38 comments

[ 0.98 ms ] story [ 85.4 ms ] thread

  >AdBlue, a mix of urea and deionised water...
De-ionised water is easily obtainable in any filling station, or place that sells motoring spares.

And urea?.. well given the amount of 'truckers' lemonade' found in lay-bys, they shouldn't have any trouble sourcing that either.

My concern is that urine contains salts and may not be an appropriate replacement for deionized water.
No, piss does not work as a DEF substitute. Not even close.
Urine is only 2% urea. DEF is 32%.
Aliexpress AdBlue "emulators" to the rescue. 4 wires to hook up and you are good to go.
Didn't you meant to write: "you are good to go to pollute"
It's always interesting when this is brought up, because private flights emissions are literally nothing compared to the transport industry emissions. They might as well be zero. Introduction of AdBlue has been one of the greatest improvements in diesel emissions that we have done - calling it "peddling by brussels" is uninformed at best and actively malicious at worst.
Demanding that our leaders follow the same lifestyle they are forcing on us is I think a very straightforward thing.
This has nothing to do with CO2 emissions and everything to do with particle pollution.

Our leaders do not live inside urban centers, and do not suffer from particle pollution. Or at least way less than the average citizen, and i'm not even talking about the people living near the Paris ring road, who aren't exactly the richest.

I understand if you're from the countryside (i am too) that you dislike adBlue, but think that it probably add years of living to the poorest urbanites.

Of course - and they should.

But the argument that you shouldn't be using AdBlue in your diesel because rich people fly private jets is frankly, crazy. Both things should be addressed, but one of those things is far more important to tackle right now for the health of everyone.

There's no way those lorries can verify the adblue tank is full of adblue and not just water. So it's not really going to stop trucks from operating is it.
Maybe tank itselft not but exhaust composition via NOx lambda probe? Yes, it can stop a truck.
Oh, they can. There is a "quality sensor" in the DEF tank, and the ECU is required to "derate" the engine if that sensor isn't happy. Which in practice means go into limp mode.
These can be bypassed trivially, it's a Google search away.
On one hand you have people assuming that the trucks won't run because they can't comply with every letter of the law, as if they were in perfect compliance before. And on the other hand you have the people who are closer to the ground and know that the trucks will run, just less legally (several options for doing so have already been mentioned in the comments).

The discontinuity between the regulators and the kind of people who write for the economist vs the people more closely dealing with the reality on the ground is far more interesting (in a train wreck sort of way) to me than any given shortage in a "required for compliance" material.

it's just some regulation, not a law of physics

turn off the logic that disables the engine if the additive isn't available

a sensible legislature should be able to waive it during a time of crisis

ah, the EU... so that's impossible, so it's going to be like requiring empty flights to maintain runway landing slots during covid

Yeah, let's just apply a short sighted patch, buy some extra tech debt and continue fucking up the planet as usual.
options:

    - continent wide supply chain shut down
    - lorries polluting slightly more for a short, defined period of time
a difficult one I know...
Is it short sighted? Or is it adaptable and doing the right thing given the situation?

Technical debt isn’t absolutely evil and sometimes the interest rate is good enough to take on debt.

Like preventing people from going hungry in exchange for extra pollution for a season.

Eastern europeans won't even notice AdBlue shortage and continue trucking like nothing happened. (It's super popular past time activity to disable that thing even on brand new trucks, even dealers are in on it ( citation needed, however ))
As an eastern european myself, I wish it was as heavily enforced as it is in western europe - anyone found to have modified their truck to bypass emission reducing devices should have the truck siezed and ordered to pay fines so heavy the thought of doing it again wouldn't even cross their minds.

And yes, I'm aware that even dealerships offer removing DPFs/GPFs as an option when buying a new car, because somehow people from my country think they live on a different planet with inexhaustable supply of fresh air, and somehow can't connect in their brains the relation between filthy, sooty air that we breathe and automotive exhausts. No no, it's all an evil plot by the west to make us pay for costly filter replacements, so it's better to cut it out right at the start when the car is brand new<mind explodes>.

You seem angry at people who choose to do whatever they please.
I mean, I'm sure you'd be angry at people who choose to do whatever they please too, the only question is where is that line for you?

Would you draw it at truckers who drive on bald tyres? Ones who ignore the work time regulations? Ones who drive drunk? Ones who don't turn their lights on at night?

All of the above are "people who choose to do whatever they please" - if you aren't angry with at least the ones I listed, I'm curious what kind of lawless society you live in.

I understand why you are angry, but keep in mind that western europe is no saint either. Dieselgate something something.
Another example of why this sort of top down regulation is bad.
This top down regulation is why we're not giving ourselves brain damage from breathing in fumes from leaded petrol.
No it isn't.
Sorry. Did individual drivers all decide to stop using leaded petrol, all at the same time?
Maybe they could take the Volkswagen approach..
dare to ask, why is a Trademark used as standard name for someting and who owns and makes money of this trademark, is it again the same "them" (big bankers & black rock etc.)
Looks like the Adblue trademark is registered to the “ Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. (VDA)” which is a German non profit automobile industry association.