctioning ignition system though (which could allow unburnt fuel to ignite inside the catalytic converter and cause it to overheat). This is why the check engine light actually flashes when the ECU detects a multi cylinder misfire (to signal a condition which could damage the converter).
Another note: Any car since the mid 90’s will throw a check engine light if you simply remove the catalytic converter. This will cause it to fail inspection in most states of the USA, which ultimately results in the car being legally un-drivable.
There are some people who manage to remove the catalytic converter and still pass inspection by simulating the signals from the secondary o2 sensors (or directly modifying the ECU), but this is a pretty rare practice and is usually limited to the “performance enthusiast” community. You can easily smell when a car has no converters, and it’s a pretty serious fine if you get caught.
"There are some people who manage to remove the catalytic converter and still pass inspection by simulating the signals from the secondary o2 sensor"
Not if the inspection station ignores the ODBII/III tests and does a direct tailpipe test. They'll get caught pretty quickly. Some stations can do that, too. They think ODB is lying, they'll sniff your exhaust.
> Same applies to petrol cars, many don't replace the catalytic converter they just remove it.
Can you get away with this long-term in most of the EU? In most (or all?) US states, you have to have some sort of historic vehicle or something to get it registered without a catalytic converter.
The UK at least requires presence of a DPF for the MOT test (i.e., test of roadworthiness, legally required to be done annually from a car's third anniversary of manufacture), and to have it missing (if it was fitted when new) is an instant failure. I'd be somewhat surprised if such things weren't relatively commonly part of roadworthiness tests, but I don't have time to look at quite what all EU states require.
Only last month, an advert offering to remove the filter was banned [1]:
'The advert said: “The only MOT regulation regarding the DPF is a simple visual inspection. As long as the DPF still appears to be fitted, the vehicle will pass the MOT visual inspection. Therefore we only remove the internal core, leaving the outer casing in place. The vehicle will appear to have a DPF fitted and will appear unmodified.”'
Except that it's forbidden in most European countries to remove it (full disclosure: I recently had to replace the it on my own car).
Indeed the fine for driving without is expectedly way higher than changing the part itself.
e.g. In France the replacement shall cost roughly 2500 €, the fine for driving without the part is 7500€. (source https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do;jsessionid=7563...)
Very interesting. I'm often under the impression that the EU has stricter standards than the USA. But in this case not at all, it's even somehow unethical (to me at least) that the laws were made as economic incentives over health.
In Europe most cars have been available in diesel or petrol versions for decades, and it's very rare to find somewhere that sells petrol but not diesel - not so much in the US, where other than in big rigs etc. diesel was only really found/available in pickups until recently, and diesel pumps can be rare.
The big appeal of diesel in Europe with their higher fuel costs is the better MPG - gas is cheap in the US so there isn't as much demand for vehicles with higher MPG
Other manufacturers 'pass' US diesel emissions, so it isn't impossible to comply with the laws
This could really the death blow for the Diesel engine in cars. Over a decade people have promoted the Diesel as a cleaner, more efficient fuel for cars and car makers spent billions to improve the engines and apparently even more in marketing.
Now, the bubble collapsed.
Also, Germany currently gives Diesel owners a rebate on the fuel tax. That is why a liter of Diesel is around €1.10 and a liter of gas is around €1.30. I wouldn't be surprised if this rebate will be gone soon. (But I wouldn't take bets on when)
But isn't the truth a little more complex? In terms of CO2 emissions, those diesels are about twice as efficient (distance traveled on the same volume of fuel). So they are potentially better for the global environment at the same time they are worse for the local one...
That said, I am happy to have just switched from an old diesel to a PHEV, but even it can't beat riding my bicycle to work...
I think that is a fair point. But as the report mentions, trucks and busses are fine. Because with those it apparently not an issue to add Diesel exhaust fluid to the mix.
But I can't imagine that the usual drivers want the hassle with filling up two tanks.
Still can't beat turbodiesel fuel economy, especially on the highway. Chevrolet Cruze diesels routinely get >60mpg on the highway, and that's the last generation, which unlike VW diesels were fully emissions compliant.
Yeah, even though they might produce less CO2, they do put out a ton of NOx and particulates. They can be mitigated to some extent, but the good systems are expensive and EU regulations on NOx are not as high as in California. And most cars sold in the US are built to CA specs because they are the largest market.
As I've cycled around Cambridge, UK for the last 17 years, I've noticed now diesel cars that seemed OK when new (ie no noticeable soot or smell from the exhaust) become problematic about half way through their life - presumably due to wear or poor maintenance.
Are there any studies of emissions from vehicles in the second half of their useful life? Let's say the average car in the UK will have done about 120,000 miles by the time is it scrapped. I want to know what typical cars are like in the 60 to 120 thousand mile range of their life. I guess this is the dominant source of pollution on UK roads. If so, there'd be a case for more thorough testing of emissions in the MOT.
Here in California I find the emissions testing bizarre. Instead of actually measuring the emissions, they just plug a computer into the OBD port and use whatever the car itself reports!
Which circles back to where VW Dieselgate was a fucking disaster and a lot of people at a lot of levels of government on multiple continents are just as at fault as VW is.
First rule of computer security: do not trust humans.
First rule of not trusting humans: computers lie when ordered to by computers, and cannot be trusted, and results should be checked as often and as completely as possible.
This could be more reliable than measuring emissions at the tailpipe. In my state vehicle registration is not renewed until the car computer sends a report to the centralized DMV database. Before that, cheating the emission test was much more easier, because the test was not linked to a particular car.
This happened because environmental policy focused too much on one metric: CO2 emissions. It should've been reduction of all polluting emissions, which would naturally favor hybrids and then plug-in cars as the rules get more strict.
In Norway (and probably elsewhere, but I only followed the debate here), the engineer's union, automobile association and just about everyone who knew the first thing about engines said 'NOOO!!!' when our parliament decided that favouring diesels was The Right Thing to do.
However, as CO2 was bad and diesels emitted less overall, diesel it was.
Result? Air quality in towns took a nosedive, and suddenly diesel cars were forbidden to drive in city centres on days with poor air quality. Much annoyance (naturally) ensued - first the public is being told (by diesels suddenly costing thousands of € less) to buy diesels; then they are being told that they cannot drive them.
I luckily live in a very rural area; otherwise I wouldn't have had the conscience to (nor need for) my daily driver - an old diesel Land Cruiser.
This isn't surprising. Larger engines are almost always more efficient, compare for example a gas boiler in a house vs a CCGT in a powerplant.
But overall diesel has been a complete disaster and will take probably a decade minimum to undo. Complete tunnel vision focus on CO2 emissions at all costs which continues to plague environmental regulation IMO.
> Larger engines are almost always more efficient, compare for example a gas boiler in a house vs a CCGT in a powerplant.
Not necessarily true--gas boilers can be up to 97% efficient, whereas CCGTs top out at the mid-60s. CCGTs can be more efficient as part of a district heating system.
> Nitrogen oxides cause tens of thousands of early deaths in Europe
Complete bullshit. There isn't a single death certificate in the world that lists "NOx poisoning" as cause of death, unless it was an industrial accident.
These numbers come from assuming that some high dose of NOx will kill you, therefore 1% of that dose kills one in a hundred. So, at least for regulatory purposes to scare people, we can take a tiny dose, multiply it by a huge number of people, and get the number of deaths.
Apparently, this is true for any chemical, such as Paracetamol. 10g of Paracetamol are reasonably likely (about 50%?) to kill you. So if 100 people take 200mg each, one of them is going to die, right? Apparently, "30 million packs" are sold each year in the UK, each containing about 10g, and somebody swallows most of it. So every year, Paracetamol kills about 15 million people in the UK. Or maybe just 5 million, if some Paracetamol is flushed down the toilet. So it takes no more than 13 years, and there nobody left in the UK to be killed by NOx.
But the UK isn't devoid of people. That's because this whole logic is bullshit, and when applied to medicine, everybody knows it. When NOx concentrations of less than a ppm are involved, it suddenly makes sense.
Dear ICCT: If you feel the need to make up bullshit like this, you are tackling a non-problem.
The article itself cites the Guardian, who cites the European Environmental Agency, who cites REVIHAAP, which is only a review. REVIHAAP (http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/193108/R...) mentions a lot of studies that estimate the proportionality factor between mortality and NOx concentration. This is precisely the method I described above: assume proportionality, then estimate the proportionality constant, then multiply by millions of people and get a scary number. Few studies in the REVIHAAP report cite actual concentrations, but when they do they are invariably much higher than the 20µg the EEA applies as lower cutoff.
(The study you linked to doesn't include NOx. REVIHAAP itself has more inapplicable stuff, such as one study that actually looked at proximity to roads, then noted that they can't tease apart the effects of NOx, ozone, soot, etc, then proceeded to make a claim about NOx specifically anyway.)
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadThis is also part of the reasoning one of the Tesla founders used when they moved on to creating hybrid drivetrains for trucks with Wrightspeed.
So, when you are trying very hard to make engines more efficient to get impressive mpg numbers, you also end up generating more NOx (Which you can then get rid of using urea, which I think is the preferred option in trucks and buses - think AdBlue or whatever it is called when used for cars.
Obviously, it would soot orders of magnitude more - but I wouldn't be surprised if the NOx emissions were surprisingly low, seeing as efficiency was way down on Toyota's list of requirements; they just made a bigger fuel tank.
It was designed to just work(tm) - almost regardless of what happened to it. Gas mileage? Not as much.
However it does consume more AdBlue and/or produces less power the cleaner it is
They did it to sell a "better car" with disregard to pollution regulation
This is why it's more costly. In order to design a diesel car that meets the exact same specifications, they either need to add an entire urea system (costs more money to manufacture, plus ongoing AdBlue costs to the consumer) or add a larger less efficient engine to meet the same performance target (costs more money to manufacture, plus ongoing higher petrol costs to the consumer).
Making a non-polluting diesel car is certainly more costly than making an equivalent diesel car that you don't care about pollution on at all. You're adding a big engineering constraint, of course it gets more costly!
I should add that I'm all in favor of cutting down pollution, and that if diesel as a technology turns out to not be that practical anymore for small cars, then so be it. Eventually they should all be zero emissions anyway.
This is tricky because, in the US market at least, one of the major appeals of small diesel cars was their performance / low end torque. There aren't really any other options on the market right now that can offer the same mix of performance/efficiency. Diesel cars are definitely on their way out in the US but I'm not sure it will be a net gain in the end. Lots of people such as myself are choosing to replace their small diesel cars with bigger, less efficient, similar performing cars.
Friend of mine is ditching his VW Diesel TDI for a Chevy Bolt at the end of the month. I'll be interested to see what he makes of that switch. Electric has if nothing but low end torque.
However, at least around here they sell it at (some) gas stations, and the user manual (2012 Passat 3c) shows how you go about topping it up, so it can't be that much of a concern.
I strongly doubt that there is a significant cultural difference between the two, in terms of car culture.
My blotto California brain went 'no! no one is touching my car!'
Well, they don't sell well in the US, but they didn't sell well prior to DEF, so I don't think you can pin the blame on that.
- You can let the tank go empty and not turn up to the workshop for the fill up, how does disallowing to top it up yourself prevent that?
- Many current cars with AdBlue will flash increasingly annoying warnings at you, and although many people drive with check engine lights lit, running out of urea will display you a counter of remaining kilometers and the car will simply refuse to start when empty. Again, nothing to do with whether you push the car to the dealership on foot or fill the tank yourself from the bottle (and actually, there are very foolproof anti-spill bottles, which let the liquid go only when tightly screwed onto the DEF tank).
Yes it does, since it affects the design of the vehicle. Remember that the context of this thread includes:
"So the tank needs to be large enough to cover a full maintenance interval...or creative solution to limit consumption."
If it's really a question of forcing people to refill the tank you could have the engine refuse to start if the tank is empty.
There are more fundamental issues though, the car needs to not run if it's empty, a lot of people drive around with their dashboard lit up and don't care. People will balk at having a full tank of gas and the car shuts down because of DEF.
I've never seen any warning or notice stating that it should not be filled by owners. I have a diesel VW and refilling the tank is pretty easy. The dealer didn't have any qualms selling it to me.
There's an idiot light type indicator that tells you when the change is coming up, just as with oil changes, and if ignored I think the engine will go eventually go into a kind of limp mode.
This all sounds to be entirely due to inadequate emissions testing processes and manufacturers doing the absolute bare minimum to comply with those tests as if they're gaming the rules of an automobile race.
Reality is, that ADAC or TÜV years ago already warned, that EURO 6 cars may produce even more emissions than EURO 5 cars. So, decades of EU environment politics where just Potemkin villages to please German car producers.
how?
> So, decades of EU environment politics where just Potemkin villages to please German car producers.
???
The German news where full of it.
It is not helpful, when the labs are cleaner during car testing, but at the roads the people suffer from the pollution. VW is not the only brand, that optimizes the emissions for artificial environments.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-governme...
The other sad thing is, that the praised German car manufacturers are about to loose against new comers from the US and China. Good for the environment and the health of the people of course .... but how said Gorbatschow: "Who comes to late ..."
But that is the trouble: Our ministers all have their fallback positions in the industry. Just have a look at the former Schroeder government and what happened to those people.
The guy known as Gazprom Gerhardt, who coincidentally decided to phase out nuclear power? Yeah, sad story.
Besides, while most natural gas consumed in Germany may be for space heating and/or industrial heat, it also provides about 9% of the electricity, which is still a good chunk of money for Gazprom Gerhardt.
By the way, who is the "we" in "we had to force him"?
The heating in Grundremming is new to me, only found a press release from 2012 in which is mentioned. Anyway.
We is the basis of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In which there was a majority agains the usage of nuclear power for a long time now. It was part of the party platform in 1998.
Also it was his home state of Lower Saxony. The Wendland region was the centre of the resistance against nuclear power. And it was never about the safety of the plants itself but about what should we do with the radioactive waste. A question still unanswered to this day.
The issue in this discussion about Diesel and Gerhard Schröder is a different one. When he was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and when he was the Chancellor, he always listened to the automotive industry. And this haunts us to this day.
Either or. Combined cycle ("GuD") is more efficient than coal, simple cycle responds faster. But you'll never guess what responds the fastest---it's the large nuclear plants (http://www.mb.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/sites/Archiv/pdf/Sonderdruc..., p.10).
Waste should be recycled, unlike the wastes from fossil fuels, such as NOx, which have to be released into the atmosphere.
Anyway, at least we can agree that Gazprom Gerhardt was a crook.
The problem with cars (in particular diesel ones) is that their pollution causes problems locally, too. That is less of an immediate concern if you're plying the Yokohama-US Pacific coast route.
And this fuel does not seem to loose attraction due to its price. "Worldwide bunker use in 2001 was estimated at 278 million tons, of which around 212 million tons were residual fuels. Between 2001 and 2020, total consumption grows at an average annual rate of 3.1% [...]" [1]
[1] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/P1001TZU.PDF?Dockey=P100...
In a perfect world, shipping would be emissions-free; however, it is not; the vast majority of the world's commercial shipping runs off heavy fuel oil.
Getting it to pollute less in the short term is IMHO better than holding out, waiting for zero emissions somewhere down the line.
When I see these cars getting floored and I see the dark grey/black smoke coming out I often wonder, this must be super healthy for all of us.
The health problem with NOx (as I understand it) is that it will react with oxygen producing ozone and therefore smog, if there is enough in the air.
If the US standards get much stricter there will have to be PM filters on gasoline cars too.
It sounds absurd, but I can see the increase in Diesel soot on the roads and pavements here, and more often than not, it can be smelt from passing traffic.
To be fair, that I've become more aware of it is making me notice it more - but I live now not so far from where I grew up and it's clear how much difference the last 10-15 years have made to the state of the local environment. It's disgusting, and no doubt a massive public health crisis 10-20 years from now in the UK, where we already lead the world in lung disease.
It's the NoX that I notice much more than the soot. I get breathing difficulties after walking past buses (the sharp smell of the NoX fumes is pretty noticeable). I've had bronchitis twice in the past two years.
I've even started changing my walking routes to avoid busy roads entirely due to the diesel pollution.
What adds insult to injury is that many of these buses advertise as "Enviro" because their Diesel engines produce marginally less CO2 than a gasoline engine.
It's the same story elsewhere - MB offers probably half of the engines that rest of Europe gets, if there is a petrol option it is hugely underpowered, and diesel is the only way to go.
Obviously no-one wants to admit that they were wrong, but to continue to tax existing diesel vehicles lower because of reasons we now know to be bogus is a disgrace.
Diesels need to be taxed MUCH higher than petrols, especially those without AdBlue injection.
Long range EVs can't come soon enough. Even still, my next car is a Leaf.
I have replaced two of them over the past few years. If the third one ever goes, I'm completely done with the vehicle.
But this is me, a home mechanic, doing the work. For a professional with access to professional tools, it would be a different story. The parts themselves aren't too expensive. The easy one can be purchased for <$50 online and the two others are <$200 each online.
It can still happen if there are other issues such as a malfunctioning ignition system though (which could allow unburnt fuel to ignite inside the catalytic converter and cause it to overheat). This is why the check engine light actually flashes when the ECU detects a multi cylinder misfire (to signal a condition which could damage the converter).
Another note: Any car since the mid 90’s will throw a check engine light if you simply remove the catalytic converter. This will cause it to fail inspection in most states of the USA, which ultimately results in the car being legally un-drivable.
There are some people who manage to remove the catalytic converter and still pass inspection by simulating the signals from the secondary o2 sensors (or directly modifying the ECU), but this is a pretty rare practice and is usually limited to the “performance enthusiast” community. You can easily smell when a car has no converters, and it’s a pretty serious fine if you get caught.
Not if the inspection station ignores the ODBII/III tests and does a direct tailpipe test. They'll get caught pretty quickly. Some stations can do that, too. They think ODB is lying, they'll sniff your exhaust.
Can you get away with this long-term in most of the EU? In most (or all?) US states, you have to have some sort of historic vehicle or something to get it registered without a catalytic converter.
'The advert said: “The only MOT regulation regarding the DPF is a simple visual inspection. As long as the DPF still appears to be fitted, the vehicle will pass the MOT visual inspection. Therefore we only remove the internal core, leaving the outer casing in place. The vehicle will appear to have a DPF fitted and will appear unmodified.”'
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/14/asa-bans...
https://longtailpipe.com/2015/10/02/differences-in-us-and-eu...
In Europe most cars have been available in diesel or petrol versions for decades, and it's very rare to find somewhere that sells petrol but not diesel - not so much in the US, where other than in big rigs etc. diesel was only really found/available in pickups until recently, and diesel pumps can be rare.
The big appeal of diesel in Europe with their higher fuel costs is the better MPG - gas is cheap in the US so there isn't as much demand for vehicles with higher MPG
Other manufacturers 'pass' US diesel emissions, so it isn't impossible to comply with the laws
Now, the bubble collapsed.
Also, Germany currently gives Diesel owners a rebate on the fuel tax. That is why a liter of Diesel is around €1.10 and a liter of gas is around €1.30. I wouldn't be surprised if this rebate will be gone soon. (But I wouldn't take bets on when)
But I can't imagine that the usual drivers want the hassle with filling up two tanks.
Are there any studies of emissions from vehicles in the second half of their useful life? Let's say the average car in the UK will have done about 120,000 miles by the time is it scrapped. I want to know what typical cars are like in the 60 to 120 thousand mile range of their life. I guess this is the dominant source of pollution on UK roads. If so, there'd be a case for more thorough testing of emissions in the MOT.
First rule of computer security: do not trust humans.
First rule of not trusting humans: computers lie when ordered to by computers, and cannot be trusted, and results should be checked as often and as completely as possible.
However, as CO2 was bad and diesels emitted less overall, diesel it was.
Result? Air quality in towns took a nosedive, and suddenly diesel cars were forbidden to drive in city centres on days with poor air quality. Much annoyance (naturally) ensued - first the public is being told (by diesels suddenly costing thousands of € less) to buy diesels; then they are being told that they cannot drive them.
I luckily live in a very rural area; otherwise I wouldn't have had the conscience to (nor need for) my daily driver - an old diesel Land Cruiser.
But overall diesel has been a complete disaster and will take probably a decade minimum to undo. Complete tunnel vision focus on CO2 emissions at all costs which continues to plague environmental regulation IMO.
Not necessarily true--gas boilers can be up to 97% efficient, whereas CCGTs top out at the mid-60s. CCGTs can be more efficient as part of a district heating system.
One makes hot water (~100% efficiency based on LHV), the other makes electricity (~50% effciency). What's your point?
Complete bullshit. There isn't a single death certificate in the world that lists "NOx poisoning" as cause of death, unless it was an industrial accident.
These numbers come from assuming that some high dose of NOx will kill you, therefore 1% of that dose kills one in a hundred. So, at least for regulatory purposes to scare people, we can take a tiny dose, multiply it by a huge number of people, and get the number of deaths.
Apparently, this is true for any chemical, such as Paracetamol. 10g of Paracetamol are reasonably likely (about 50%?) to kill you. So if 100 people take 200mg each, one of them is going to die, right? Apparently, "30 million packs" are sold each year in the UK, each containing about 10g, and somebody swallows most of it. So every year, Paracetamol kills about 15 million people in the UK. Or maybe just 5 million, if some Paracetamol is flushed down the toilet. So it takes no more than 13 years, and there nobody left in the UK to be killed by NOx.
But the UK isn't devoid of people. That's because this whole logic is bullshit, and when applied to medicine, everybody knows it. When NOx concentrations of less than a ppm are involved, it suddenly makes sense.
Dear ICCT: If you feel the need to make up bullshit like this, you are tackling a non-problem.
(The study you linked to doesn't include NOx. REVIHAAP itself has more inapplicable stuff, such as one study that actually looked at proximity to roads, then noted that they can't tease apart the effects of NOx, ozone, soot, etc, then proceeded to make a claim about NOx specifically anyway.)