5 ms·

"This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly.

"This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly. But once one automaker starts to fudge the numbers at a given price point, all the others must do the same thing or they fall behind." I'm going to have to remember to bring this up as an example whenever people claim private industry can police/regulate themselves. It's perfect.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wonder_er 10y ago
there'd be no incentive to lie if the EPA wasn't forcing these "standards" on them. Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about. This isn't damming of private industry - it's damming of the regulation. (Er, to me. Obviously you might come to a different conclusion. Just wanted to throw in how this article can be read both ways.)
- saulrh 10y ago
  Without the regulation they wouldn't be doing anything, because any attempt at limiting emissions is more expensive than none at all. Regulations aren't perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good enough.
  - TylerE 10y ago
    The standards escalated way too fast though. They were asking for essentially multiple orders of magnitude improvement in a single generation. Even the dirtiest of the cheating VWs would have passed the previous standards (from not that many years ago) with flying colors.
    - enraged_camel 10y ago
      >>The standards escalated way too fast though. Um, no. The EPA didn't pull the numbers out of their asses. They worked with the auto industry to come up with requirements that were stringent but realistic. Government agencies are commonly criticized for regulating industries that they have no expertise in. In reality though, things don't work that way. Either the regulators themselves have industry experience (what is commonly referred to as "revolving doors") or they consult experts.
      - wcunning 10y ago
        The 2025 CAFE standards seem to be a dramatic rise in requirement in a short time period wherein the industry attempted to provide alternative advise and was soundly rebuffed, even outright ignored. The EPA may have once listened, but they don't seem to anymore.
        enraged_camel 10y ago
        If you can provide hard evidence that support your perception, I'd be interested in looking at it.
    - woofyman 10y ago
      The urea injected Diesel engines meet the standards.
      - TylerE 10y ago
        No, they don't. I own one that's about to get bought back.
        stevehawk 10y ago
        which one is that? (serious question because I feel like the one thing I've noticed is that the companies getting nailed are the ones not using DEF)
        TylerE 10y ago
        2015 Golf TDI.
- gautamnarula 10y ago
  I'd say it's more damning of the enforcement of the regulations than the regulations themselves. If car manufacturers fudging numbers were quickly discovered and made to pay hefty fines to the regulator and refunds to customers, and potentially prison time for executives (depending on how serious the violation is, of course), you can bet the manufacturers would quickly learn it makes prudent business sense to be honest.
- xenadu02 10y ago
  If standards weren't forced on them we'd be living in smog-choked cities. Markets can't efficiently deal with tragedy-of-the-commons situations because the air belongs to everyone and there is no way to do price discovery. Even a manufacturer could advertise based on being eco-friendly the effects would be minuscule thus consumers would have little reason to prioritize such features. You're essentially claiming we should abolish all regulations period because some people will cheat. The actual solution is to heavily punish cheaters. We don't have to guess and argue about this; go visit China then come back here and regale us about how horrible the EPA is and how we should eliminate pollution regulations. The technology may not exist yet but government standards can be a forcing function that makes manufacturers invest in creating it and bringing the cost down. In fact government has had a huge hand in many forms of innovation; the trans-continental railroad was only made possible by government backing. The internet could not have been created by private companies from scratch, but government investment made bootstrapping possible.
  - wonder_er 10y ago
    I feel like there are more differences between China and the USA than just the EPA, and that's not at all what I was arguing. What did you read my argument as? Can you restate my argument? Either I spoke unclearly, or you read poorly. So, let me figure this out.
    - ch4s3 10y ago
      >Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about. This statement just doesn't make sense. If we punish actors who cheat the incentive is to innovate towards meeting the goal. If there's no mandate, and no punishment then there's no reason to innovate in a direction that protects the commons. There's simply no market mechanism for protecting the commons that works in practice.
- mikeash 10y ago
  We'd all have health problems and shortened lifespans from air pollution, but hey, at least automakers wouldn't be lying to us.
- bit_logic 10y ago
  The technology to meet and even exceed EPA regulations already exists: hybrid cars. At this point there should not be a single gas only new car on the market, all models and all trim levels should be hybrid as a starting point. If they did this, mass production would reduce the current extra hybrid cost to nothing. Instead they are lying on emissions tests and want to maximize profit off hybrids. EPA must punish such behavior.
  - Gibbon1 10y ago
    Yep, no one talks about this but hybrids are far less polluting than non hybrids. It isn't even close.
alfalfasprout 10y ago
Well, the problem here is also in a way with the EPA's testing methodology. I think you have to go into it thinking that someone will try to cheat so the tests need to be designed differently (eg; don't just accept whatever comes through the ODB2 port as true).
Shivetya 10y ago
well a lot of issues arise because of conflicting and unclear regulation. this certainly isn't limited to the auto industry or environmental concerns. industries as whole do a great job of self regulation because its not profitable to be caught and everyone gets caught. the trouble is that with conflicting agencies involved you can even with the best intents get caught between two. there are also times when someone who is responsible for passing something up the chain forgets and no one follows up. that is a process failure and again these things get fixed because its not profitable to be fined, investigated, etc
donatj 10y ago
So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor. Wonderful.
- trhway 10y ago
  >So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor. affordable car doesn't have to be that big, luxury and that powerful. These years i'm driving Prius. Before that it was a large powerful RWD luxury sedan for many years. I've been enjoying both and both have been working fine for me.
- alphabettsy 10y ago
  What evidence do you have to make such a claim? These diesel vehicles were not truly "affordable" to start with, they are a very costly upgrade (> $4000) over the base engines. A truck that starts at over $37,000 and an SUV start at over $40,000. While these are obviously vehicles the average middle-income person might be able to afford, it's a far cry from the $27,000 starting price of the RAM and these aren't leaving the lot without being almost $10k more than the average new car. How about blaming the execs or the other people actually responsible. GM, BMW, MB, and Ford among others have been able sell diesel vehicles in the US without (afaik) cheating.
  - avn2109 10y ago
    >> "GM, BMW, MB, and Ford" GP here. My whole point is that ~everyone is cheating to various degrees, it's just that not everyone has been caught yet.
    - alphabettsy 10y ago
      Based on?
      - ch4s3 10y ago
        >If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab I think the op is claiming industry experience.
munificent 10y ago
> I'm going to have to remember to bring this up as an example whenever people claim private industry can police/regulate themselves. Do people actually claim that? That's insane. The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion. Self-policing only happens if there is a viable threat of even worse external policing. (Example: the Hays' code for films, which was only voluntarily established because of the looming threat of outright legal censorship of the film industry.) Likewise, competition only emerges when: * Parties are in a zero sum game where they lose little from cooperation. * They lack the means to communicate and collude efficiently. * They are forcibly prevented from colluding (anti-trust laws, etc.). In the modern world where private communication is cheap and easy and where almost all market interactions are non-zero sum, the only thing preventing giant mega-cartels is the threat of legal action. And even that's not working well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PepsiCo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PepsiCo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartMedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartMedia
- bsder 10y ago
  > The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion. Once you reach marginal gains in engineering, you don't need collusion to have all the engineers doing the same things. A good example is power consumption in microprocessors. For a given technology node, you will burn a certain amount of power for a certain size of chip. Period. You can be much worse than everybody else, but it's really hard to be much better.
- randomtossr88 10y ago
  > Do people actually claim that? That's insane. You've never heard of Objectivism?
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
  >Do people actually claim that? That's insane. Agreed. And yet, here in the United States that claim is a central plank in the Republican platform.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

wonder_er 10y ago

there'd be no incentive to lie if the EPA wasn't forcing these "standards" on them. Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about. This isn't damming of private industry - it's damming of the regulation. (Er, to me. Obviously you might come to a different conclusion. Just wanted to throw in how this article can be read both ways.)

saulrh 10y ago
Without the regulation they wouldn't be doing anything, because any attempt at limiting emissions is more expensive than none at all. Regulations aren't perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good enough.
- TylerE 10y ago
  The standards escalated way too fast though. They were asking for essentially multiple orders of magnitude improvement in a single generation. Even the dirtiest of the cheating VWs would have passed the previous standards (from not that many years ago) with flying colors.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>The standards escalated way too fast though. Um, no. The EPA didn't pull the numbers out of their asses. They worked with the auto industry to come up with requirements that were stringent but realistic. Government agencies are commonly criticized for regulating industries that they have no expertise in. In reality though, things don't work that way. Either the regulators themselves have industry experience (what is commonly referred to as "revolving doors") or they consult experts.
    - wcunning 10y ago
      The 2025 CAFE standards seem to be a dramatic rise in requirement in a short time period wherein the industry attempted to provide alternative advise and was soundly rebuffed, even outright ignored. The EPA may have once listened, but they don't seem to anymore.
      - enraged_camel 10y ago
        If you can provide hard evidence that support your perception, I'd be interested in looking at it.
  - woofyman 10y ago
    The urea injected Diesel engines meet the standards.
    - TylerE 10y ago
      No, they don't. I own one that's about to get bought back.
      - stevehawk 10y ago
        which one is that? (serious question because I feel like the one thing I've noticed is that the companies getting nailed are the ones not using DEF)
        TylerE 10y ago
        2015 Golf TDI.
gautamnarula 10y ago
I'd say it's more damning of the enforcement of the regulations than the regulations themselves. If car manufacturers fudging numbers were quickly discovered and made to pay hefty fines to the regulator and refunds to customers, and potentially prison time for executives (depending on how serious the violation is, of course), you can bet the manufacturers would quickly learn it makes prudent business sense to be honest.
xenadu02 10y ago
If standards weren't forced on them we'd be living in smog-choked cities. Markets can't efficiently deal with tragedy-of-the-commons situations because the air belongs to everyone and there is no way to do price discovery. Even a manufacturer could advertise based on being eco-friendly the effects would be minuscule thus consumers would have little reason to prioritize such features. You're essentially claiming we should abolish all regulations period because some people will cheat. The actual solution is to heavily punish cheaters. We don't have to guess and argue about this; go visit China then come back here and regale us about how horrible the EPA is and how we should eliminate pollution regulations. The technology may not exist yet but government standards can be a forcing function that makes manufacturers invest in creating it and bringing the cost down. In fact government has had a huge hand in many forms of innovation; the trans-continental railroad was only made possible by government backing. The internet could not have been created by private companies from scratch, but government investment made bootstrapping possible.
- wonder_er 10y ago
  I feel like there are more differences between China and the USA than just the EPA, and that's not at all what I was arguing. What did you read my argument as? Can you restate my argument? Either I spoke unclearly, or you read poorly. So, let me figure this out.
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    >Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about. This statement just doesn't make sense. If we punish actors who cheat the incentive is to innovate towards meeting the goal. If there's no mandate, and no punishment then there's no reason to innovate in a direction that protects the commons. There's simply no market mechanism for protecting the commons that works in practice.
mikeash 10y ago
We'd all have health problems and shortened lifespans from air pollution, but hey, at least automakers wouldn't be lying to us.
bit_logic 10y ago
The technology to meet and even exceed EPA regulations already exists: hybrid cars. At this point there should not be a single gas only new car on the market, all models and all trim levels should be hybrid as a starting point. If they did this, mass production would reduce the current extra hybrid cost to nothing. Instead they are lying on emissions tests and want to maximize profit off hybrids. EPA must punish such behavior.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  Yep, no one talks about this but hybrids are far less polluting than non hybrids. It isn't even close.

alfalfasprout 10y ago

Well, the problem here is also in a way with the EPA's testing methodology. I think you have to go into it thinking that someone will try to cheat so the tests need to be designed differently (eg; don't just accept whatever comes through the ODB2 port as true).

Shivetya 10y ago

well a lot of issues arise because of conflicting and unclear regulation. this certainly isn't limited to the auto industry or environmental concerns. industries as whole do a great job of self regulation because its not profitable to be caught and everyone gets caught. the trouble is that with conflicting agencies involved you can even with the best intents get caught between two. there are also times when someone who is responsible for passing something up the chain forgets and no one follows up. that is a process failure and again these things get fixed because its not profitable to be fined, investigated, etc

donatj 10y ago

So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor. Wonderful.

trhway 10y ago
>So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor. affordable car doesn't have to be that big, luxury and that powerful. These years i'm driving Prius. Before that it was a large powerful RWD luxury sedan for many years. I've been enjoying both and both have been working fine for me.
alphabettsy 10y ago
What evidence do you have to make such a claim? These diesel vehicles were not truly "affordable" to start with, they are a very costly upgrade (> $4000) over the base engines. A truck that starts at over $37,000 and an SUV start at over $40,000. While these are obviously vehicles the average middle-income person might be able to afford, it's a far cry from the $27,000 starting price of the RAM and these aren't leaving the lot without being almost $10k more than the average new car. How about blaming the execs or the other people actually responsible. GM, BMW, MB, and Ford among others have been able sell diesel vehicles in the US without (afaik) cheating.
- avn2109 10y ago
  >> "GM, BMW, MB, and Ford" GP here. My whole point is that ~everyone is cheating to various degrees, it's just that not everyone has been caught yet.
  - alphabettsy 10y ago
    Based on?
    - ch4s3 10y ago
      >If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab I think the op is claiming industry experience.

munificent 10y ago

> I'm going to have to remember to bring this up as an example whenever people claim private industry can police/regulate themselves. Do people actually claim that? That's insane. The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion. Self-policing only happens if there is a viable threat of even worse external policing. (Example: the Hays' code for films, which was only voluntarily established because of the looming threat of outright legal censorship of the film industry.) Likewise, competition only emerges when: * Parties are in a zero sum game where they lose little from cooperation. * They lack the means to communicate and collude efficiently. * They are forcibly prevented from colluding (anti-trust laws, etc.). In the modern world where private communication is cheap and easy and where almost all market interactions are non-zero sum, the only thing preventing giant mega-cartels is the threat of legal action. And even that's not working well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PepsiCo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PepsiCo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartMedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartMedia

bsder 10y ago
> The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion. Once you reach marginal gains in engineering, you don't need collusion to have all the engineers doing the same things. A good example is power consumption in microprocessors. For a given technology node, you will burn a certain amount of power for a certain size of chip. Period. You can be much worse than everybody else, but it's really hard to be much better.
randomtossr88 10y ago
> Do people actually claim that? That's insane. You've never heard of Objectivism?
mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
>Do people actually claim that? That's insane. Agreed. And yet, here in the United States that claim is a central plank in the Republican platform.