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> however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. What's wrong with the regulations? It seems that they're des

• closeparen 8y ago
  This mindset is exactly the problem: you’ve judged the regulations on their goal, rather than their effectiveness and how they interact with the industry’s incentives.
  • wlll 8y ago
    Well what do you suggest then? I mean, the current regulations seem to have caught a number of car manufacturers faking test data and presumably they will be punished. I think we can agree that the goal is to reduce dangerous emissions, but if we're not going to have regulations that state a limit and perhaps a penalty for abuse, then how?
    • Klathmon 8y ago
      The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). So "cheating" starts to look more and more worth the risk. Granted, I don't think we are quite at that point yet, and don't take this to be implying that we should not have environmental regulations here, just that we need real information about what's possible and how, and there needs to be a 2 way conversation with the manufacturers to evolve the regs with what's possible.
      • wlll 8y ago
        > The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). That's not really a worry. Governments are well aware that people need cars that they can afford. Governments are ultimately elected by the people, and messing around with transport makes you unpopular (the recent backlash at the possibility that fuel duty will be unfrozen in the UK is an example).
        • greedo 8y ago
          Governments don't care about people having affordable cars. Governments care about votes. Look at the cost of safety features that have been implemented in cars the last 10 years; some for marginal benefit (rear-view cameras). These features increase the cost, making it hard for lower income people to afford the cars.
          • wlll 8y ago
            > Governments don't care about people having affordable cars. Governments care about votes. These things are related. If the people think that they can't get the car they need because of the government this will turn in to loss of votes. See fuel duty example again. > Look at the cost of safety features that have been implemented in cars the last 10 years; some for marginal benefit (rear-view cameras). Regulations are rarely perfect. It seems from my searched that backup cameras are net better (~300 people killed, 18,000 injured in backup incidents) and that cameras will help drop some of those figures, but not by a huge amount. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the figures play out in the future. However, some regulations have had a significant effect, for example seatbelts. > These features increase the cost, making it hard for lower income people to afford the cars. The tech will come down in price, and the car companies still want to sell cars to lower income families and so will at worst absorb some or all of the cost at the price of a slightly lower profit. And as someone else pointed out in a different thread, emissions from cars has a significant negative effect on people's health, particularly in urban and inner city areas where these lower income people are more likely to live.
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      • sulam 8y ago
        Mr Fox, I need help understanding how to securely design this henhouse.
    • syshum 8y ago
      >I think we can agree that the goal is to reduce dangerous emissions, we can reduce the emissions to zero by banning all cars, would you support that regulation? >then how? Improvements to technology the lessen the dependency on those energy sources. Regulations will not solve the problem, no matter how draconian you desire to make them. Regulations will just increase the cost of goods furthering the economic divide and harming the people that can least afford the changes
      • simplify 8y ago
        Have regulations not solved water potability, domestic child labor, lead in paint, water tables, airline safety, accessibility, and many more problems?
        • syshum 8y ago
          You will disagree, but largely no. Those things where solved by a variety of other factors and where on their way out long before the government came along to "regulate" them and take the credit for it.
          • Semirhage 8y ago
            Could you elaborate in some detail on those other factors? Preferably with some citations. I’m totally unfamiliar with this second narrative, while I am familiar with the likes of ‘The Jungle’.
      • openasocket 8y ago
        > Regulations will just increase the cost of goods furthering the economic divide and harming the people that can least afford the changes NOx gas emissions from cars cause and worsen respiratory diseases, especially in urban areas where it is especially concentrated, thus ALSO harming people that can least afford it. I'd also note there are plenty of cheap vehicles that do meet these regulations.
      • wlll 8y ago
        > we can reduce the emissions to zero by banning all cars, would you support that regulation? That's ridiculous, of course not. > Improvements to technology the lessen the dependency on those energy sources. > > Regulations will not solve the problem, no matter how draconian you desire to make them. Regulations will just increase the cost of goods… Regulations will drive technological solutions, and if it weren't for regulations around emissions then car manufacturers have proved that they will quite happily sacrifice the health of everyone in the search of profit. > furthering the economic divide and harming the people that can least afford the changes Oh please. Car manufacturers will always sell budget cars to people with small budgets, because there's a market for it.
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  • ghostly_s 8y ago
    Care to explain how they're ineffective instead of repeating libertarian platitudes? Is your argument that they are ineffective because manufacturers are cheating on the tests? Seems like the ineffective part here is not the regulation but the enforcement. These regulations are expected to be misaligned with industry incentives. That's why regulation is necessitated.
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    • dang 8y ago
      Please don't do ideological name-calling here, regardless of how wrong another comment is, or feels. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • hwillis 8y ago
    > you’ve judged the regulations on their goal, rather than their effectiveness and how they interact with the industry’s incentives. The regulations were ineffective because the EPA is unable to do its job. They test cars on a dyno in a climate controlled room instead of in the real world. They are embarrassingly vulnerable to defeat devices because they don't actually try to find defeat devices. Shitty nominees, corporate lobbying, and frivolous lawsuits have neutered the EPA from the inside and outside.
• slg 8y ago
  I think the implication is that the regulations were poorly implemented and didn't test true emissions. I don't see how anyone can view these stories as an indication that emission regulations are a bad idea or somehow aren't needed.
  • wlll 8y ago
    VAG deliberately programmed around the tests (a defeat device). It's not that VAG sent a car to the test but the test just didn't test regular driving VAG deliberately changed the results for cars under test.
    • slg 8y ago
      I meant "true" as in "what actually happens in the real world" and not "the opposite of fake". You are certainly right that the emissions themselves weren't faked, just that the car behaved differently in the tests compared to what happens in the real world.
  • gascan 8y ago
    Some people have tried to argue that the cheating is definitive proof the regulations were too hard, and so obviously emissions regulations should all be scrapped.
    • slg 8y ago
      I really don't understand how one can make this argument. No one argues that we should do away with taxes completely just because some people cheat and pay less than they should. If anything, widespread cheating shows the importance of regulations. It shows that companies are willing to lie to both regulators and the public. For something that is extremely difficult for the consumer to test themselves like emissions, it shows that an independent regulator is required to keep companies honest.
      • gascan 8y ago
        As far as I can tell, it's pretty simple- they've always been ideologically opposed to emissions regulations, so every headline is bent to accommodate that perspective.
• stephengillie 8y ago
  In the Seattle area, cars made after 2009 aren't required to have independent emissions tests - the car's ECU is trusted to give an accurate result. To test cars made before 2009, they put a probe in the tailpipe. It's like the regulators have sold out, and gone full capture. http://www.emissiontestwa.com/e/faq.aspx#2 http://www.emissiontestwa.com/e/faq.aspx#2
  • toast0 8y ago
    Do they even look at the ECU on a car after 2009? California trusts the ECU on most cars after 2001, but they do plug into it. Seems kind of BS to me, at least there should be some randomized real testing, and if those don't look good, some models get blacklisted from ODB-II testing.
    • Maybestring 8y ago
      The state emissions tests are only meant to catch cars polluting above something like circa-1980 emissions limits. Even flagrantly cheating, a modern car is no where near dirty enough to fail the tailpipe check.
• peterwwillis 8y ago
  The regulations don't take into account market reality. People don't want to buy cars because they're low-emission, they want to buy cars because they're fast, big, and safe. They need to be bigger, faster, and safer in order to compete. But lowering emissions makes that much more difficult. So of course you're going to lie on emissions. If you don't, your competitor will, and then you lose market share.
  • Drakim 8y ago
    Can't you just buy a competitor's car and test it yourself and report them if you find cheating?
    • sulam 8y ago
      And now you just motivated a CarTel. :)
    • ambicapter 8y ago
      Not if you think you can cheat harder than them.
  • mikeash 8y ago
    What would regulations look like that took market reality into account? The whole point of regulations is to go against what the market will buy without them. If people bought low emission cars without any outside forces then you wouldn’t need any regulations. Of course, in reality that path leads you to smog-choked cities and lots of dead people.
  • wlll 8y ago
    And now the car manufacturers have got caught cheating, so they're going to have to (I guess) face some penalty, and stop selling cars that cheat the tests. People might want big, fast and safe cars, but they don't get to have them at the expense of the health and wellbeing of everyone else.
  • l9k 8y ago
    The "Big Cars" part of your comment is really US-centric. In Europe, Japan, and other places, many people want small cars. Some people want faster but most people don't care because there are speed limitations on the roads anyway. Low-emission might not be a priority, but people still think of it, and some governments measures target the most-polluting vehicles to discourage their use.
• Verdex_3 8y ago
  There are no more coral snake antivenom manufacturers anymore because the regulations became more stringent and the company that made the only antivenom that was grandfathered in under the old rules decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Realistic regulations are good because they prevent resource rich companies from externalizing their failures onto others. Unrealistic regulations cause industries to give up on things that our population needs to survive. For example, in the past if you got bit by a coral snake you could get antivenom. In the present, over ambitious regulation says that you die when you get bit by a coral snake. Because the alternative to death (using under regulated antivenom) is apparently worse? If you want to you could regulate that cars run off of happiness and that their exhaust contains no pollutants. But the result would be that either everyone cheats on the tests OR that there would be no more cars. Including the trucks that bring us food and other useful products.
  • wlll 8y ago
    I mean, we're not talking about all regulations here, we're talking about the emissions regulations. Emissions that kill people. So I don't really see the point of the coral snake thing, interesting though it is. > If you want to you could regulate that cars run off of happiness and that their exhaust contains no pollutants. But the result would be that either everyone cheats on the tests OR that there would be no more cars. Including the trucks that bring us food and other useful products. Well, I'm not suggesting that at all so again, not really relevant. I'm suggesting that the emissions regulations that we have are fine. Cars can and do pass these without cheating so they're clearly not unrealistic.