Volkswagen Seeks To Repair Its Image By Focusing On Electric (wired.com) 230
An anonymous reader writes: The emissions scandal that's plagued Volkswagen over the past month will be tough to recover from. But they're trying. The company announced a number of changes they're making to their line of vehicles. First, they'll be revamping their flagship Phaeton vehicles to be all-electric. (If you live in the U.S. and haven't heard of these, don't be surprised — they aren't marketed there.) Second, they've announced their intention to install top-of-the-line environmental protection systems in their new diesel cars. (In other words, they'll actually do what they're required by law to do, but vehicle prices will jump significantly.) Their press release is difficult to decipher, given the density of buzzwords and vague promises, but they indicate a greater general focus on hybrids and electric vehicles in the future.
History has taught us (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say Volkswagon can count on the short term memory of the buying public.
Like a bad breakup, time will heal this, too.
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I'd say Volkswagon can count on the short term memory of the buying public.
Yup. I bought one this weekend.
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what was it like in the dealership? were they 'hungry' or acting like nothing happened?
I wonder if people can go to VW and get 'deals' (even on non TDI cars) given the current publicity vw is having to deal with.
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I also just purchased a VW last Thursday. The dealership was saying they were making quite a few more sales than usual from people trading in TDIs for regular gasoline cars. They still had a huge "clean diesel" banner up, though, heh.
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Hmm..so, are they selling the used/new TDIs for a cheaper price? Can you get one of them before they "fix" it?
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Everything seemed fairly normal, though I don't buy cars often and I was paying cash, so my experience and idea of normal might be off a bit. Sales dude joked about it not being a diesel we laughed for a second and that was about it. I spent over 12 hours test driving cars from a bunch of different manufactures that day and ended up with a Passat, which I was happy with. Comparatively it's a nice car, the fit and finish on the interior is pretty superior and it handled well on some pretty rough roads.
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It isn't even jsut a matter of short term memory (although yes, that certainly plays into it.) I had a Chevy in the 70's, another from the 80's, and now I have a recent model. The one from the 70's was awful, just a total piece of junk. Right down to a soda can in the door straight off the showroom floor, rattles, plastic coac
More EVs are welcome, but... (Score:3)
VW need to contribute to infrastructure in countries where they are sold. For example, in the UK most of the rapid charger network was paid for by Nissan, and a lesser number by Renault. Other EV and PHEV manufacturers like BMW, VW, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Toyota and the rest contributed next to nothing, and we badly need more infrastructure to support their vehicles.
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VW need to contribute to infrastructure in countries where they are sold. For example, in the UK most of the rapid charger network was paid for by Nissan, and a lesser number by Renault. Other EV and PHEV manufacturers like BMW, VW, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Toyota and the rest contributed next to nothing, and we badly need more infrastructure to support their vehicles.
I agree but I think all the manufacturers should get involved in this and I'm surprised more shopping areas have not started to install charging units. I know in my area (Maryland) I shop at Mom's Organic Market simply because they have charging stations for when I'm shopping. Also as I have an electric car it has to be new meaning I should have money to shop. This seems like the perfect time to install them as electric car owners have funds to spend.
unexplained fires are a matter for the courts (Score:2)
And by that is due to fine print saying you must use our arbitration system and the courts will just say that.
Then they should make a gigafactory. (Score:2)
Electric technology is not hard. Infact, it is ridiculously easy compared to designing a low-emissions, direct injected, variable timing, variable geometry turbocharged combustion engine that needs to do 300,000 kms in a range of harsh conditions. Even Tesla uses a pretty compromised powertrain design (oversized induction motor without multi-speed gearbox) because is just doesn't really matter at this point (plus they get the ludicrous mode thing as a byproduct).
The only issue electric cars have now is the
Cost and recharge times (Score:2)
The only issue electric cars have now is the cost of the batteries.
That is not the only problem though it is an important one. And that problem will be solved with scaled up production as you mention.
The biggest problem electric vehicles have is refueling time and as a byproduct of that, range. They're making excellent progress on this but aren't quite there yet. I figure they either need to get the range up to 700+ miles with an under 1 hour recharge time or they need to get the recharge time to under 15 minutes with a 250 mile range. I think that is doable but it wi
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I don't think we need cars with a 700 mile range to make a huge impact on emissions. Most people I know very rarely travel over 300 miles in a day. I also know a lot of families with 2 or more cars. They never need both cars to have extremely long range. So if every house with 2 cars converted 1 of them to electric, there would still be a huge savings in emissions. There's also a lot of people who very rarely travel out of the city by car. They either fly or take the train. They also have the option o
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Sure but electric cars have one big card that they haven't really played yet - low running costs. As battery prices fall and we move more into normal-people cars (as opposed to wealthy first movers) this will become more and more apparent. Imagine now if you could get a Leaf for the same price as a petrol equivalent. For many people the fact that they could do all their normal commuting and have an extra $30-40 in their pockets each week to spend on something else will be extremely compelling. Add to this n
Diesel hybrids would be perfect for VW (Score:5, Interesting)
I did an obsessive amount of research on VW's clean diesel technology, and the engineering issues that motivated their decision to cheat. Going hybrid would solve all their problems. Well, the technical ones anyway.
The problem is that their patented "clean NOx trap" pollution control technology involves storing NOx pollution in a zeolite "molecular sponge". The sponge needs to be cleaned out periodically by changing the engine fuel-to-air ratio: when that happens (for a few seconds every minute or two), engine performance is drastically reduced. VW's engine computer tries to keep this from happening while the driver is accelerating, but apparently it wasn't good enough, so they programmed the computer to not bother with trap cleaning unless it's being tested in an EPA lab.
With a full hybrid system, the engine can run at optimum efficiency at all times, and can take a break to clean the NOx trap whenever it wants: the electric motor and batteries can take over.
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Diesel electric (Score:3)
Diesel hybrid is a nonsense.
Really? Every locomotive in use today is a diesel electric hybrid. Frankly I think a diesel hybrid would make a lot of sense for many applications, particularly large trucks. Electric motors are great for around town stop/start traffic where diesels aren't so hot and diesels are great for steady state long distance driving (like highways) where electric motors aren't so hot. Their strengths are very complimentary.
I know they exist, but still the whole hybrid jazz is about overcoming problems of petrol engine the diesel just does not have.
Diesel engines are not *that* much different from gasoline engines.
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Optimization (Score:2)
As for petrol/diesel, they differ a lot.
Disagree. There are some important differences but the basic principles of operation are little different. Suck, squish, bang, blow. They mostly differ in what sort of operation they are optimal within. Little different than an Atkinson cycle engine versus an Otto cycle engine.
Enough to make a 20-40% difference in overall car efficiency.
40%? Show me one real world example of a car with a diesel getting 40% better fuel economy than a gasoline engine of similar horsepower in the same chassis. In the real world the fuel economy advantage tends to be 10-20% for any
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Oops. Incorrect. First of all, it's not "every" locomotive. There are many all-electric locomotives. 25% by length of the world railway network is electrified. 50% of all world railway transport is carried by electrical traction. More importantly, there are essentially NO hybrid locomotives at all, because the concept is stupid. The engine use profile is very different from automobiles. Diesel-electric locomotives are simply diesel-powered lo
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More importantly, there are essentially NO hybrid locomotives at all, because the concept is stupid.
Uh-oh. You're about to say something stupid.
Hybrid by DEFINITION means "a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle".
Yep. And in a series hybrid [wikipedia.org] (see footnote) without battery storage like the typical diesel-electric locomotive, the first power source is the diesel fuel and the second power source is the output from the diesel engine. They are consumed by the diesel engine, and by the electrical generator set respectively. The output from the generator set is consumed by the traction motors.
(footnote: note that my citation is actually a subheading of your citation. when you cite
Isn't " ignorant and curious" the next Discovery (Score:2)
Diesel electric would be better (Score:2)
Rather than have diesel hybrid cars it would be better to have diesel electric cars.
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What's the difference? I classify the "diesel electric" system used on trains, in which the engine turns a generator but delivers no direct power to the wheels, as just another sort of hybrid. An inferior sort, since directly powering the wheels can be more efficient at some points on the speed/power curve, so it's better to have that option.
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Railpower currently does offer a proper Hybrid. They call it the Green Goat (Goat being slang for a yard engine.) The first prototype went into use in 2001 so the superior type does exist.
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The difference is that with a diesel-electric, as in trains, you can tune the engine / generator to run at optimum RPM at all times for fuel efficiency, and then vary the voltage going to the motors as a throttle. When using mechanical power from the engine to direct-drive wheels, you'll be changing the RPM and may not be as efficient on fuel.
There's a lot of different variables that go into this kind of stuff, and the guys that make really big fucking diesel engines decided long ago that running the diese
Cross Blue (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
> Phaeton
Right. So what they're going to do is make yet another "Tesla killer" that sells to a few thousand rich people, and leave all the people that bought a Jetta in the cold. The net effect of this on overall emissions will be basically zero.
Perhaps they would be better off spending this on making a diesel hybrid PEH drivetrain that could equip 80% of the cars they sell? This is a move that takes far less development, would cost less in real dollar terms, and would *drastically* reduce overall real-world emissions.
The e-Golf may be my next car... (Score:2)
How is electric clean? (Score:2)
Electricity is generated in coal power plants, or in nuclear power plants. Those pollute.
Also, recycling batteries is hard, and it pollutes. The sum of pollution over the lifecycle of an electric car may well be a lot worse than that of a gasoline car.
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Instead of discounting electric cars because some places use coal as part of their generation mix, why don't you advocate for the pha
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And in natural gas (low pollution), and some oil power plants. And you conveniently left out hydropower (zero pollution), wind power (zero pollution), solar power (zero pollution), and geothermal power (zero pollution). Nuclear "pollution" is practically zero compared to coal. Not counting accidents, nuclear "pollution" is practically zero. Coal power liberates into the environment vastly more radioactivity per GW per y
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Actually, in the UK, electricity is increasingly produced by diesel generators, because they need backup power which can start fast when the wind drops.
So the UK 'electric' VWs may well be diesel-powered after all, just with an extra layer of transmission losses on top.
All aboard! (Score:2)
My guess is that all the carmakers are involved (more here: http://geekcrumbs.com/2015/10/... [geekcrumbs.com]). Wouldn't it be ironic if they all ended up guilty, and that was what finally provoked a massive shift to electric?
STOP TALKING (Score:2)
And tests show.... (Score:2)
Tests conducted by VW showed that their electric cars actually have negative emissions, leaving the air cleaner than it was before they drove through.
Re:Fixing an ostensibly US only problem (Score:5, Informative)
Er... The EU are looking into it too and they will be recalling cars from there just the same.
It's not an EU only issue, they're in for a world of hurt world-wide.
Re:Fixing an ostensibly US only problem (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. I'm in the UK, and I got a letter from VW yesterday onfirming my car will need a fix. No details except that the are working on it.
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Volkswagen's fix will reduce the mileage on the cars that it's applied to. I wonder if VW owners are really going to line up at the garage to have the fix applied. Or will mandatory emissions testing force them to allow VW to apply the fix?
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VW's proposed fix has not been announced yet. All that's been announced is that it will require hardware changes (which the people saying it would reduce milage were assuming it would not).
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Exactly what sort of fix are you envisioning that wouldn't reduce mileage? Do you really think they're going to find room to install an AdBlue system in your car?
Unless you're talking about adding a post-treatment system, reducing emissions = lowering some combination of the combustion temperature or compression ratio = lower mileage and less power.
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The cheat may not actually be necessary to comply with EU regulations, in which case the fix would just mean removing it. The VW exec that was questioned by parliament here recently stated that the fix would not reduce performance or fuel economy, so if they lied about that too, then VW are storing up even more trouble for themselves. But I'm for sure going to wait for confirmation before I let them "fix" my car.
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I would bet heavily that the solution is indeed that they'll find room to install an AdBlue system.
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I'd be surprised, it takes up a good bit of real estate [myturbodiesel.com] in the vehicle...
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Plenty of room in the passenger seat.
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If it were MY car, I'd not take it in for the "fix" either just for that reason...reduction in performance and mileage.
Thankfully, not everyone lives in a state that requires an emissions test....or even auto inspections at ALL.
Re:Fixing an ostensibly US only problem - NOT (Score:2)
It isn't US only issue, they've messed things up in other countries as well.
3.6m european cars need hardware fix:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/v... [autoexpress.co.uk]
Before that, there was (mostly unnoticed) "oscar scandal" with ADAC rigging votes in favour of VW Golf:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/774a... [ft.com]
VW is rather "known" in German auto industry for having cars that perform on par (e.g. VW Sharan vs Ford S-Max) yet are regarded as way better cars by many journalists "for some reason".
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So VW decides to "fix" a problem that (technically) is a US only issue by greenwashing up a car they don't sell in the US.
It's not "only" a US issue. In fact, the numbers I've heard are somewhere between 500,000 and 650,000 cars affected in the US, but 11 million world-wide. There are a lot more of those cars in Europe than the US, and Europe has a lot more diesel cars on the road.
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It's mostly a California issue with the standards violation. The fraud issue however is still fraud no matter whether the standards apply in a small area or large.
I think VW are playing the odds and see being caught at fraud as just a business expense that will cost less than if they hadn't done the fraud in the first place. GM came out ahead when they were caught doing something almost identical in 1996 after all (the wikiped
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Their design is a problem everywhere, but it's only(*) illegal in the US.
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Their design is a problem everywhere
No it isn't. It is only a problem in urban areas with frequent inversions or poor wind flow. So it is a problem in Los Angeles and Denver. It is NOT a problem in rural areas, or even many urban areas. In those areas, the additional NOx is likely better than the environmental effect of the alternative higher fuel consumption and higher CO2 emissions.
Instead of removing the "test-mode", they should instead tie it into the GPS and link it to weather reports. So if you are in Los Angeles on a calm day, the
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That's an interesting idea, but there's something wrong with your post.
I-80 is lined with 300+ miles of corn through Nebraska, not wheat. That's ethanol country. =)
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I-80 is lined with 300+ miles of corn through Nebraska, not wheat. That's ethanol country. =)
From Omaha to the Wyoming border, I-80 is in Nebraska for 455 miles [wikipedia.org]. In eastern Nebraska it is mostly lined with cornfields. But as you go west into the drier regions, you will begin to see more wheat and less corn. By the time you reach the Wyoming border, it will be mostly wheat or pasture. But NOx emissions will help any crop. Even nitrogen fixing legumes like soybeans will benefit.
Re:Fixing an ostensibly US only problem (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they're not actually going to fix the problem. They're just going to have their computers report that it's fixed.
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So VW decides to "fix" a problem that (technically) is a US only issue by greenwashing up a car they don't sell in the US.
The irony...
From the press release:
It was decided to switch over to installing only diesel drives with SCR and AdBlue technology in Europe and North America as soon as possible. Diesel vehicles will only be equipped with exhaust emissions systems that use the best environmental technology.
They are fixing the problem by putting in the exhaust cleaning diesel technologies that they had previously not put on their diesels (in the apparently mistaken belief that they would by able to solve the emissions problem without the
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I'm pretty sure that 'trust' isn't a US only issue.
Car manufacturers makes sales based on trust. If I don't trust that this $30k+ thing I'm about to buy is going to do what it's supposed to, safely, and for a long time if maintained, I'm not going to buy it and I'll go across the street to that Honda dealer to buy a car that does essentially the same stuff, but is built by a company I do trust.
That's the problem VW will ultimately deal with.
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It is a world-wide problem. Granted that there are some nations that don't enforce pollution laws and likely some that don't even have any. But the EU, Canada and others are very interested in this.
The real irony is that after being caught in a huge lie about their diesel engines they think that they can focus on electric cars and the public will believe all the lies they tell about their electric cars.
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The problem with the Phaeton was ENTIRELY predictable to anyone who had experience with the INDESCRIBABLY TERRIBLE VW dealer servicing. It's like they hire a bunch a bunch of high school dropouts with unusually low intelligence, experience, and dexterity, and then the service managers tell them in essence to cut every possible corner and not worry about following very precise procedures developed by engineering.
As a result, every time you take your vehicle in for work, it comes out in overall poorer shape,
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I would go for the "electric up to 5MPH" solution used with buses for my car. I don't want petrol, thanks. I sometimes tow things.
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And I live in New Orleans. We turn the A/C off three days a year.
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Back then, if a heat wave came in and people died, tough.
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I live in Iceland. In our drivers' ed books there was a section that said something to the effect of, "For a while car manufacturers experimented with adding air conditioning systems into vehicles. This generally proved to not be worth the cost and posed maintenance issues, so few do this anymore."
Here air conditioning, whether in the home or in a car, means "opening a window". Or more often just "turning down your heater" or "taking off your wool sweater". ;) Large buildings sometimes have "loftræsin
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Given that Iceland has nearly unlimited geothermal and hydroelectric power, electric vehicles seem like an obvious choice.
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We're so awash in electric resources that we ship in aluminum ore, refine it here with local power, then ship out the aluminum ;) And despite being a ridiculously windy [wordpress.com] country we only recently built our first wind turbines. There's just been no need. Heck, I'd like to see them build more if only to act as windbreaks ;) Last winter my land got hit by 60m/s (134mph) winds in the strongest of the windstorms - windstorms that hit once every 2-3 days for the whole winter.
That said, I do wish they'd stop tryi
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Well, usually the AC compressor is belt-driven right off the mechanical spinning bits of the engine. You'd have to redesign the mechanical clutch that already exists for on / off to also take input from your electrical motor optionally, in addition to adding the electric motor and the increased battery capacity to run the thing, knowing that you're not always going to have a brand new battery under the hood. Complexity also means initial expense and more expensive repairs over time.
It's never as simple as
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That's what the original Prius was - only low speed electric. But as the AC pointed out below, if you're going to add an electric motor, you might as well add a good one, it doesn't make much of a weight difference.
Re:There is a reason that they circumvented... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. They conned the entire fucking planet. Europe has far higher emission requirements than the US, and most countries require vehicles to be tested annually. Fail the test, your is rendered illegal for public roads. VW's aim was to mislead the public about the efficiency of their diesel engines, but the efficiency took a dive in clean running mode, so they switched it off only for testing conditions.
Re:There is a reason that they circumvented... (Score:5, Interesting)
EU has higher requirements for CO and in general lower requirements for NOx, except maybe very latest EuroN test that raises a bar closer to few years old EPA test. NOx is what matters for smog. Paris at times is no better than Chinese cities and now they try to prevent diesels entering downtown. Maybe they should not have allowed them on the roads in the first place.
European annual road tests are BS in most countries except Germany, Switzerland and few others that take them seriously. Especially anywhere to the East of Western Europe. First, you don't need to pass new test with old vehicles. You need to meet only some old BS test. Then, you can just quickly tune the system to produce better results before the test at the expense of efficiency, and tune back as soon as you leave testing facility. Many older cares on the road have catalytic converters removed - they cost money to replace, but you can actually sell them for small money for precious metals inside.
There is no practical way to control all old car emissions on roads EU wide.
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For legibility purposes, due to 'higher' being vague, I'd suggest using words like 'stricter' and 'looser'. A strict standard would require less of what's bad, and more of what's good. A 'Higher' standard for something like NOx could mean more is allowed to be emitted, ie the level allowed is higher, or that less is allowed, because the standard itself is 'higher'.
Which is higher: 60mg/km, or 20mg/mile of NOx?
US has, currently, stricter standards for NOx, especially given that the latest US revision drop
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> Europe has far higher emission requirements than the US
European regulation crusades against high tail-pipe emissions of CO2 (global climate change arch-enemy) and PM10 (tiny soot particles eventually causing cancer and systematic heart failure after decades of accumulation in the lungs). PM10 is a big-big issue for diesels, necessitating particulate filters to meet Euro 4/5/6 norms. Another trick is "AdBlue" tech that uses acid refined from urination to wash tailpipe exhausts clean.
In contrast, as far
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Nonsense. Most visible smoke is larger particles than PM10, and is not fully respirable. The cilia trap most of it before it gets to the alveoli. PM10 is relatively coarse particulates. PM2.5 is fine particulates, and below this there are superfine particulates too, and these are the more dangerous. PM2.5 and
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09... [nytimes.com]
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Depends, the NOx limit in EU is much higher than the US. The CO2 limit in the EU is lower than the US. Different things to optimize or cheat for.
The EPA is not the bad guy here (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the EPA requirements are zealous, and makes producing a diesel vehicle unviable.
No it does not. Diesels can easily meet the emissions rules and there are plenty of vehicles that do it without cheating. VW cheated because they didn't want to install the expensive equipment necessary to make this happen such as a urea injection system. It has nothing to do with diesel technology and everything to do with profit motive. VW cheated to pad their bottom line.
The funny thing is electric cars are the real unviable vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles are the best idea, only waste they produce from the combustion of hydrogen is water.
Umm, what? Hydrogen powered cars are clearly a non-starter at this time. Basically zero fuel infrastructure unless you use derivatives of hydrocarbons which basically ends up with the same sort of emissions problems we currently face. They've got high emissions intensity because our primary source of hydrogen is from natural gas. They also have low performance (comparatively) and poor efficiency (comparatively) with PHEVs. While conceptually hydrogen power has some attractive features, in practice it isn't superior to existing alternatives and there is no evidence to suggest that will change in the near future.
Since you think (wrongly IMO) that electric cars are "unviable", I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you otherwise but so far the evidence does not appear to be agreeing with you. Electric and hybrid electric vehicles are pretty clearly the next evolution in automobiles and that only happens if they are a viable technology.
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Electric and hybrid electric vehicles are pretty clearly the next evolution in automobiles and that only happens if they are a viable technology.
You seem to be quite sure of this... I would question as to why?
Is it because of all the press they get?
Is it because of all the sales they get?
Well, they DO get a lot of press... but sales? Plug in EVs of all types were less than 1% of the total light car and truck sales in the US in 2014 (it was 0.7% to be exact).
That is a rounding error, not the "coming replacement of ICE cars".
Now, that number might grow into something other than a rounding error, but lets be frank, if it tripled in the next three ye
Hybrids are the probable near term future (Score:3)
You seem to be quite sure of this... I would question as to why?
Several reasons.
1) PHEVs require minimal to no infrastructure investment to be viable. No other alternative can make that claim.
2) Fuel economy standards. PHEVs are a proven solution to the problem and the solution with the least compromise of performance.
3) Prices of batteries continues to fall and performance continues to rise. As that happens the the price of hybrid vehicles will continue to improve.
4) Performance and luxury cars already are beginning the conversion to hybrid. (See McClaren, Ferrari,
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NOx is created during combustion in a nitrogen rich environment (air). Simply switching to hydrogen as a fuel won't eliminate NOx production.
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Because the EPA requirements are zealous, and makes producing a diesel vehicle unviable. The funny thing is electric cars are the real unviable vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles are the best idea, only waste they produce from the combustion of hydrogen is water.
If you believe Hydrogen powered vehicles are the future then you should really be pushing for electric vehicles. Why because hydrogen powered vehicles will produce electricity and not be burned like current gas vehicles. This means any findings we have with electric vehicles will directly apply to hydrogen vehicles.
In fact when Chevy started building the first Volt they borrowed a lot of information that was produced by the team working on a hydrogen vehicle and used that to help build the Volt.
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Silly, I am talking about hydrogen powered combustion engines, they produce more power than a gasoline engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]...
Maybe I'm reading this wrong but it appears the Wiki shows the Hydrogen version made less power by almost 50% when compared to running on gas (80kW on hydrogen vs 154kW on gas).
Power from hydrogen (Score:5, Informative)
I am talking about hydrogen powered combustion engines, they produce more power than a gasoline engine.
Did you actually read the article you linked to?
Power: Hydrogen 80kW vs Gasoline 154kW
Torque: Hydrogen 140Nm vs Gasoline 222Nm
Range: Hydrogen 100 km vs Gasoline 550km
When powered by hydrogen it is worse in each and every relevant measure. A LOT worse.
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Re:Power from hydrogen (Score:4, Insightful)
Hydrogen has more energy per mass than gasoline.
It has more energy per unit of mass (Specific Energy) but FAR less per unit of volume [wikipedia.org] (Energy Density). So unless you plan on turning it into liquid hydrogen (impractical and dangerous) or can find some alternative storage medium, it's not practical as a fuel. The chemical storage mediums we've found so far are either lab experiments or impractical for various reasons.
The future is storing hydrogen in magnesium hydride and using algae to produce hydrogen.
And your evidence for this is what exactly? You are talking about a couple of laboratory projects. Nothing that is in any danger of becoming a commercial product any time soon. Your biological solution hasn't solved the key efficiency problem plus a host of other non-trivial issues. Your storage medium is not used in an commercial product that I am aware of.
I have no principled objection to hydrogen powered vehicles but I think your optimism regarding their prospects as commercial products is unwarranted given the available evidence. If we do see commercial hydrogen powered vehicles it will not be at any kind of scale for many many years.
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What, you don't want a cryogenic fuel system in every car on the road? What could possibly go wrong?
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The amount of fuel in the tank has no bearing on the power and torque. The same issue FYI happens in rocket motors - LOX/LH has the best ISP, but LOX/kerosene is generally much more powerful, so it's common to see LOX/kerosene on lower stages and LOX/LH on upper stages. Hydrogen's very low density hurts it in the power department, even though it's a very aggressive burner and powerful per unit mass. And of course the density hits it in the range department as well.
Hydrogen adsorption materials increase ran
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Hydrogen adsorption materials increase range, but do so at the cost of consuming energy (at some stage or another) and increasing system mass.
Indeed. When I looked at the issue, I kept running into the fact that in order to store a useful amount of hydrogen in a useful volume you end up back with low energy density by mass - because the high pressure tank weighs so much, and using absorption materials, as you say, only increase the mass by even more.
Hydrogen was mostly dropped when Lithium-Ion battery technology didn't hit any road blocks. There's no critical show-stoppers for Lithium battery technology(and I'm being vague here because there's
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Hydrogen is stupid.
The hydrogen engine *has* to be smaller and *has* to use less fuel, because if it carried enough fuel to match the power and range of a gasoline engine, the fuel tank would be as big as the car. (And that's not an exaggeration. OK not much. I did the math.)
Hydrogen has great energy per mass, but its energy per *volume* is terrible -- about equal to lithium batteries [wikipedia.org]. Rather than dealing with synthesizing, transporting, storing, and burning an explosive super-pressurized gas, it's much
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I think you failed to realize that he was speaking of fuel-cell electric propulsion vehicles, when mentioning hydrogen power. The kind of equipment that blew up in Apollo 13, but much perfected ever since. Toyota now sells a series produced fuel-cell engined car called Mirai, but it has a very ugly body. Rumor says they are working on a re-body, codenamed Miku that has acceptable looks for the euro-atlantic market. On the other hand, battery-electric powered vehicles are really silly. The whole Earth would need to be mined into Moon or Mars to obtain enough material for a large-scale conversion from internal combustion to batteries. In contrast, the Mirai's fuel cell only needs a few kilos of steel and some 2oz of platinum, which is very little (albeit very expensive).
I did not fail to realize this what I'm saying is that if you believe hydrogen power is the way via Fuel Cell then having electric vehicles now would help the auto industry move toward electrifying cars which will help as then you have electric components ready to go for when/if hydrogen becomes capable.
I own an electric vehicle and realize they are not for everyone but saying we are going to jump from gas to hydrogen is ridiculous as the big issues with hydrogen are storage, infrastructure, and creation.
In-vehicle hydrogen power makes no economic sense (Score:2)
The sane way to use hydrogen, assuming it can be produced in large enough quantity and without enough pollution to compromise its other advantages, is to create it adjacent to, and then use to it drive, large power plants, which then pass the resulting energy along to vehicles as electricity. Electric vehicles offer something hydrogen vehicles cannot: they are energy agnostic, because you can make electricity in quite a few ways, none of which the electric vehicle even needs to know about, and from there, i
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Rules and Regulations dictated from on high by some collection of bureaucrats—whose greatest achievement was to convince even dumber people to cast "votes" for their election to office—are always going to be a fantasy.
I like to breathe. It's something I do every day. I'd like to breathe clean air, thank you. If you want to pollute, don't do it in my air
Volkswagen's problem was not that there wasn't technology available to clean the NOx out of the diesel emissions. Their problem was after deciding to license the clean diesel technology ("BlueTec") from Daimler, the CEO got pushed out and replaced by a new CEO who cancelled the deal and made a deliberate decision not to license BlueTec. This was because their engineers
Buy a VW electric? Not in this lifetime (Score:2, Interesting)
Try making reliable electronic systems. I know of no one who's bought a VW made in the last 10 years who hasn't fought with electronic engine control system gremlins.
10 years? Hell I owned a series of VWs from 1985-2003. (Scirocco, Golf, GTI, Jetta) My father owned several (3 Sciroccos, 2 Jettas, a Golf and a Passat plus Audi 5000) from 1977 to this year. My sister has owned several (Fox, Golf, Audi A3). EVERY single one of them save three, had electrical problems at one time or another. Usually something minor but sooner or later something electrical would break well before it should have been expected to break.
VWs in my experience will last a long time but you c
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There's an old UK automotive joke: Why do the British drink warm beer? Because they keep it in Lucas refrigerators!"
Suspect reliability (Score:2)
To be fair, European-market Volkswagens tend to be built a lot better than their North-American market counterparts.
I've owned plenty of VWs that were built in Europe and I stand by my statement that their reliability isn't good. I don't think the boat ride reduces reliability so I'm unconvinced that VWs quality problems are anything but engineering and occasionally build defects in most cases. I've seen no evidence that VWs built on this side of the pond are less reliable than those build in Germany. Honda and Toyota and BMW and others manage to build very reliable cars here in North America so VW doesn't have any ex
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A french magazine for consumers wrote an interesting article about long-term reliability of the various cars.
Volkswagen has a generally good quality, but still a lot of problems.
Here are a few ones:
- fouling and breakage of the turbo diesel 4 cylinder
- failure of injectors and water/oil leakage on the 1.6 TDI
etc.
The recommended models are : Up!, Polo (except diesel until 2014), current Golf Jetta and Passat, New Beetle, Sharan since 2013 and current Touareg.
If you are interested, I can translate some of the
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Don't forget their awesome TDI engines from before this mess that tended to shear crank shafts, destroying the valves and contaminating the entire engine with metal shards; and their flywheels that would crack and explode taking half the gearbox with it.
The VWs of the last decade are nowhere near the quality of those that came before.
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First, because that's not actually what he said, and second, because this is a news site, and that is not news, it's just repeating what he said in 2007.
Should have been Audi, not VW (Score:2)
The Phaeton was sold in the US when it was introduced. However, the sales of the $70K VW were not good so they decided to withdraw it from the US Market.
That's because they sold it under the wrong brand. It should have been an Audi vehicle here in the US. NOBODY thinks of VW as a luxury brand. The Phaeton was a darn good car but VW flunked marketing 101 in selling it. The badge on the front matters when it comes to luxury vehicles. That's the same reason Toyota, Honda and Nissan sell their luxury stuff under Lexus, Acura and Infiniti brands here in the US.
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Yeah, this scandal is going to make VW rethink its plans to sell the new VW Smug, which was which was to be powered entirely by the driver's condescending attitude.