German Automakers Formed a Secret Cartel In the '90s To Collude On Diesel Emissions, Says Report (theverge.com) 195
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Last week, Der Spiegel published an explosive report alleging that the major German automakers formed a secret cartel in the 1990s to collude on diesel emissions. These companies, including Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Porsche, and Daimler, met in secret working groups to discuss "the technology, costs, suppliers, and even the exhaust gas purification of its diesel vehicles," the German weekly reported. The meetings were disclosed to German competition officials in letters from VW and Daimler and viewed by Der Spiegel. The secret meetings "laid the basis" for the 2015 diesel emission cheating scandal, in which VW was caught installing secret software in more than half a million vehicles sold in the US that it used to fool exhaust emissions tests. The admission of cheating ultimately cost the automaker tens of billions of dollars in fines and legal fees, making it one of the most expensive corporate scandals in history.
Years earlier, VW participated in dozens of secret meetings with its competitors, involving over 200 employees in up to 60 working groups, on how to meet increasingly tough emissions criteria in diesel vehicles. The automakers may have colluded to fix prices of a diesel emission treatment called AdBlue through these working groups, Der Spiegel says. Specifically, VW (which owns Porsche and Audi), Daimler (which owns Mercedes-Benz and Smart), and BMW allegedly agreed to use AdBlue tanks that were too small. AdBlue is a liquid solution used to counteract a vehicle's emissions.
Years earlier, VW participated in dozens of secret meetings with its competitors, involving over 200 employees in up to 60 working groups, on how to meet increasingly tough emissions criteria in diesel vehicles. The automakers may have colluded to fix prices of a diesel emission treatment called AdBlue through these working groups, Der Spiegel says. Specifically, VW (which owns Porsche and Audi), Daimler (which owns Mercedes-Benz and Smart), and BMW allegedly agreed to use AdBlue tanks that were too small. AdBlue is a liquid solution used to counteract a vehicle's emissions.
This is what happens... (Score:2, Interesting)
...when ignorant politicians and regulators set emission goals that are apparently impossible to reach with current technology or far too expensive to include in a consumer vehicle.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not passing judgment on their actions one way or another, but the dynamics of this are interesting. In a nutshell:
Or they could just take a bath on profits and stop selling diesel vehicles. Which VW did for three years while they sorted this out (2006 - 2009). Every diesel auto manufacturer tried both systems. Everyone wanted the regen system to work. But it was pretty terrible -- people didn't understand it and there were a lot of complaints about the smell. There were even class action lawsuits against Dodge for the regen system they installed on their pickups so German vehicles were not the only ones.
AdBlue seemed like the more obvious way to go, but the large tank required that the vehicle's fuel tank would have to be smaller, and they would have to give up things like independent rear suspension (there was just no room for it). To overcome these issues they would have had to create larger vehicles which would have lowered fuel economy (and increased emissions ironically) and ultimately alienated their target market.
The point is that every option was a compromise and they had a lot to lose. So they cheated. And got caught. There is just no way to make diesel work as cleanly as it needs to and frankly, there is just no need for it anymore. Gasoline engines have come a long way in the interim and electric vehicle costs will be at parity in just a few years (according to Bloomberg).
Goodbye diesel. I will miss you, but your time has come.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Informative)
There is even more to diesel than just the German car companies. The kind of crude that Europe gets is very high-quality and can be fed right into a fractional distillation facility. That's very economical, but also limits your choices in what comes out - you get whatever proportion of products happened to be in the crude. Usually this means quite a bit of diesel. As a result, diesel tends to be priced pretty well since there is plenty of supply. In North America, the crude is terrible - it needs to be "cracked" with catalysts into smaller chains to produce the desired product mix. This is expensive and complex, but the upshot is that once you've built these multi-billion-dollar facilities, you can tweak the mix quite a bit. If the market price for diesel is high, you can make more diesel. If it's gasoline you want, just change the recipe a bit. In North America, diesel tends to cost more, reflecting its higher energy (and carbon!) content per unit volume and therefore larger proportion of crude required to make it.
If Europe gives up on diesel, they will need to spend billions to build new or to retrofit refineries, or else take a hit and export the diesel. I'm sure the oil companies and governments would rather not. "Clean diesel" was very alluring to everyone - economical cars for consumers, high profits for car makers, lower capital costs for oil companies, and no fights over refinery construction for governments. Environmentalists were excited over the false claims as well.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Informative)
You bring up an excellent point which I did not address at all. Thank you.
Diesel lubricity regulations (HFRR spec) is much higher in Europe (and Canada) than it is in the USA. Combine that with the "occasional" mistake (oops, I put a bit of regular gas in my diesel), and the Common Rail engine design which requires a high-pressure fuel pump (HPFP) generating something above 10,000 psi to the injectors and which is lubricated and cooled by the diesel fuel itself, and you have a recipe for disaster.
The NHTSA investigated VW for this exact problem. When the HPFPs started going on their CR engines the cost to the consumer was $10,000 to fix it (because once the HPFP eats its own guts it contaminates the entire fuel system). Everything had to be replaced. VW just always claimed that the problem was that the consumer put gasoline in their car and would refuse to fix it. And the car may have in fact had gasoline in it, but it may have been contaminated at the fueling station, not the fault of anything that the consumer did.
What a mess. Hundreds of pages of analysis here [tdiclub.com].
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A small amount of petrol mixed in with the diesel in a CR engine won't actually do it any harm so long as it only happens the once or twice. Its when the fuel is majority petrol that the problems start.
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Hopefully they will not spend billions on retrofitting refineries and instead move everything to electric. Seems to be the path since nearly every auto manufacturer has electric in the pipeline and many only electric a few years out...
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Yeah, I guess the timing for this diesel mess is very poor. Had it been discovered 10 years later maybe electrics would be a drop-in replacement.
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If Europe gives up on diesel, they will need to spend billions to build new or to retrofit refineries, or else take a hit and export the diesel.
Europe is moving away from oil as a fuel in general. Countries that can see that coming are pushing harder for it, with announced cut-off dates for the sale of combustion engine vehicles (outside of specialist applications).
It's a shame German car manufacturers put so much effort into diesel instead of hybrids and pure EVs. I guess they didn't have the vision that some Japanese manufacturers and Tesla did.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:4, Informative)
The kind of crude that Europe gets is very high-quality and can be fed right into a fractional distillation facility.
There is no "kind of crude that Europe gets". The economics of oil are highly dependent for each refinery. There are refineries that setup to take only local crudes, and there are refineries setup to take the nastiest crap on the market, and they'll get it from anywhere because it's cheap. The type of refineries are very heavily dependent on the consumer market. The largest refinery in Europe has a fantastic upgrading capacity and ability to run the nastiest shit you can think of, the second largest next door is 2 distillation towers and an ancient cat cracker struggling to keep on spec for bunker oil. It's a complete mixed bag.
As a result, diesel tends to be priced pretty well since there is plenty of supply.
The retail price difference between petrol and diesel has far more to do with taxes than supply and demand. The absolute cost of fuels even more so. Mind you saying diesel is priced pretty well should be qualified for an American news site. Priced well in this case means it only costs triple what the USA pay. The price split is very similar. Average diesel price in Chicago is 1c above gasoline right now, average diesel price in Antwerp is only 2c below gasoline.
If the market price for diesel is high, you can make more diesel. If it's gasoline you want, just change the recipe a bit.
That's really not the case at all. Well it is a bit, but the amount of handles you have are very limited. What you do have a handle on is the removal of impurities, but the general mix is hard to alter as the refineries' units are designed to produce an optimum output. I.e. if you decide you don't want to produce as much gasoline as diesel tomorrow and buy the appropriate crude to do so, what you're actually saying is I don't want to run the expensive equipment I bought to it's full utilisation and therefore don't want to make as much money. That's one of the great things about a completely fungible feedstock and product, it will always sell and the sensible option is almost universally to optimise refineries for max throughput regardless of what the market is doing. I briefly worked at a refinery in Australia that wasn't able to sell diesel locally since it lacked the ability to meet the sulphur targets with its feedstock. It was cheaper to run that refinery and export 100% of it's diesel to Asia than it was to buy a feedstock that allowed it to meet the sulphur spec, and at the time Australia was hungry for diesel. (Quite disappointing to see a ship full of diesel leave for Asia passing a ship full of diesel coming from Asia both operated by the same company, but the cost / benefit made that the most profitable option).
If Europe gives up on diesel, they will need to spend billions to build new or to retrofit refineries
To be clear Europe IS giving up on diesel, at least for the consumer market. In my city alone there has been a 90% drop in the number of registered diesel vehicles in the past 10 years. Major cities are implementing bans or have implemented them already. However this doesn't interest refiners much anyway for several reasons: They need to spend billions to retrofit in order to meet new jet standards, increasing emissions standards, flaring standards, they have continuously spent on meeting the ever changing diesel standards, and the next big one coming up: fuel oil standards. Some of the coking refineries need to upgrade as power-plants shut down, others as the iron and aluminium industry shut down.
Basically what I'm saying is investment is continuous and ongoing (even now with the oil price where it is), so changing consumer demand won't impact the industry on the whole much.
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Thanks. One of the great parts about Slashdot is that when you get corrected, it's likely to be by someone who actually knows what they are talking about :)
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You're welcome, but I won't begin to proclaim to know it all :-) There are some things in this industry that really do your head in, like having a 3rd party terminal take multiple oil shipments of different grades and mix them together before loading them back on a ship and sending them to you so that the oil doesn't bump the units as hard during a crude change.
Re: This is what happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know where you got that from, but VW did not stop selling diesel vehicles for three years. That would be economic suicide for a major car producer.
I also don't share your conclusion. Diesel is only 'dirtier' if you only care about NOx. All of the really nasty stuff (ultra-fine particulate, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide) is produced in larger quantities by petrol engines and the gap is getting wider. Scrutiny may be increasing and NOx emissions may be much more in focus than they were in the past, but diesel will continue to be the most economic means of propulsion for larger cars, vabs and trucks for quite some time and I don't see the market share of diesel cars going below 40% anytime soon. Manufacturers still have to meet their CO2 goals and consumers who drive a lot will still want to use less and cheaper fuel. Diesel isn't dead until internal combustion is.
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Maybe they stopped selling diesels in the USA. But not in Europe. I bought one here around that time.
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When it comes to particulates, the gap is getting narrower. Petrol engines were basically particulate free for quite a long period, since the invention of microcontroller-managed engines.
The new ultra-lean burning engines are unfortunately emitting particulates in such amounts that they will likely need filters. Which could bring the whole AdBlue scandal back.
Adblue is for NOx reduction, not particulates (Score:3)
It does nothing for the latter. You still need some other method to get rid of the soot.
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...when ignorant politicians and regulators set emission goals that are apparently impossible to reach with current technology
They are entirely reachable with current technology. That's what AdBlue systems do. The companies didn't want to use those systems, so they cheated instead.
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There are two things they can do. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel and the improved combustion scheme (i.e. the first option the parent posted talked about).
We knew VW cheating story did not add up. (Score:5, Interesting)
If it is any other country/company we could blame it on "low level team cheating" or "midlevel managers were scared to tell the higher level managers the truth" or "simple incompetence and cowboy attitude towards laws".
But in Germany, in VW, these stories do not add up. Given the documentation they do and the way they follow the orders, the cheating was done with full knowledge and compliance of everyone all the way to the top. VW buys our software. I see their acceptance testing reports and how much they test, document and demand explanations. Not only they document, they refer to the docs and use them all the time.
No way the VW diesel cheating was the work of some rogue team in some isolated division. It went all the way up the company, now it appears, it went all the way up the entire damned industry.
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It went all the way up the company, now it appears, it went all the way up the entire damned industry.
The real question then, becomes what else is going on? We already know that the lead in gasoline was a scandal for decades, the whole business with tobacco, the petrocompanies lying about climate reports, and even New Coke.
I suggest we start the executions.
Der Spiegel story did not add up. (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember posting about it back when VW diesel cheating was making rounds.
The article is mixing up two different things, and pretending that they are connected. Der Spiegel says that the automakers met in secret to discuss “the technology, costs, suppliers, and even the exhaust gas purification of its diesel vehicles." Then, separately, VW implemented a cheating system to dodge the emissions testing, with other automakers doing similar things, although to lesser degrees.
But the article implies that these two things are connected. Documentation, however, pretty well shows that the original plan of VW was to buy a license for the Mercedes "blueTec" technology, but they abandoned this plan when the Chief Operating Officer changed, who favored using their own developed technology (TDI). TDI didn't work as well as expected, necessitating the cheat.
Der Spiegel attempts to imply that the collusions were to agree on how to cheat, but from the evidence, it looks like the "collusion" was exactly the opposite of what Der Spiegel implies: the "collusion" was to collaborate on technology to avoid producing emissions, but when that collaboration fell apart, they shifted to cheating.
New York Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/1... [nytimes.com]
Wall Street Journal article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/v... [wsj.com]
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Not only that:
"Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Porsche, and Daimler"
That's three companies in a random order. Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche are all under the Volkswagen Group.
You'd think Der Spiegel would know this, but it makes it look more sinister with a longer list.
Re:Der Spiegel story did not add up. (Score:4, Informative)
The curious thing though is that the DEF usage rates are all over the place. I first noticed this when I had to rent a diesel Ram 3500 for some towing, and it used way more DEF than my personal vehicle (VW Touraeg). So out of curiosity, I looked into the DEF consumption rate for other 3.0 liter diesel engines.
Notice that VW's and Mercedes' DEF use rates are lower than Dodge, Jeep, and BMW. And the two automakers thus far accused of cheating on diesel emissions are... VW and Mercedes.
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AdBlue = Urea + Water (Score:5, Informative)
AdBlue is a liquid solution used to counteract a vehicle's emissions.
AdBlue is a solution of urea [wikipedia.org] and water generically referred to as diesel exhaust fluid [wikipedia.org]. It lowers NOx emissions in diesel vehicles.
Re:AdBlue = Urea + Water (Score:4, Funny)
AdBlue is a solution of urea [wikipedia.org] and water generically referred to as diesel exhaust fluid [wikipedia.org]. It lowers NOx emissions in diesel vehicles.
Can't you just piss in the tank? It's the same + a few organics that would be burned off
No, the exhaust is filtered through the urea after combusting.
You'd have to piss in the exhaust pipe.
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So you're saying only use dark 'dehydrated hangover' urine?
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Do they send you an MP3 of the viola music by email?
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That would be pretty dumb, but that's not what they do. VW programmed the engine to detect an emissions test and change to a lower-performance mode that would produce less emissions. On the road the vehicle would revert to its normal high-performance mode.
Re: Irony (Score:3)
Except for the VW defeat device in question being the software sensing when the vehicle was in test conditions and de-tuning the engine in order to pass the test, you are absolutely correct.
No wait, you are wrong. And that's how VW got away with it for years until an independent research effort sought to confirm the emissions rates under actual road conditions, and couldn't. In fact, they found the emissions were many times worse when on a real road then when the same car was going the same speed on a dyn
Not really in secret? (Score:3)
"The meetings were disclosed to German competition officials in letters from VW and Daimler"
So, not really a secret cartel meeting then? More a cooperation between industry leaders trying to find a solution.
Kind of like how many industries have a forum where competitors can exchange experiences and work on some things together?
Anti US posters (Score:2)
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Re: Anti US posters (Score:2)
This kind of crap is more likely to happen when an American company is caught breaking the law in the EU. Germans generally agree that VW et al had it coming.
So in essence (Score:2)
This looks like horseshit (Score:2)
It's like the journalist is trying to shove ordinary industry co-operation (or "collusion") into some kind of a conspiracy template. Even the /. abstract starts out with emissions something-or-other, sounding like it's about emissions cheating like WV etc., but then it comes down to allegations of price-fixing of diesel exhaust fluid and BMW building their diesel cars' tanks for it too small.
Not exactly a scandal here, not an environmental "we're all gonna die because of the free market solution being collu
It's bigger than that (Score:2)
I'm going to stick with my original theory that the conspiracy is larger than what we've seen so far: http://geekcrumbs.com/2015/10/... [geekcrumbs.com]
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Isn't the German motto: (Score:2)
Isn't the German motto if you aren't cheating you aren't trying hard enough? Und ja, ich spreche Deutsch.
This word does not mean what you think it means (Score:2)
cartel (plural cartels)
A group of businesses or nations that collude to limit competition within an industry or market.
A combination of political groups (notably parties) for common action.
A written letter of defiance or challenge.
An official agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners.
(nautical) A ship used to negotiate with an enemy in time of war, and to exchange prisoners.
cabal (plural cabals)
A usually secret exclusive organization of individuals gathered for a political purpose.
A secret plot.
An identifiable group within the tradition of Discordianism.
Please, Slashdot editors, could you be bothered to check these things before you post them? Thanks.
**********
In any event: I for one am not at all surprised to hear this, and in fact I was expecting it. Furthermore I expect that in the days to come we're going to find that every automaker on the planet has been doing something similar. Sadly, the days of the internal combustion engine need to come to an end, if we're going to clean thing
One nice thing about Germans... (Score:2)
...when they do bad things, they still keep meticulous records about it.
Adblue tank not so small... (Score:2)
I'm not quite sure where the "Adblue tank too small" can come in. My (German) car's Adblue tank holds enough for at least 11000 miles (18000km) of driving, which is the farthest I have driven it between services, where it is filled up. A work colleague's non-German car (with higher fuel consumption, it's an SUV) still runs about 10k miles between Adblue fill-ups. Meanwhile Adblue is very cheap if you go to a service station that caters for goods vehicles. Of course you can pay a huge premium for some dealer
What If We Create a Better World for Nothing (Score:3)
everyone knows western Europe is a peace and earth loving heaven on earth while the evil USA spews carbon into the air
Also, this smug comic has always assured us that there are no possible downsides to any Green initiatives and proposals:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CV... [twimg.com]
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None of which has anything to do with reducing CO2 emissions. A lot of us think it's perfectly fine to reduce NOx (acid rain), CO (cardiovascular issues), etc without reducing CO2.
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LImiting vehicle horsepower and hooning. Empowering the anti-fun brigade and emboldening them to kill the next fun thing.
The upside, of course, is that it encourages healthy disrespect for laws and teaches young people how to cheat early.
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Welcome to adult life. There are loads of fun things that you aren't allowed to do, because they fuck up other people.
Anyway, EVs are loads of fun. Ridiculous amounts of power, 0-60 times that put supercars to shame...
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We'll hoon them too, just not yet. They suck at _everything_ except 0-60. At 60 those motors are so hot they've got nothing left. The batteries weigh a ton, so they corner like old Cadillacs.
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Are you kidding? Low centre of gravity, active cooling... Have you even seen Formula E? Do you know that the Model S will easily top 150 with massive acceleration right up to the limit?
60 is what you hit 2.2 seconds after pressing the pedal, not even half way to the limit.
Considering that these are the first few generations of car we are seeing, and they already blow away all but the most extreme and expensive dino-juice burners for a fraction of the cost... And when you are just commuting, they are easier
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Model S weighs up to 5,000lbs.
As a trackday enthusiast, the less weight the better when it comes to cornering and brake fade. Its not like the Model S hasn't had trackday issues.
Re: What If We Create a Better World for Nothing (Score:3)
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90 indefinitely, easily. To get it to overheat you would need to go to a track, put it in ludicrous mode and do a lot of braking and accelerating for 20+ minutes. There are videos on YouTube of people doing just that.
Note that after 20 minutes a petrol car doing the same thing would be having similar issues, and running out of fuel. The kind of supercar that can keep up tends not to have a very big tank, but does have a hybrid drive system with battery.
Rolling coal (Score:2, Informative)
Diesel engines do not normally produce any odours.
I have no idea where you got that idea but it's total BS [wikipedia.org]. Diesel exhaust definitely has odors and is rather well known for having them. They've gotten cleaner but they are hardly without smell.
I haven't seen any car emit black smoke in years. I doubt one that does would pass periodic safety and emissions tests.
I've seen at least three this week alone. Rolling Coal [wikipedia.org] is disturbingly popular. And no they wouldn't pass any reasonable emissions test not to mention the practice being explicitly illegal.
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Even in states where you would expect rolling coal to be popular, there is a crackdown on that. State troopers where I live have the authority to do on the spot ODB2 checks, and it it doesn't jive with what comes out of the exhaust pipe, they scrape the registration sticker off the windshield, and the vehicle gets towed to the nearest shop.
I live in Michigan not far from Detroit and I see asshats in my town weekly with their ridiculous big-rig converted smoke stacks belching massive amounts of black smoke. No evidence that the authorities are doing anything about it.
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I rented a car in the UK and got exceedingly lucky when they sold out of automatics and were forced to give me a Mercedes GLA diesel. Aside from the annoying stall-out feature at every light that needs to be disabled every time you start the car, it was not a bad driver. Indeed it did not put out a typical diesel smell, but to say that it does not produce any odors is not quite right. If you were idling in one place long enough with the windows down, you definitely could smell the combustion products. I'm n
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Virtually all American (city) diesel buses were retrofit to run on natural gas decades ago. Much cleaner. The newer ones came from the factory setup for natural gas.
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Re:software vs exhaust (Score:5, Informative)
There is a third option, which what was actually done. The conditions under which the tests are done (with a sensor) are known. They programmed the ECU so it would detect those conditions and modify the engine performance to pass the test.
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It's not that much work to take out the X-pipe and reinstall the cats once every two years. It's not like I'm not already changing the intake for smog checks.
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You are very confused. VW designed a "defeat device" that detected when the car was undergoing an emissions test and lowered the performance of the engine, also reducing the emissions.
Not a natural result of unrealistic regulations (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this just the natural result of unrealistic or even impossible regulations devised by leftist bureaucrats being forced on companies?
Basically: no.
The regulations were neither unrealistic nor impossible. Gasoline powered cars, for example, met the regulations easily.
The companies involved, however, thought that they could meet the emissions standards using diesel engines. Old-fashioned diesel engines are classically dirty and polluting (although also simple and efficient)-- but new "clean diesel" technology was being developed.
VW, however, chose not to license the Mercedes technology and instead develop their own clean diesel approach... which turned out not to work as well as they had anticipated in stopping nitric oxide emissions. So they cheated.
It's easy for regulators to create policies demanding that unrealistic, if not outright impossible, goals be met.
It wasn't a case of regulations that couldn't be met-- it was a case of VW's "not invented here" syndrome.
You do have to pay attention to the fact that the "collusion" in the Spiegel article was not companies colluding on cheating: it was companies colluding on using each others technologies (which VW eventually decided not to do).
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Gasoline powered cars, for example, met the regulations easily.
This isn't true. Meeting the emission standards is one of the most problematic parts of designing any engine during the last quite a few years. It is everything, but easy.
We are using the word "easily" different. If I rephrase this to state that meeting exhaust regulations, using gasoline engines, is a solved problem, is that better?
And the targets tend to be quite unrealistic as far as people setting them don't have the knowledge or the interest to be realistic.
The regulations are hammered out in exhaustive detail (no pun intended) by people who have both knowledge and interest, with extensive input from the auto industry about what can be achieved and what can't. They are realistic in that they are targets that not only can be achieved, but that have been achieved.
You also shouldn't assume that Diesel is intrinsically dirtier than gasoline, because it isn't (not since quite a few years ago)
You just rephrased my statement "Old
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Re: Not a natural result of unrealistic regulation (Score:2)
Electric motors have none of these problems.
Stranded assets. Fossil fuel and internal combustion engines will be replaced within the next 10 years by EVs. Big problem for industry.
They can keep investing in a failed technology or move to EVs. So far they have been resisting change but they are becoming dinosaurs.
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As the grid transitions from fossil to renewable, EVs get cleaner. In most states, they are already much cleaner than ICE cars... equivalent to about 100 mpg ICE car.
As far as the transition to EVs, there have been several reputable studies of the transition (Bloomberg, Stanford, ING) and they predict new sales primarily electric within 10 years. Phase out of old ICE cars will take longer but now that the TCO of EVs are on the cusp of surpassing ICE cars, it will be a powerful incentive to ditch your expens
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Re: Not a natural result of unrealistic regulatio (Score:2)
These predictions are from conservative banks, not wide eyed environmentalists.
The economic case for EVs will be compelling in a very few years.
A screwball bet (Score:2)
they predict new sales primarily electric within 10 years
Let's do one thing. If by July 2027 most of new cars being sold in the US are electric, I would pay you $5; if not but by July 2037, $4; and so on until July 2067. If most of new cars being sold in the US by the 1st July 2067 aren't electric, you would pay me $1 million for having wasted 50 years of my life waiting for nothing.
This is a screwball bet, but (ignoring inflation), what you basically proposed is a bet in which your stake, betting against electric cars, is $5, and your payoff, paid by people betting in favor of electric cars, is $1,000,000. So the odds you just offered were 200000:1 in favor of electric cars.
(in fact, the odds are nothing like that, because the terms of the bet are peculiar, you can't ignore discount rate or inflation over a fifty year period, and the million dollar payout occurs after we're dead. But
Re: Not a natural result of unrealistic regulatio (Score:2)
Now both France and the UK will ban ICE cars by 2040
Britain to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040
https://www.theguardian.com/po... [theguardian.com]
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As an "open minded engineer" you should read these reports.
https://www.ing.com/Newsroom/A... [ing.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
https://www.iea.org/publicatio... [iea.org]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
http://inhabitat.com/stanford-... [inhabitat.com]
I am already rich and have no need to take your money so I will not accept your bet.
You, OTOH, might find cause to divest from oil and fossil cars after reading these reports. It might save you some money.
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Re: Not a natural result of unrealistic regulatio (Score:2)
I put open minded in quotes because those were your words.
However, from your response, it's clear that you are not open minded.
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Diesel lorries are practically free of emissions except for CO2 these days (except when the owners install kill systems). If it's possible to run lorries practically free from emissions, then surely it's possible with smaller vehicles as well.
The main problem is that fitting a $20000 emissions kit on every lorry is quite a bit of money, but it's a reasonable part of the overall lorry cost. Fitting a $20000 emissions kit on every passenger car would kill most of the industry.
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EURO6 diesel lorries are just not a problem. They are such an improvement over previous standards that it is simply shocking. You can tell when a lorry passes whether it's EURO5 or EURO6. It is not a slight improvement, it is a complete game changer. This happened because EURO6 lorries are actually road tested before they get type approval. Emissions above target == engine cannot be sold.
EURO5 and EURO6 also apply to passenger vehicles, but passenger vehicles are not tested on the road. Hence the improvemen
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You have missed the entire point. Millions of diesel engines were sold in Europe, labelled as EURO6, while not living up to EURO6 standards.
You say "No engine can be sold if it does not meet emission targets". I offer you lots and lots of engines which WERE sold despite not meeting targets. That is what the scandal is all about.
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who regulates the regulators (Score:2)
And the problem with all of these "hammering out" of regulations is that those writing the regulations are typically underfunded compared to those protesting the regulations.
... and as a result, the people writing the regulations most often are the people protesting the regulations-- that is, the car companies have way more input into the pollution regulations than the people actually worried about the effects of pollution, because the car companies have a lot more funding than the people worried about the effects of pollution.
The writers will come up with a cost and benefit and decide the regulation is good. Those opposed to the regulation will say that the cost is half as much and the benefit may not be achievable. Once the regulation is written, it suddenly gets met at half of the original estimate provided by the regulators.
That turns out to be true very often: the companies complain about how expensive the cost will be to meet the regulation, but once the regulation is in p
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This, exactly.
Because many of the emissions regulations were written for social engineering purposes. Not to actually clean up air. A few simple fixes do make some sense. Like not venting gasoline and crankcase fumes to the atmosphere. Easy fixes. But the whole NOx regulation thing was due to a bunch of no-cars liberals getting a hard on over muscle cars in the '60s and '70s. Muscle cars (and diesels) have high compression ratios, higher combustion temperatures, burn fuel (and particulates) more efficientl
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Re:Not a natural result of unrealistic regulations (Score:4, Informative)
That is a load of garbage. NOx emissions are much like sulfur in that they sing intrinsically have a major effect on the global climate but are frigging horrible in concentrations close to population centres. There was no hard-on against muscle cars, there were studied finally showing how NOx emissions negatively affect health.
You're right about the 99% but only by earth surface area, definitely not by target market which is city centre driving.
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NOx is hugely harmful to health
Well then, enjoy your lightning. Because it produces more NOx than vehicles do. And if you really don't like it, you must hate plants. It is part of the Nitrogen cycle, without which YOU WOULD'NT EAT.
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If many participants in a given industry end up colluding due to regulations being imposed on them, perhaps the viability of the regulations they're trying to bypass should be reexamined.
Or perhaps the viability of the technology being regulated should be reexamined. If we accept that the goal of the regulation (low PM levels) is a a good thing, why would we let people use a technology that breaks that regulation just because "It's too hard". There are alternatives (gasoline, and electric is becoming more viable every day).
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Emissions targets can be met (Score:3)
But engine companies are actually not able to meet the emission targets, certainly not by keeping their clients happy
Baloney. They can meet the emissions targets today and the technology is being sold as I type this in large numbers. It will mean that they will have to change the vehicle mix but to that I say so what? Same rules apply to every one and they have the technology to achieve it. If that means that you and I have to live with less horsepower so be it. But Tesla is showing that you can meet emissions targets and have a vehicle worth driving too. Even among gasoline powered vehicles there are plenty that ar
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We'll just move battery packs and motors from trucks into compacts. Hooning will continue.