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"On average, two-thirds of the claimed gains in CO2 emissions and fuel consumption since 2008 have been delivered through manipulating tests" How deep does thi

by yc1010 11y ago

"On average, two-thirds of the claimed gains in CO2 emissions and fuel consumption since 2008 have been delivered through manipulating tests" How deep does this rabbit hole go :( Here in Ireland the motortax for cars newer than 2008 is based on CO2 emissions, if motorists find their tax rising due to cheating by car manufacturers thats an unexpected and direct cost to their wallets.

happyscrappy 11y ago
Europe was really led astray when they were told that diesels were better for the environment, hybrids would have been the way to go.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Europe has 'bet on diesel' for many years while hybrids have only recently become available.
  - _pmf_ 11y ago
    All European manufacturers except Renault and BMW are hellbent on not offering attractive E mobility solutions, despite really expensive and extensive internal research programs. We in Germany have a large numbers of Smart cars in car sharing companies that are sponsored by Daimler, but it's not yet economically viable to actually buy an E-Smart (if you've driven one, it's not bad at all).
    - pjc50 11y ago
      It's strange. Europe should be a better market for electric and hybrid cars, given the higher petrol costs, but I guess the high purchase costs are putting people off. I'd buy one if I did enough miles. It's not worth it for a few thousand a year. Even having a petrol car sitting on my drive is an expense of marginal justifiability.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        The other issue is that in europe the group of people who are most likely to buy an electric car usually just bike or use public transit instead.
  - nradov 11y ago
    Hybrid cars have been available in Europe for 15 years. So not that recent.
- padelt 11y ago
  > Europe was really led astray when they were told that diesels were better for the environment Were we led astray? Or are we discussing the last few percentages beyond an actual advantage over gasoline engines?
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    The reason air pollution is so much worse in European cities than American ones is largely due to diesel passenger vehicles.
    - padelt 11y ago
      That both suprises me, do you have any sources? Honest question, both seem counterintuitive. Maybe I am actually fed enough "feelgood" information in the past.
      - happyscrappy 11y ago
        http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/industry-lobbyists-weakened-europes-air-pollution-rules-say-greenpeace http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/industry-...
        andy_boot 11y ago
        That is an article from greenpeace about poor EU environmental standards in power stations. Sure it is bad but, it does not compare air pollution in EU vs US cities or attribute anything to cars.
    - scrumper 11y ago
      See for example Paris's recent (yesterday?) "no car day" in the center. The city's usual blanket of smog is gone. France of course having the highest %age of diesel cars in its passenger fleet of any country.
      - morsch 11y ago
- brc 11y ago
  Yes. Optimising for c02 reductions over Nox and particulates is a monumentally stupid policy. Co2 may have a deleterious effect in 100 years time, but is not an issue for air quality today. In any case, passenger vehicle c02 emssions are a rounding error in the scheme of things. Meanwhile, particulate pollution and Nox are very real issues affecting millions of people today. It's stupid to push diesel over gasoline for c02 reasons. Part of the reason VW cheated was because the USA didn't fall into this trap and allow more lax emissions standards for Diesels - all fuels are held to the same standard. So they took the Euro engines and added the defeat code. The USA is correct on this one. The focus on passenger vehicles is idiotic though - the amount of Nox and particulates pumped out by a single container ship is immense compared to a fleet of passenger vehicles. Then add trucking, rail, stationery equipment etc... Cities should be optimising for electric propulsion and punishing diesels. That makes sense for air quality right now, and if co2 proves to be an issue, it is easily fixed by switching the generation source to Nuclear or Hydro.
emp_zealoth 11y ago
Or maybe we abolish nonsensical, contrary requirements? Whoever actaully believed the fuel consumption figures is a fool. You cant have a 1,5t of a car and expect it to use only 5l/100km. That's a good rate for a goddamn motorbike (450ccm,one piston, dont exceed 90 km/h and you might reach 4,5l/100km) Its one fifth of the mass...
- mpweiher 11y ago
  I actually drove my Golf TDI at around the level of 5l/100km in Berlin for many years. Carefully. My girlfriend's Polo is significantly below that. Of course, these cars aren't ton and a half, but more around a ton.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - mpweiher 11y ago
      Yeah, I checked for the Polo, empty weight appears to be 1050 kg. The Golf TDI was a '96, so given the trends I expect it to be roughly similar. The original Golf I was under a ton.
    - trymas 11y ago
      I agree that cars are very heavy now, though, usually there are few 'types' of car weight. I do not know which where is used. Usually there are 2 weights: unladen weight and maximum weight. I've heard about some third weight which is between the unladen and maximum weights, something like a car's weight with full tank and a driver, but don't quote me on this. Probably you have the maximum weight listed. My Skoda Fabia (Audi Q3 equivalent) has maximum weight of 1680kg and unladen weight of 1200kg. I refuse to believe that VW Up is heavier than the Skoda Fabia. AFAIK, minivans have quite big weight on their papers, but empty minivan can't weigh 3000kg, which is only possible if it's loaded.
      - codfrantic 11y ago
fithisux 11y ago
Not their wallets. why should they pay for the fraud of corporates? Let the corporates replace cars .
- verinus 11y ago
  Perhaps this is a kind of occasion where people know that things are too good to be true but want them believe them to be... edit: typo
- JonFish85 11y ago
  One way or another, regular folks will pay for it. If it's directly by paying this tax, that's straight forward. Otherwise, the company will take the hit, and the cost will flow towards stock-holders, which in general tend to be unions, 401k plans and such. How much of your 401k are you willing to lose due to that cost? How much of your parents' 401k/union pensions is OK to forfeit?
  - TheCoelacanth 11y ago
    That sounds like an argument for never punishing corporations for anything, which is clearly unworkable. Pension and 401k plans are typically diversified across a broad range of stocks, so they won't be heavily impacted by a single company's stock price dropping. On the other hand, executives and board members, who are actually responsible for the company's actions, will typically have a large amount of that company's stock so they will be much more heavily impacted by the stock price dropping.
    - JonFish85 11y ago
      That's not how I meant it, but I can see how that's a fair reading of what I said. I don't like that people jump onto ideas very quickly without thinking through the ramifications. I don't think a lot of people realize how wide-reaching effects from quick knee-jerk reactions can be, and how much they can actually have effects beyond the first-order ones.
will_critchlow 11y ago
"if motorists find their tax rising due to cheating by car manufacturers" This doesn't require new enforcement or new taxes - a large part of the purchase price of petrol is tax.
- throwaway049 11y ago
  In the UK we pay an annual tax [0] based on the engine size or CO2 emissions of the vehicle, in addition to tax on fuel. I doubt the government will move affected cars up the price bands post-purchase as it would be politically unpopular. [0] https://www.gov.uk/calculate-vehicle-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/calculate-vehicle-tax-rates
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
None of this is really new, the mostly German car lobby has resisted European emissions testing on testing strict real-world usage, as opposed to testing on a roller. Anyone who spent 10 minutes looking into this in the past years could've told you that, and it wasn't some big secret. A lot of it was stuff everyone was doing, like fitting certain tires and inflating them such that the rolling resistance is reduced. At the end of the day, there are limits to those gains and everyone does it, so in can't set you apart from the competition and once the basic manipulations are exhausted and the emissions goalposts are moved you can't make gains anymore without actually improving the car. Further most of these are for CO2 emissions / fuel efficiency, which is different from the VW fraud which was about NOx emissions. The difference with the VW case is that VW essentially defrauded the test by building a device that measured various factors to establish whether it was being driven normally or whether it was being tested. In the former case it'd shut down (allowing 35x the legal limit of NOx emissions into the air while driving), while in the latter case it'd dampen the emissions (at the cost of engine performance, which is why they shut it off during regular driving). That's a different level of fraud, one that has very few bounds and can change results by much more than an order of magnitude, and is hugely controversial because it makes every test meaningless in the short, medium and long term and isn't practiced by everyone, and so different from manipulating tests by e.g. inflating tires which can still produce meaningful test, benchmarks and comparisons, when you start building 'defeat devices' all of that goes out the window completely.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Not a device though, just software to vary the engine regulation when the test is detected. (Or more likely a mode that kicks in when non test driving is detected)

by yc1010 11y ago

happyscrappy 11y ago

Europe was really led astray when they were told that diesels were better for the environment, hybrids would have been the way to go.

pjc50 11y ago
Europe has 'bet on diesel' for many years while hybrids have only recently become available.
- _pmf_ 11y ago
  All European manufacturers except Renault and BMW are hellbent on not offering attractive E mobility solutions, despite really expensive and extensive internal research programs. We in Germany have a large numbers of Smart cars in car sharing companies that are sponsored by Daimler, but it's not yet economically viable to actually buy an E-Smart (if you've driven one, it's not bad at all).
  - pjc50 11y ago
    It's strange. Europe should be a better market for electric and hybrid cars, given the higher petrol costs, but I guess the high purchase costs are putting people off. I'd buy one if I did enough miles. It's not worth it for a few thousand a year. Even having a petrol car sitting on my drive is an expense of marginal justifiability.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      The other issue is that in europe the group of people who are most likely to buy an electric car usually just bike or use public transit instead.
- nradov 11y ago
  Hybrid cars have been available in Europe for 15 years. So not that recent.
padelt 11y ago
> Europe was really led astray when they were told that diesels were better for the environment Were we led astray? Or are we discussing the last few percentages beyond an actual advantage over gasoline engines?
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  The reason air pollution is so much worse in European cities than American ones is largely due to diesel passenger vehicles.
  - padelt 11y ago
    That both suprises me, do you have any sources? Honest question, both seem counterintuitive. Maybe I am actually fed enough "feelgood" information in the past.
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/industry-lobbyists-weakened-europes-air-pollution-rules-say-greenpeace http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/industry-...
      - andy_boot 11y ago
        That is an article from greenpeace about poor EU environmental standards in power stations. Sure it is bad but, it does not compare air pollution in EU vs US cities or attribute anything to cars.
  - scrumper 11y ago
    See for example Paris's recent (yesterday?) "no car day" in the center. The city's usual blanket of smog is gone. France of course having the highest %age of diesel cars in its passenger fleet of any country.
    - morsch 11y ago
brc 11y ago
Yes. Optimising for c02 reductions over Nox and particulates is a monumentally stupid policy. Co2 may have a deleterious effect in 100 years time, but is not an issue for air quality today. In any case, passenger vehicle c02 emssions are a rounding error in the scheme of things. Meanwhile, particulate pollution and Nox are very real issues affecting millions of people today. It's stupid to push diesel over gasoline for c02 reasons. Part of the reason VW cheated was because the USA didn't fall into this trap and allow more lax emissions standards for Diesels - all fuels are held to the same standard. So they took the Euro engines and added the defeat code. The USA is correct on this one. The focus on passenger vehicles is idiotic though - the amount of Nox and particulates pumped out by a single container ship is immense compared to a fleet of passenger vehicles. Then add trucking, rail, stationery equipment etc... Cities should be optimising for electric propulsion and punishing diesels. That makes sense for air quality right now, and if co2 proves to be an issue, it is easily fixed by switching the generation source to Nuclear or Hydro.

emp_zealoth 11y ago

Or maybe we abolish nonsensical, contrary requirements? Whoever actaully believed the fuel consumption figures is a fool. You cant have a 1,5t of a car and expect it to use only 5l/100km. That's a good rate for a goddamn motorbike (450ccm,one piston, dont exceed 90 km/h and you might reach 4,5l/100km) Its one fifth of the mass...

mpweiher 11y ago
I actually drove my Golf TDI at around the level of 5l/100km in Berlin for many years. Carefully. My girlfriend's Polo is significantly below that. Of course, these cars aren't ton and a half, but more around a ton.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - mpweiher 11y ago
    Yeah, I checked for the Polo, empty weight appears to be 1050 kg. The Golf TDI was a '96, so given the trends I expect it to be roughly similar. The original Golf I was under a ton.
  - trymas 11y ago
    I agree that cars are very heavy now, though, usually there are few 'types' of car weight. I do not know which where is used. Usually there are 2 weights: unladen weight and maximum weight. I've heard about some third weight which is between the unladen and maximum weights, something like a car's weight with full tank and a driver, but don't quote me on this. Probably you have the maximum weight listed. My Skoda Fabia (Audi Q3 equivalent) has maximum weight of 1680kg and unladen weight of 1200kg. I refuse to believe that VW Up is heavier than the Skoda Fabia. AFAIK, minivans have quite big weight on their papers, but empty minivan can't weigh 3000kg, which is only possible if it's loaded.
    - codfrantic 11y ago

fithisux 11y ago

Not their wallets. why should they pay for the fraud of corporates? Let the corporates replace cars .

verinus 11y ago
Perhaps this is a kind of occasion where people know that things are too good to be true but want them believe them to be... edit: typo
JonFish85 11y ago
One way or another, regular folks will pay for it. If it's directly by paying this tax, that's straight forward. Otherwise, the company will take the hit, and the cost will flow towards stock-holders, which in general tend to be unions, 401k plans and such. How much of your 401k are you willing to lose due to that cost? How much of your parents' 401k/union pensions is OK to forfeit?
- TheCoelacanth 11y ago
  That sounds like an argument for never punishing corporations for anything, which is clearly unworkable. Pension and 401k plans are typically diversified across a broad range of stocks, so they won't be heavily impacted by a single company's stock price dropping. On the other hand, executives and board members, who are actually responsible for the company's actions, will typically have a large amount of that company's stock so they will be much more heavily impacted by the stock price dropping.
  - JonFish85 11y ago
    That's not how I meant it, but I can see how that's a fair reading of what I said. I don't like that people jump onto ideas very quickly without thinking through the ramifications. I don't think a lot of people realize how wide-reaching effects from quick knee-jerk reactions can be, and how much they can actually have effects beyond the first-order ones.

will_critchlow 11y ago

"if motorists find their tax rising due to cheating by car manufacturers" This doesn't require new enforcement or new taxes - a large part of the purchase price of petrol is tax.

throwaway049 11y ago
In the UK we pay an annual tax [0] based on the engine size or CO2 emissions of the vehicle, in addition to tax on fuel. I doubt the government will move affected cars up the price bands post-purchase as it would be politically unpopular. [0] https://www.gov.uk/calculate-vehicle-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/calculate-vehicle-tax-rates

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

None of this is really new, the mostly German car lobby has resisted European emissions testing on testing strict real-world usage, as opposed to testing on a roller. Anyone who spent 10 minutes looking into this in the past years could've told you that, and it wasn't some big secret. A lot of it was stuff everyone was doing, like fitting certain tires and inflating them such that the rolling resistance is reduced. At the end of the day, there are limits to those gains and everyone does it, so in can't set you apart from the competition and once the basic manipulations are exhausted and the emissions goalposts are moved you can't make gains anymore without actually improving the car. Further most of these are for CO2 emissions / fuel efficiency, which is different from the VW fraud which was about NOx emissions. The difference with the VW case is that VW essentially defrauded the test by building a device that measured various factors to establish whether it was being driven normally or whether it was being tested. In the former case it'd shut down (allowing 35x the legal limit of NOx emissions into the air while driving), while in the latter case it'd dampen the emissions (at the cost of engine performance, which is why they shut it off during regular driving). That's a different level of fraud, one that has very few bounds and can change results by much more than an order of magnitude, and is hugely controversial because it makes every test meaningless in the short, medium and long term and isn't practiced by everyone, and so different from manipulating tests by e.g. inflating tires which can still produce meaningful test, benchmarks and comparisons, when you start building 'defeat devices' all of that goes out the window completely.

maxerickson 11y ago
Not a device though, just software to vary the engine regulation when the test is detected. (Or more likely a mode that kicks in when non test driving is detected)