US EPA Accuses Fiat Chrysler of Excess Diesel Emissions (yahoo.com) 125
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of illegally using hidden software to allow excess diesel emissions to go undetected, the result of a probe that stemmed from regulators' investigation of rival Volkswagen AG. From a report: FCA shares plummeted as the maximum fine is about $4.6 billion. The EPA action affects 104,000 U.S. trucks and SUVs sold since 2014, about one-sixth the vehicles in the Volkswagen case. The EPA and California Air Resources Board told Fiat Chrysler it believes its undeclared auxiliary emissions control software allowed vehicles to generate excess pollution in violation of the law. Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne angrily rejected the allegations at a hastily-assembled conference call with reporters, saying there was no wrongdoing and the company never attempted to create software to cheat emissions rules by detecting when the vehicle was in test mode.
Re: (Score:1)
Everyone say it with me now: TRUMP HAS NOT BEEN SWORN IN, AND CANNOT DO FUCK ALL YET
Seriously now. It's getting really stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
You've only got eight more days to sing that song.
Headline should be (Score:1)
US EPA accuses Fiat Chrysler of cheating on emissions test. A much more serious offense than having excessive emissions.
Re:Headline should be (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Headline should be (Score:2)
I prefer "Standardized tests don't work", which probably has some inductive fallacy, but I don't really care.
Re: (Score:2)
Clean Diesel? (Score:2)
The problem was discovered with new testing that better measures real-world emissions. The new tests were implemented in the wake of the VW scandal.
.
"Most vehicles pass these tests," said Giles. "It is by no means impossible to make a clean diesel passenger vehicle that meets these standards."
I though there were some people saying you couldn't make a diesel passenger vehicle the EPA liked, emissions wise. Am I wrong?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You can't do it without urea injection and exhaust particulate filters.
Re: (Score:1)
Conservatives need to realize cheating occurs (Score:1, Insightful)
Fiat and VW have no love for you and your failed ideology.
Buy a plug-in electric car, SUV, or truck (they sell them for $9000 in China today and in First World nations like Canada) and stick it to the man.
Take back your own money and fill your tank with electrons that cost 1/20th what imported Russian gasoline does.
Or do you want to keep being serfs to your foreign masters?
Re: (Score:3)
Fiat and VW have no love for you and your failed ideology.
Buy a plug-in electric car, SUV, or truck (they sell them for $9000 in China today and in First World nations like Canada) and stick it to the man.
You do realize that the US has a huge number more electric vehicles available than Canada right? Most EVs are only available in CARB states, which Canada isn't.
Re: (Score:1)
per capita? nope
Required to be sold in every province in Canada? yup
Re:Conservatives need to realize cheating occurs (Score:5, Informative)
Where do you get your information?
I live in Canada, there are very few models of EV available for purchase here compared to any CARB state in the US.
There is also no requirement that EVs be sold at all anywhere in the country, unlike the US where CARB states require the sale of EVs.
So let's revise what you said:
models available: nope
Required to be sold in every province in Canada? nope.
I can purchase locally the following EVs: Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Nissan Leaf and BMW i3. That's the entire list. If I go to another city I can add Smart ED, Kia Soul EV, and Mitsubishi MiEV. (theoretically the chevy spark and ford focus electric are also available, but I've been unable to find anywhere selling them)
I can not buy the following EVs anywhere in Canada despite their availability in the US:
Fiat 500EV
eGolf
Mercedes B Class Electric
Scion iQ EV
Honda Fit EV
Re: (Score:3)
Be my guest.
Show me a law making EVs available in every province like you stated.
Show me where I can buy an eGolf in Canada
Show me this proof that you think that Canada is somehow further ahead than the USA in electrification of transport when in fact we're about a decade behind.
I've researched this pretty heavily, Canada is SCREWED when it comes to EVs, don't hold us up as a shining beacon of hope to the USA when Americans can buy far more EVs, for lower prices, than Canadians can, and get a federal tax su
Re: (Score:2)
Batteries don't work when frozen. EVs just won't work in Moosejaw, Big diesels need to be left running all winter, Gas cars are plugged in whenever parked. Rental car companies have riders on their agreements telling you 'not our problem if you don't plug the car in and it won't start in the morning.'
You can add battery heaters to an EV, but EVs don't make enough waste heat to stay thawed when rolling.
Re: (Score:2)
As someone who drives a Model S in Canada every day, and who's last road trip was over a thousand km long at temperatures as low as -36c I can say without hesitation that you don't have the faintest clue what you are talking about.
Electric vehicles are far superior in the winter to internal combustion engines. They always start without hesitation, you get heat in the cabin nearly instantly without having to wait for the engine to warm up first, and the electric drivetrain allows for far superior traction co
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now take the number that ARE available in the US, and quarter it, that's approximately how many are available in Canada. There are no EVs available in Canada that aren't also available in the US, but there are many available in US CARB states that are not available in Canada.
The OP held Canada up as being so much better than the US, but in fact we are way behind the US in EVs. I'm not saying that the US is ideal, but to hold Canada up as an example of being better is ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
Electricity comes from the wall, everyone knows that. We don't need no stinking power plants, especially nucular!
But seriously, that needs to be solved. We don't all live in California or Texas or Arizona where there's sun all year around for solar power.
Lol, noob, they use solar in most of Canada, not just the south. Wake up, it's 2017, not 1977.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
they use solar in most of Canada, not just the south.
Great for running air conditioners in the summer. Heating in the winter, not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Do Norway, Sweden and Finland have summers?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You actually have no fucking idea how solar power works, do you? In fact, average cloud cover is a larger obstacle to efficiency that latitude.
Re: (Score:2)
Well yes, solar power isn't going to do you too much good for a part of the year if you're at very high latitudes, but, in fact, the number of humans that live at those latitudes represent a fairly small percentage of the population.
Re:Conservatives need to realize cheating occurs (Score:4, Informative)
Buy a plug-in electric car, SUV, or truck (they sell them for $9000 in China today and in First World nations like Canada) and stick it to the man.
And where do you think that electricity comes from? The vast majority of it is from fossil fuel electric generation plants [eia.gov]. Until nuclear takes over fossil fuels in power generation any arguments about the merits of electric vehicles is moot, except maybe, from an economic standpoint, electricity generated from coal plants.
As a side note about your comment about imported Russian gasoline, it appears most of the fossil fuels in the United States is actually imported from Canada [eia.gov].
Re: (Score:1)
Then buy a solar panel and trickle charge it yourself.
Gosh you snowflakes are so special. Serfs to the utilities. Paying the government cheddar because you can't grok that solar and wind are cheaper than fossil fuels and you can install it yourself - 90 percent of the cost is labor.
Do you need government mommy to get you out of bed in the morning, snowflake?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Until nuclear takes over fossil fuels in power generation any arguments about the merits of electric vehicles is moot
Holy shit that myth was debunked before Tesla even existed. Why do you continue to perpetuate it? Even if 100% of emissions came from fossil fuels (it doesn't) the total emissions over the lifecycle of the vehicle are far lower for electric than for diesel / petrol.
With an ICE engine you are talking about one of the dirtiest ways of generating energy coupled with one of the least efficient thermodynamic processes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A VW Golf gets 33 mpg.
My VW Golf gets maybe 3.7m/kWh
A gallon is like $3
A kWh is like $.15
So really, it's half the cost, and that's if you're filling up entirely at home. If you use charging stations regularly, you pay about the same price as if it was gas.
I really like the car, but the impression that they're 1/20th the price to keep fueled is a bit of a stretch. Electric trucks are not $9K in China, that is malarkey. Electric scooters are really common, though.
Also, I like being a serf to a foreign mast
Re: (Score:2)
In my experience, electric cars are wanted regardless of political tastes. Here in Texas, I know a lot of rural people who would love an electric pickup truck. The two biggest advantages of electric vehicles, which are max torque at 0 RPM and zero noise would help things immensely on the farm. The fact that there are fewer moving parts means upkeep is easier. Plus, on larger ranches, there is plenty of room for solar panels, and wind farms are common in the western side of the states.
Of course, having a
Re: (Score:2)
All silliness aside those remote areas are were renewables are a really good idea and providing you can get the needed range it seems like an EV would be a good fit. I have a lake property up in northern Minnesota that I will be putting up a cabin on at some point and have looked into the cost for getting electrici
Re: (Score:2)
A friend of mine has a rural Texas cabin that he visits in his campervan. The cabin is small, small enough that the A/C unit can run from the van's generator (a 2500 watt Onan.)
The winds are not great, so all of his stuff is solar. The carport has a roof tilted south and is covered with panels, about 3KW worth. The batteries are Iron Edison (NiFe), about 2000 amp-hours, with a self watering system and box with fans in it that are thermostatically controlled. He also has an inverter, and a battery charge
Re: (Score:2)
This is why emissions testing should actually test (Score:4, Interesting)
Who thought it was a good idea for any part of emissions testing to rely on a query to the entity being tested?
"I'm doing everything very efficiently, I promise!"
-Everyone
The only way that this would possibly be ok would be if the emissions testing system being queried was from a 3rd party that was forced to be installed in the vehicle. But I can see problems with that, too. If you are literally testing to see if a part is breaking the law or not, why the hell would you ever ask the manufacturer if the part is breaking the law?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:This is why emissions testing should actually t (Score:5, Informative)
But what if the program is successful and compliance rates increases to 99%? Then you're spending $4000 to detect each non-compliant car, and the cost to detect these polluting cars exceeds the damage they do. That's the situation California found itself in in the 1990s.
The companies which made emissions testing equipment came up with a radical suggestion. Get rid of the annual smog tests. Instead, mount emissions detecting equipment at areas where cars normally slow down to pass. Freeway off-ramps, intersections, etc. The equipment would constantly detect emissions, and when it saw a spike in emissions it would snap a photo of the offending car(s). If the same car's plates showed up in multiple photos, you could send that registered owner a fix-it ticket requiring they bring the car in for testing. This way you're not wasting time or money dealing with the 99% of cars which are in compliance, and only spending extra money testing the 1% of cars which are probably in violation.
Unfortunately by the 1990s, smog testing in California had grown into a billion dollar industry. The service stations and smog test stations lobbied hard in Sacramento to kill this idea. They won, and so we still require smog tests today even though the vast majority of cars pass. It's worth nothing that an on-road emissions detection system would've caught the violating VWs nearly a decade ago when they first started cheating.
Re: (Score:1)
Smog tests have sort of a dual purpose in Cali.
We don't have vehicle inspections but smog tests effectively get the dangerous junkers off the roads all the same - The old, poorly maintained cars fail smog before they become unsound and unsafe. Get rid of smog tests and we'd have to add safety inspections. You would not save any money or time.
If you were alive in the 60s and 70s you'd remember the miasma, the horrible smog in even the mid-sized towns and cities. There are a LOT of cars in California and deal
Re: (Score:2)
In California cars manufactured 1975 and earlier are exempt from smog testing.
Re: (Score:2)
Not surprised in the least (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I also expect that in the days to come, we're going to find that every single auto manufacturer has been cheating in some way or another
Sure but wouldn't believe the scale in which one company is cheating. They took out engine and put an electric motor in it's stead. Of course they needed a battery, so they took out just about everything else and slapped on on the bottom. Of course this means you have to charge the battery of the cheat system but they go on to make preposterous claims like: "no emissions" and "doesn't use gasoline". I thought they would be busted for sure but these greenfreaks at the EPA just lap it up and think it's th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Impossible while still meeting certain other criteria (like shiny!)
I'm sure that they can meet the current, and future, emissions standards of even California, but it'll likely be at the cost of performance, and naturally, cost to the consumer.
Someone else above also made a flippant remark about electric vehicles; to be quite honest that's where we're headed, and I'm okay with it. I've been working on internal-combustion engines (and the associated drivetrain) in one form or another my entire life, and frankly
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone's doing it (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect this will play out like the doping scandals in sports -- everyone is doing it because if you're not, then you're at a competitive disadvantage.
I'm sure this is why none of the other manufacturers called our VW for this practice before the EPA found out... they didn't want to raise attention to it. I'm sure they all knew about.... if one manufacturer released an engine that met impossible-to-meet standards, you can bet that they all dissected the engine to see how they did it.
Really, though ... (Score:1)
... How many diesel Fiats and Chryslers are on the road ??
Automotive Diesel is nasty and shouldn't be used (Score:2)
Lets just clear up everyone's confusion. Diesel is and always has been more efficient per gallon due to combustion via compression as well as the higher inherent energy content of diesel fuel versus the Otto cycle that uses a spark ignition and generally heptane/octane (collectively known as gasoline). That said, diesel fuel results in REAL POLLUTION. The kind that causes cancer, burning eyes, asthma, headaches etc.
Quoted from Wikipedia:
"Emissions from diesel vehicles have been reported to be significant
This is what happens (Score:1)
This is exactly what happens when we let business regulate itself. It's really not surprising in the least. I would bet dollars to donuts that every major car manufacturer is guilty.
And now the Big Orange Blowhard & cronies are going to dismantle the EPA and eliminate regulations? Hello, global climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Err...don't you hate it when all these years, you've been singing the WRONG lyrics...?
Should be:
"Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant."
Re: (Score:2)
Err...don't you hate it when all these years, you've been singing the WRONG lyrics...?
Should be:
"Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant."
He forgot to post as an anonymous coward [slashdot.org] so I think the jig is up.
Re: (Score:2)
Not me.
I almost never post as AC (when I do it's because I'm on something.slashdot.org and don't realize it - I've got my shit set up such that my slashdot.org cookie for being logged in isn't accessible by subdomains).
I posted the GG shit today (as myself) because I missed seeing it. I'm glad someone else has picked it up. (Or maybe it's the original poster of it - anything's possible.)
I'm also not the original MOO/cows guy, though I often posted that one (again, as myself, not AC). For about a month pe
Re: (Score:2)
...eeerrrr...
Burma Shave?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You do know that unless it's fairly new that Fx50 probably rolled off the assembly line w/o even a catalytic converter installed.
Newsflash, diesels smoke, especially older ones.
I drive an older VW diesel (not in scope of diesel gate) and was once ticketed for excessive smoke. I came to court with a clean bill of health from the emissions test and the ticket was dismissed.
My car will smoke if it's lugging or has not been pushed hard in a while. Pushing it hard will 'blow the soot out'.
All that having been
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Well yeah.... (Score:5, Informative)
> For example, they don't care whether it's a 1.6-2.0 liter 4 cylinder in a 3000lb car that gets 50mpg or a 7 liter V8 in a 7000lb package that gets 15-20mpg.
Not sure who the "they" you refer to is. In the US EPA cares, the have CAFE standards, and the Estimated fuel economy is used to calculate the allowed CO2 emissions per mile. Other emissions are not directly tied to fuel economy, but hitting the above standard closes the loop.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/... [gpo.gov]
These standards
apply to model years 2009 through 2016
and require CO2 emissions for passenger
cars and the smallest light trucks of 323
g/mi in 2009 and 205 g/mi in 2016, and
for the remaining light trucks of 439 g/
mi in 2009 and 332 g/mi in 2016
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So in other words they give lard-asses in the large trucks and SUV a pass to pollute more. Giving a pass isn't the same as 'caring'.
Or they are encouraging people to buy vehicles which are larger and heavier and more expensive than they need to be. I wonder who would want that?
Re: (Score:2)
The post smog large diesels suck balls compared to the older ones. Seriously, suck big wet donkey balls, like a 80s gas engine.
Re: (Score:2)
The only upside to the coal rollers is the inevitable massive repair bill for their sooted-up and now-worthless engine.
Re: (Score:2)
Will the EPA also go after California for the Los Angeles methane leak last year?
Are you joking? The EPA will not even pay to clean up their own mess and for damages caused by it.