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In the auto industry its generally understood that the emissions limits are so low, especially for diesel, that its physically impossible to meet them in some s

In the auto industry its generally understood that the emissions limits are so low, especially for diesel, that its physically impossible to meet them in some situations like cold engine + cold weather and when driving up grade. Emissions regulations have made great progress in cleaning up auto emissions, but now politicians keep squeezing the numbers without realizing some of the limits are becoming impossible. So everyone starts cheating, because otherwise we would have no combustion powered cars. Insane irony is that ships and even some buildings burn horrifically impure "bunker fuel" or wood, and with car emission limits so low these sources are the vast majority of harmful emissions. Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers.

wlll 8y ago
> especially for diesel There's another way of looking at this, and that's that maybe diesel just isn't clean enough for consumer cars?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  maybe, but its cleaner in other ways. It burns hotter and more efficiently, creating less CO2 and some other byproducts by a decent margin. It produces more SO due to fuel sulfur content, and more NOX which is produced because of high temperatures. So its a trade-off. But at this point the limits are just politicians pulling levers. There's not enough science involved to debate which pollutants we care about and what the lowest realistic limits are.
cryoshon 8y ago
>Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers yes, this is a common process by which private costs are offloaded onto the public so as to increase the private benefits of exploitation of public goods. it's legalized theft.
mikelward 8y ago
Forbes says that it would have cost an extra $430 per vehicle for VW to meet the NOx requirements fairly. That's hardly the same as regulations resulting in no combustion-powered cars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-save-e300-per-volkswagen-jetta/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-s...

wlll 8y ago

> especially for diesel There's another way of looking at this, and that's that maybe diesel just isn't clean enough for consumer cars?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
maybe, but its cleaner in other ways. It burns hotter and more efficiently, creating less CO2 and some other byproducts by a decent margin. It produces more SO due to fuel sulfur content, and more NOX which is produced because of high temperatures. So its a trade-off. But at this point the limits are just politicians pulling levers. There's not enough science involved to debate which pollutants we care about and what the lowest realistic limits are.

cryoshon 8y ago

>Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers yes, this is a common process by which private costs are offloaded onto the public so as to increase the private benefits of exploitation of public goods. it's legalized theft.

mikelward 8y ago

Forbes says that it would have cost an extra $430 per vehicle for VW to meet the NOx requirements fairly. That's hardly the same as regulations resulting in no combustion-powered cars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-save-e300-per-volkswagen-jetta/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-s...