VW Engineers Have Admitted Manipulating CO2 Emissions Data (reuters.com) 201
An anonymous reader writes: According to a report in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag several Volkswagen engineers have come forward and admitted manipulating carbon dioxide emissions data, blaming the overly ambitious goals set by former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn. Reuters reports: "The paper said VW engineers tampered with tyre pressure and mixed diesel with their motor oil to make them use less fuel, a deception that began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year. 'Employees have indicated in an internal investigation that there were irregularities in ascertaining fuel consumption data. How this happened is subject to ongoing proceedings,' a Volkswagen spokesman said, declining to comment on the Bild report."
Hagbard Celine's Second Law (Score:4, Insightful)
"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing. The executives, as usual, will get off scot-free and even if fired, will come out smelling like roses.
No excuse for committing a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing.
If the engineers did something that they knew was wrong then they deserve to be blamed and punished for what they did. If someone asks you to commit a crime the answer should be an unequivocal "NO". This was not a complicated ethical situation. This is kindergarten stuff. Just because someone told you to commit a crime doesn't make it acceptable for you to go ahead and actually do it.
Nobody at VW involved in this fiasco was under any illusions that what they were doing was legal or even in a gray area. Any engineers who were involved in this fraud should be taken to court and punished in a manner commensurate with their crime. Same with any management that was in charge. They knew or should have known what was going on and deserve to be punished for this crime.
And let's not pretend that the executives didn't know what was happening. This is a company that is renowned for their centralized control and micro-managing. Any pretense that the management was not aware of this fraud is almost certainly untrue. It might not go all the way to the top but I can't imaging how some folks pretty high up the food chain didn't authorize this.
Re:No excuse for committing a crime (Score:4, Interesting)
So take that up one level. The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology. After expending a large effort and resources on improving the technology, it was still impossible.
Those companies will then be punished by the government for failing to do the impossible. Should not the various governments who set the emission levels be held accountable? They essentially set the bar at an impossible level, given the time and resource constraints, and then threatened the livelihoods of all the participants who were guaranteed to fail.
Re:No excuse for committing a crime (Score:5, Informative)
Except they weren't impossible to meet given the current technology, were they?
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The US CO2 emissions standards haven't changed since 2010.
Re:No excuse for committing a crime (Score:5, Interesting)
Newsflash, EPA and CARB are re-testing other manufacturers too, and nobody else is cheating. Everybody else so far has real numbers, and modern cars really do meet modern emissions standards. Except for VW-owned brands.
They left out the controls on the smaller engines so that they could sell them as sportscars, which small diesels are definitely not. Then they put a defeat device in the firmware to game the test. Just because you got tricked, doesn't mean that everybody else did, too. If you want a small engine and high performance, you're an idiot to think that is available in a diesel, and an idiot to think it is not efficient in other types cars.
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Emmissions targets are already achievable (Score:5, Insightful)
The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.
The emissions targets are demonstrably possible. There are cars driving on the road today which substantially exceed the CO2 emissions requirements under CAFE and similar legislation. Car companies might have to stop selling the ones that don't but that is a Good Thing.
After expending a large effort and resources on improving the technology, it was still impossible.
WRONG. The technology required for VW to meet emissions standards already exists and was available to them. They made a purely economic decision to not implement that technology in order to save money while fraudulently claiming that they had solved the problem. This was fraud in pursuit of money. Nothing more.
Engineers do make economic decisions (Score:2)
Engineers don't make economic decisions in a large company.
Engineers make economic decisions on a daily basis. Costing is a fundamental part of engineering. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never been an engineer in the real world. Engineers determine what is possible and specify the parts. Those parts have a cost attached so the engineers very much make economic decisions in companies of any size.
Re:No excuse for committing a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
But there lies the problem.
You can relatively easily prosecute the engineers because well... they were the ones to implement it and would know what impact things would have.
The hard part is in getting management because at the end of the day, they typically apply pressure and can claim ignorance.
They should really have a serious clause in there along the lines of negligence whereby management can be held to account for applying undue pressure and not taking enough due diligence to make sure it was not impacting quality.
And it should be a harsh punishment.
Like it or not, engineers just don't have the same kind of clout as doctors or lawyers or other regulated professions.
It's kind of sad when you hear people talk to software developers and say they're not real engineers who are held to account...
I've worked in some engineering oriented firms. I'd say you face the same issue you do as a developer. Your 'boss' is a corporation or venture capital firm out to make money. You are just an employee.
Now engineers do some some areas where they have more independence. Normally in fields like power, civil engineering... often in cases where they have strong bodies.
But for a corporate and product company like VW... there's not much difference.
No prosecution if you don't do the crime (Score:2)
You can relatively easily prosecute the engineers because well... they were the ones to implement it and would know what impact things would have.
They cannot easily prosecute the engineers if they never commit the crime in the first place. All the engineers had to do was refuse to commit fraud and both the company and the engineers would be better off for it. If the engineers knew what they were doing was a crime (and they almost certainly did) then they could easily have refused to do it. These are not people without options. The worst the company could do to them is fire them and then they find a job elsewhere. Much better than being hauled in
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Any system that relies on the super-morality of people is bound to fail. History can attest to that.
No group of people be it engineers, priests, scientists, lawyers, doctors, teachers, police officers. politicians... are 'good' enough to be some kind of moral vanguard.
Can an individual be a standout? Of course. On both the positive or negative side.
The best you can do is make sure the conditions people operate it are good enough and the consequences bad enough that a reasonable person would choose to do the
Internal controls (Score:2)
Any system that relies on the super-morality of people is bound to fail. History can attest to that.
And any system that doesn't have separation of duties [wikipedia.org] and other internal controls [wikipedia.org] is also bound to fail. As a group it doesn't shock me that some of them behaved badly but then they should expect no sympathy after the fact. If there weren't adequate internal controls then that is the fault of management but it doesn't excuse the engineers from what they did.
If these engineers were complicit in committing this fraud then they deserve whatever punishment awaits them. I have little sympathy for people who c
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If the engineers knew what they were doing was a crime (and they almost certainly did) then they could easily have refused to do it.
Knowing something is immoral is not the same as knowing something is a crime. And knowing something is a crime is not the same as knowing it is a provable crime, and that after reporting it courts would side with you rather than your megacorporation employer.
The worst the company could do to them is fire them
The worst? If that wasn't already a bad enough outcome in this economy...
and then they find a job elsewhere.
It's not if there are hundreds of other car manufacturers around to hire you. And with the few that are around, chances are the managers are golfing partners with each other, and t
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Except German engineers aren't under US jurisdiction, and how likely is it they even KNOW what US laws are. Or more directly, engineers aren't legal experts. How likely is it that they know the intricacies of any (even German) laws on pollution?
A corporation has armies of lawyers specifically to advise their various employees, and I imagine most engineers don't speak with them directly, either. So they would have gotten their
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If the engineers did something that they knew was wrong then they deserve to be blamed and punished for what they did.
The interesting thing is most software these days is abstracted out. If you're working on a big, enterprise level project, you won't get asked to draw a big picture: you'll be given a module you need to create that takes a given range of inputs and transforms them to a given level of outputs on a specific platform.
It's very possible that this wasn't something the whole engineering department would've known about. You could very easily have a number of different "modes" and then just have one guy link the
WELL DONE for standing up to the suits (Score:2)
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By this logic, Hitler was not to blame for the holocaust 'cause he only ordered the Jews gone and didn't check how it's done.
If you condemn Hitler, you have to condemn managers.
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Hey, once a year I may use Reductio at Hitlerum. It's in my contract.
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"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."
You don't understand German labour laws do you. The engineers were in about the most non-punishing situation you can get and breaking the law for their company was not a rational choice. They deserve equal blame and they are implicated in this.
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Blaming the messenger is quite common in Germany as well. Labor laws do not help one bit when you suddenly find yourself assigned only to projects that are in bas shape, cut out from anything important and factually become excluded from promotion. This situation was extremely punishing and only somebody completely naive with regards to how things work in the real world would claim otherwise.
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This situation was extremely punishing and only somebody completely naive with regards to how things work in the real world would claim otherwise.
Really? The works council may have something to say about that. German workers are effectively mostly unionised in ways industrial blue-collar America could only dream of.
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I completely agree. And creating that non-punishing situation is the duty and responsibility of the CEO in this case. He failed to get basic sane management practices right and deserves _all_ blame and punishment.
Amazing how fast guilt discovered for non-execs (Score:5, Interesting)
Investigation zeroes in on two engineers .. (Score:3)
Ok to pollute because others are worse? (Score:3, Insightful)
I own a 2015 Passat tdi. Frankly I am not worried about the nox or co2 output I make in my vehicle.
So you are saying you don't give a crap about the environment. Fair enough. I appreciate your honesty.
Diesel trucks dump far more crap and haul less people.
So the reason you don't care is because other sources of pollution are worse? That's like saying it's ok for me to dump toxins in the stream because the factory down the street pollutes more. If we accept that logic then there would be no point in any rules prohibiting pollution. Just because we haven't solved some other problem doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with the pollution coming out of your car i
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And yet it isn't as low as it could or should be.
How low should anyone's carbon footprint be? What is my recommended daily allowance of carbon output?
The GPP drives a 2015 Passat, which I'd think has a lower carbon footprint than my 2006 Explorer. Perhaps the GPP is not concerned about the carbon output of the Passat because the alternative could have been a Ford F-150, as in the GPP believes that choice was sufficient to gain the praises of those concerned about the carbon footprint of the public.
It seems that some people just cannot be pleased. I cou
Controlling commercial pollution (Score:2)
It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls.
I would very much agree with that and we should work to fix that problem. What I think stinks more is that companies will fight fixing the problem every step of the way.
I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.
Nice sentiment but it almost certainly won't happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this. Only way I can see a big dent being made is if there is are huge breakthroughs in fusion and battery technologies. Right now that is sort of wishful thinking...
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Elon Musk could do it, but only if he harnesses potential STEM workers from currently under-represented demographic tribelets using a 3D printer.
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I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.
Well I have good news for you, your dream is reality!
See: law of conservation of energy
Not only do we no long create energy by burning we never have!
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It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls.
I would very much agree with that and we should work to fix that problem. What I think stinks more is that companies will fight fixing the problem every step of the way.
The worst part is all those people who buy vehicles that are technically commercial (eg pickups) and use them for recreational purposes (or just to go to the shops). This probably accounts for the majority of emissions from 'commercial' vehicles!
And yes this benefits the manufacturer and the manufacturer will definitely fight this and continue to market commercial vehicles for personal use.
They were only following orders (Score:2)
VW engineers say they were only following orders. Where have I heard that before.
Re: Ok to pollute because others are worse? (Score:5, Informative)
It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls. A couple of months every year we have smog days and the damage caused by pollutants to our health is just shameful.
I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.
Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?
Commercial vehicles have emissions rules and pollution controls. They don't happen to be the same as your passenger car, because first, there are many less commercial vehicles than there are passenger vehicles so as a whole they're already polluting less than in-total for passenger vehicles, and second, the rules for commercial vehicles are based around what the vehicle is expected to move. This applies to both passenger commercial vehicles (ie, buses) and to vehicles that move cargo or raw materials. A Class-4 tow truck or short school bus chassis will have its emissions capped at a much lower amount than a Class-6 flatbed delivery truck, which will be lower than a Class-8 over-the-road tractor trailer, or full-sized school bus, or sixteen wheel heavy dump truck.
One could extrapolate that the amount of emissions allowed per unit of work is probably comparable to your passenger car, but these commercial vehicles are doing a lot more total work.
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Commercial vehicles have emissions rules and pollution controls. They don't happen to be the same as your passenger car, because first, there are many less commercial vehicles than there are passenger vehicles so as a whole they're already polluting less than in-total for passenger vehicles, and second, the rules for commercial vehicles are based around what the vehicle is expected to move.
Where I live I mostly see commercial vehicles being used as passenger vehicles; people driving their (HUGE) pickup trucks to the mall for some shopping etc.
Commercial vehicles which are actually used as such are probably outnumbered by the 'commercial vehicles' which are actually family cars.
Re: Ok to pollute because others are worse? (Score:4, Informative)
That said, I agree with you; the nature of what the vehicle is used for, rather than its capability, starts to become important in vehicles that do not require any special class of license to operate. Vehicles 26,001 lb GCWR and above (if I am remembering correctly, I have not had a practical need to know this stuff) are generally required to have a commercial license of some kind to operate, and even when some states will tolerate private ownership and operation above 26,000 lb, to drive inter-state one must usually get a license as other states will not tolerate it. Class 2 and 3 trucks (three-quarter ton and one-ton) are far too often used as commuter/daily driver vehicles and those overpollute relative to the work that they do in-practice.
A big part of the SUV craze of the last fifteen years has been that automakers were able to use these chassis as means to avoid fuel economy standards and to thus provide gobs of power to the buying public, when more recent developments have proven that the passenger cars and Class 1 trucks can meet these fuel economy and emissions standards when the automakers choose to work to develop them. I haven't kept-up on it, but I think that there's increasing pressure to get automakers to have more fuel-efficient vehicles in these classes- the "lifestyle truck" has become much more of a Class 1 (half-ton) phenomenon, while the plush varieties of the Class 2 and 3 trucks have gotten so ridiculously expensive that they are not suited to being driven casually by too many owners compared to in the past.
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I thought based on the article, this should read:
when more recent developments have proven that the passenger cars and Class 1 trucks can meet these fuel economy and emissions standards when the automakers engineers adjust tire pressure and doctor the fuel
Seriously, when a government says "You must meet these standards" and
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I think we've found the reason for the california drought. no more particles, no more rain! it all checks out!
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The biggest contributors to cleaning up California's air (in no particular order) were:
1: Getting smokers off the road
2: Banning 2 stroke lawnmowers (in the mid 1980s these were estimated to produce half of LA county's smog count)
3: Cleaning up the fuel - both gasoline and diesel by mandating lower impurity levels (sulfur and others) and banning lead additives (a pity that several of the lead replacements turned out to be nastier than what went before....)
No matter what they do, the air in that area will st
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Diesel trucks are not designed to carry people, they are designed to carry freight
Around me they are marketed as capable of towing yachts and carrying other trucks, but designed to carry the American Dream of being Bigger, Louder, and Shinier than the next guy. A few do have contractor toolboxes in the back, but most are commuting to work or class with an empty cooler and a bungee cord in the bed. At least the genuine freight haulers aren't so fucking loud.
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Of course not. You should be worried about the VW in front of you.
For this idiot we protest against smoking.
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The problem isn't the emissions levels. The problem is engineers actively cheating on these regulatory requirements. Are they also cheating on safety tests? Or reliability tests? It would suck if your wheels came off when you were on the freeway then your airbags didn't work.
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At least read the summary. They also cheated on the mpg ratings.
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If you live in California, it doesn't matter what you think. If the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the state have their way, nobody who currently owns one of these vehicles will be able to re-register them with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which means that these vehicles are (or will be) no longer legal to drive in California on public roads.
I guess business opportunity would be to start a company in a neighboring state, "buy and register" them in the other state and then let the original owner rent them for a nominal fee. (Not sure if there's a law stopping something like that but if there isn't by the time there was a law the company could have made a bit of money.)
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I wonder.
If you purchased the vehicle in good faith and the state says you can't use it anymore, is that an illegal taking, requiring compensation? What if a fridge or AC manufacturer did something similar? Can the State force you to purchase a new fridge or new AC for your home? What if the manufacturer is no longer in business or is bankrupted so you can't get compensated from them?
Is it tough shit for you? Is that how you treat people who probably paid, on average, to get cleaner burning car? Does CA get
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Does CA get to say "Fuck you, go spend another $60?"
I assume that was rhetorical. They government can always change their mind and generally you get the short end of the stick.
They have made it so it illegal to resell things from drop side crib to semi-automatic weapons. Generally you cannot legally sell recalled products even if the original manufacturer goes out of business. As for things that you don't intend to sell, but need a license for, they can do that too. There are examples of governments changing zoning on real property so current tenant cannot
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Are you comparing specific vehicles? What SUV weighs 2500kg!? Even a loaded landcruiser is only 1,500kg. But just to humour you, a Jetta has a reported output (per-scandal number) of 144kg, whereas a CX-5 has a CO2 output of 119kg.
I'll give you that greater weight makes efficiency more difficult but I'll point out that just chip tuning for power will blast the CO2 footprint up dramatically. VW is basically selling cars that are chip tuned for performance out of the gate and making it look like they are not.
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What SUV weighs 2500kg!?
Just make a google search for "Toyota Sequoia weight", for example. 6000 lbs is actually about 2700 kg.
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That's insane! What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!? They don't have this where I live. I mean I own a Vellfire and that thing is practically a moving living room - and it's still only 2190kg.
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What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!?
If you think Americans buy what we need, you've not been paying attention to our obesity problem.
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While Americans and their girths may be one part of the problem, the entire industry of fooling, tricking, or persuading people into buying things that they don't need doe need some blame too.
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the entire industry of fooling, tricking, or persuading people into buying things that they don't need
Also known as "Marketing". There is a reason marketers are loathed almost as much as lawyers.
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Pussy! I've an F-350 with a 6.7L engine. (It's my plow truck and sometimes hauls stuff. I don't drive it on a regular basis.) The efficiency isn't bad considering the work that it does.
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I don't haul often, maybe a half dozen times a year. I've a two-car trailer that I haul around to take cars to shows during the summer if I'm being less than lazy. I prefer to just drive them because that's why I bought them and I don't actually own any trailer queens. If I can't or won't drive it then I don't want it.
Because of this, I just suck it up and insure my license. Anything I drive is fully insured. It's costly. Anyhow, for me to tow two cars (both of which probably aren't all that efficient, to b
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It's a classic?
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To build on this, sedans always get a free pass but the large or high end ones like BMW Series 5 and 7, Mercedes, Peugeot 607 etc. and whatever the american equivalent are really do pollute as much or more than SUVs.
If you go looking for oversized SUV just to make a point don't forget about the useless engines with 8, 10 or even 12 cylinders on the higher end versions of sedans.
To be logically consistent, we should shame the owners/drivers/users of sedans not just those of SUVs.
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I'm actually proof of what you're saying. I own two cars: a hybrid Vellfire with eco tires and a manual 86 with sports suspension and inch-upped wheels with ZII tires. The Vellfire we take on long trips (lots of highway) and I drive it very carefully (eco-starts, very gradual breaking) and the 86 use for short drives for work and motorsports and I don't drive it so eco-consiouscly. Despite the 86 being in the exceptional range of gas milage for sports cars, the massive battery-filled rolling living room ful
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Fellow down the block has a Hummer H2 6.2L - this thing is HUGE, the rear brake lights are above my shoulders.
I don't think these have been sold since 2010 but he keeps his looking like its brand-new. Must be close to 3000 kg curb weight.
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By that logic, a Harley Electra-Glide weighing in at 882 pounds should have better gas mileage than a Prius with a curb weight of 3042 pounds. It doesn't. The Harley gets about 42 mpg combined and the Prius gets around 50.
Physics says it takes more energy to accelerate 3000 pounds by a given amount in a vacuum than it does 882 pounds. It doesn't say that a gas burning vehicle that weighs over 3000 pounds will necessarily burn more gas (and thus emit more CO2) than a vehicle that weighs less than 900 poun
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Just to add to your point, most internal combustion engines are only 15-20% efficient, most of the energy in the fuel gets turned into heat or lost (either through friction of through other loads like the alternator, power steering etc). Even a super-duper-efficient ICE engine is only yielding 25% efficiency tops (number pulled out of thin air, but a reasonable number, nonetheless).
What this means is that engines with less controls, like a motorcycle's engine, are at the bottom end of efficiency. A Harley
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Some electric motorcycles have a carbon footprint equivalent to getting over 200 MPG.
It's hard to get a good measure for efficiency, as the minor inconsistencies in refills make it less accurate, but my gasoline burner motorbike (stock) is about 100 mpg. I could tun it for better efficiency, but I don't think there's too much more efficiency to get out of it.
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F=ma so a=F/m
"Anything is possible"? No, basic physics can't be worked around. More mass means more fuel to achieve an equivalent acceleration. You can make things more efficient, up to a point, but you can't make a heavy vehicle use less fuel than a lighter vehicle. Moving mass requires work proportional to the mass.
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Even if you mean with the same engine model you're wrong. Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine. A simple example of this would be pistons - precision engineered pistons like those in F1 cars result in significantly smaller energy loss per fuel burned than a consumer grade piston. A heavier vehicle with a precision engineered piston could easily be as efficient as a lighter vehicle with a consumer grade piston.
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Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine.
Yes, and that efficiency increase benefits both heavy and light vehicles, and the heavier vehicle still needs more power to move it than the lighter one.
In fact, as you get more efficient, the ratio changes even more in favor of the lighter vehicle. As you approach 100% efficiency, you approach a situation where a twice as heavy vehicle must consume twice as much fuel.
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Excellent point - my post only took into consideration instantaneous efficiency but as you point out it's really about sum efficiency. Capacitive breaking / energy reclamation and assisted acceleration, variable throughput, tires, etc. etc. etc. Just looking at the progress that's been made in the last 10 years and seeing the kinds of things being released now (EG: Toyota Mirai, BMW i3) and glimpses of what could be released in the future (Mazda RX-9 hybrid rotary) and considering that even these are things
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You can make things more efficient, up to a point, but you can't make a heavy vehicle use less fuel than a lighter vehicle.
Firstly you're being contradictory. If you make things more efficient you ARE making it use less fuel.
Secondly with a typical Otto cycle engine being around 20-30% efficient currently we have a LONG way to go. We also have come a long way too with engines being significantly more efficient now than in the past.
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That's a misread of the physics. Acceleration isn't the important energy sink, since the car starts at rest and when you park it, it's once again at rest. Regenerative braking is not unheard of, and it would be possible to get all of your forward-acceleration energy back.
What doesn't come back, are atmospheric drag, friction and tire-flex heating, and ex
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But you can have inefficient small things and efficient big things. A wood fired small auto spewing out a huge amount of carbon compared to a hybrid large truck that has regenerative breaking and computer controlled ignition timing.
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Even modern engines are massively inefficient things - not even coming close to approaching limits of physical efficiency. And that's just the engine. Power is lost in the drive train, through the wheels, through various vectoring mechanisms and further stolen away by stability control and traction systems. Your argument is invalid.
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My current 1200kg car absolutely emits less CO2 than my previous 750kg car.
But if you make a fair comparison of two modern similar cars, one 1200 kg and another 750 kg, the heavier one of course needs more energy (fuel) to move. It is Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion: "Force equals mass times acceleration."
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Yes, all things equal, the larger vehicle will use more fuel. But all things are *never* equal.
Time is money (Score:2)
Re:Time is money (Score:5, Informative)
People won't want to spend an extra hour per day commuting.
No, they don't.
At the heart of that you will locate an innate selfishness, a modern day tragedy of the commons. Most folks would rather we did things to the benefit of the environment, as long as their personal sacrifice is somewhere between minimal and nonexistent.
Where we live, there is an active market for the gear heads who trade in "delete kits" (after market parts that defeat the environmental controls).
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Most folks would rather we did things to the benefit of the environment, as long as their personal sacrifice is somewhere between minimal and nonexistent.
I tried driving a fuel efficient car, that worked well until I moved from my brother's basement to my own place. That first winter I found myself several times where I had my car stuck in the snow or the path to my home so slicked with ice that I had to walk the last mile home. There is a school near where I live so that path is cleared quite quickly but that still leaves the last mile with deep snow after a storm, often for days.
When I went to look at vehicles I took fuel economy into consideration. I c
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you should have plowed your own road home.
That's what I do now, I got a truck and plow through the snow.
youre the guy who keeps railing against government and for libertarian ideals.
I do believe that governments exist to build and maintain roads. That's what my taxes are for. But I'm fine with the city taking priority of clearing school bus routes and fire lanes first. Not only does that keep taxes low for everyone it also means that I'm not treated any special than others, that's how a republic works. I also have this feeling that if I did actually plow the roads myself you'd be someone to tell me I'm an idiot for plowi
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I spent 3 months carpooling in from West Covina to LA in the HOV lane looking at all of the cars with 1 person per car enjoying their time sitting still on the freeway. Please don't tell me that there isn't a better way.
Re:Time is money (Score:4, Insightful)
I spent 3 months carpooling in from West Covina to LA in the HOV lane looking at all of the cars with 1 person per car enjoying their time sitting still on the freeway. Please don't tell me that there isn't a better way.
Yeah, most of those guys were literally enjoying their time sitting still on the freeway and having some personal space.
You haven't got kids, have you. Getting some alone time is bliss! Just sitting there alone in the car for a few hours and being able to legitimately claim "I got held up in traffic"...
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If you want to talk about the environmental disaster that is cars sitting still in traffic then lets talk about those HOV lanes. I've seen studies that show that HOV lanes reduce total movement of traffic. So, while you are happy that you get to cruise by all those single occupant vehicles those vehicles are burning fuel. Fuel that cold be burnt getting those people home instead of sitting idle in traffic.
HOV lanes have shown to produce exactly the opposite effect of what they claim to produce. It might
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People won't want to spend an extra hour per day commuting.
An extra hour a day?
I went to Google Maps and computed how much time it would take me to use public transit to get to work.
Three hours each way, as opposed to 30-40 minutes driving my Prius.
That's almost five hours out of my life, every single working day
That's far more than "minimal" personal sacrifice.
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The problem with public transport is that it's full of the Public.
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Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget; you can increase the cost of driving substantially and people will still drive just as much and instead cut
Subsidizing fossil fuels (Score:3)
Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget; you can increase the cost of driving substantially and people will still drive just as much and instead cut down on something else.
In the short run people will still have to drive. In the long run they would find alternative transportation options. You can reduce car usage by slowly ramping up the cost of fuel. Eventually people will either drive more efficient cars or alternative transportation means become economically viable like passenger rail.
To substantially change automobile usage in the US, you'd have to tax people so much that everybody becomes a lot poorer. That would work, but it probably wouldn't be popular. And what would be the point?
FALSE. You are correct that to reduce auto use you would have to tax fuel more and that it wouldn't be popular. But you are wrong that everybody becomes poorer. Europe taxes gasoline mu
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This is what I said:
Note that I made a statement about "in the US" and the combined "green energy and public transportation" subsidies, in the context of a discussion of US energy and transportation policy vs policy in other nations.
What do you quote?
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g federal direct subsidies. it is ignoring the numerous handouts to the oil industry at the state level, many of which don't take the form of a direct subsidy, like tax credits.
when all is totaled up, the oil/gas industry receives far from financial support from government via tax dollars and tax credits than the renewable sector does.
this isn't the first time you've tried to make this inaccurate claim.
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The claim I made was about "the combined "green energy and public transportation" subsidies". You are arguing a straw man and putting words in my mouth.
Well, that's your claim which wouldn't contradict what I said. But feel free to back up your claim with data to show that you didn'
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In addition, "multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
Nope. The oil industry gets more than green does. Depending on how you count. Note all the oil pumped out of the ground in Alaska is gifted by the government to the oil company. But nearly all green haters don't count things like that, because it doesn't work well for their story of hate.
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I didn't say that that "green gets more than the oil industry"; read again what you were responding to. I'm not going to bother debunking a straw man.
Yes, you deliberately say things that give a false impression. That makes you a liar. You said:
subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
That is putting oil vs green. In that battle, you are wrong. So now, you are going to change it. If you want to include "public transport" in the "green" side to prove your point, then we should count all government purchase of oil and oil products against "subsidies to the oil industry" which count for trillions.
And your false dichotomy of oil subsidy vs mass transit is silly. Most mass transit burns oil,
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its your straw man
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Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget
maybe not for you Richy McRicherson.
to substantially change automobile usage wouldn't require heavy taxation (most people drive in spite of high costs, not because its a minor bill), but rather a complete cultural transformation, the opposite of what happened in the 50s as people spread out and began leaving the cities for the 'burbs.
there are many factors as to why people drive so far to work.
cars and gas being a "minor cost" is not one of them.
and they are not a "minor cost", even if large sections of the
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Actually, for the average American household; that's just a fact about US household spending.
You're merely playing word games ("high costs", "minor bill"), while effectively agreeing with me: expenses for driving a car are a small fraction of American household spending.
There is no single solution (Score:2)
The subsidies the oil industry gets amount to about 1 cent per gallon of gas. It's far, far outweighed by the fuel taxes imposed by the Federal and state governments (about 15 cents/gal each). Those fuel taxes pay for maintenance and construction of roads. If you shift road use from pr
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Actually the regulation to 'fix' this is pretty simple.
Just have the regulator drive the car in mixed conditions like a normal person (highway, city...) and have it as a second number called 'real-world test'.
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That depends on society, not on technology. No such problems here. At all.
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Please don't! You know how this works in this economy. VW gets docked with fines, we get to bail them out and their managers get golden parachutes for saving the company.
Not that I'm against golden parachutes. Provided they have to use them [youtube.com].
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