4 ms·

> I furthermore, consider the "hate EVs" because of emissions standards for diesel vehicles to be completely irrational. It's easy to waive your hands and call

> I furthermore, consider the "hate EVs" because of emissions standards for diesel vehicles to be completely irrational. It's easy to waive your hands and call it irrational when it has never happened to you. If you want to experience the potential consequences for yourself, I dare you to drive from NY to LA (~2800 miles), while never exceeding 35 Miles Per Hour. Not once. Never. Enjoy the trip - you'll be almost entirely on backroads the whole way. That is the potential consequence (taken to an extreme) that Diesel truck owners live with, every day, because of emissions. Irrational? I'd say completely rational - it's ridiculous to have that sword hanging over your head, that a sensor will just blow and you're stuck. If it happens to you, you want to rip the arms off any politician in the area. Edit: As for the New York Times article, imagine if you are a business owner, delivering a product a few states away, or even just a few hundred miles. My dad, if it was not illegal, would have immediately went and did exactly as that article described, because that would guarantee that can't happen, which is important because he can't afford for that to happen. This isn't because my dad is heartless towards the environment - he'd pay $25 or $50 for a day-long emissions exemption (donated to, say, CO2 capture) to the 35MPH limit so he could rest assured that he has a quick way out if something goes wrong and he won't be trapped in the middle of nowhere.

shagie 4y ago
From the post: > And then we wonder why some people hate EVs I consider that irrational. The issues with difficulty to repair the emissions systems on diesel vehicles should be something to complain to the vehicle manufacture - not the clean air act itself just as the ire of "can't fix a phone" should be focused on Apple rather than people who use a dumb phone or have a pine phone.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  This is not a good argument if you have watched diesel truck progression. Even if it was easier to repair, the emissions standards are what partly caused this design mess in the first place, as they were the only reasonable way to meet the standard (all diesel trucks right now are suffering design issues like this), so it absolutely takes blame. Diesel trucks were only designed like this because of the emissions standards. Imagine a legislature mandated that all smartphones must be watertight to 200 meters deep, no exceptions. They must also be no thicker than 1/4" of an inch, no exceptions. And then if, for example, all the smartphone makers used adhesive instead of screws to do that. Your argument is that the smartphone markers are to blame for the adhesive, not the legislature. I would argue that it really is the legislature's fault. Edit @scratcheee: I would first look over how much damage the vehicle actually causes the environment and whether the standards are reasonable. Look up Leaf Blowers vs Diesel emissions for example - it's really ugly how unfairly biased towards Leaf Blowers and other small engines the emissions standards are. They can have absolutely absurd emissions by comparison without any restriction. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-california-emissions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-cali...) (This is another reason why, if your vehicle was shut down due to emissions, knowing that a leaf blower is doing more damage is even more infuriating and destroys credibility and faith in the standards.) After that, assuming that the standards aren't moving downward, I would have a self-service daily exemption system. Basically, send $25 or so to some complaint CO2 capture or similar organization, get a code, punch code into truck, get exception for the whole day. Obviously this adds up ($500+ a month assuming normal weekdays), incentive enough to get it fixed soon. My dad would be the kind of person who would be greatly relieved - because modding your truck to ignore emissions is awfully tempting whenever planning a long road trip. Just knowing you wouldn't be stranded if something went wrong is enough to kill the temptation. Edit @lcnPylGDnU4H9OF: Neither myself, nor my dad, bear ill-will towards EVs. Any ill-will towards them is your misinterpretation of the argument. We are, however, arguing that the stringent and very flawed enforcement of emissions standards undermines the credibility of all emissions standards, as well as faith in EVs and other marketed-as-environmentally-friendly solutions. And that, therefore, blame can be shared both ways when we see people opposed to EVs and stricter emissions standards.
  - scratcheee 4y ago
    Out of curiousity, what solution do you think would work (assuming you accept that enforcing any sort of emissions standards is a good idea overall). My best attempt: perhaps as long as systems to maintain emissions standards have failed, the vehicle could be made to pay a fine per X miles travelled that approximates the cost of correcting either the actual emissions of that engine or if such data is unavailable, a plausible worst case emissions of the engine. At a vague guess I could see that being $250 per 1000 miles or so (simplifying emissions to be "4x typical CO2 emissions of a van", which could be way off, and current best-case DAC costs to undo the damage ~$250 per tonne). That's still a fairly steep fine, but at least it isn't artificially limiting the vehicle.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      Living in a state with mandatory annual vehicle inspections, these are obviously the solution. You can put non-compliant parts on your car, swap them out before inspection, find a dodgy shop that will let some things slide, etc. But for the most part it significantly raises the barrier to driving around with a derelict vehicle. Emissions should be checked with a tailpipe sensor, as they used to do before they started to lazily rely on OBD2. Then digital restrictions on the emissions computers (etc) could then be narrowly scoped to reporting the last time the firmware was flashed. And if someone is still willing to swap that module out and back every year, then just let them. They could also just burn diesel in a 55 gallon drum in their back yard.
      - scratcheee 4y ago
        That does seem sensible yes, I'm also not particularly interested in preventing people from doing stupid things to their cars if they're that insistent on doing them, it just hurts everyone else. I guess the problem is how to encourage manufacturers to ensure their emissions functions remain high quality. If the _only_ feedback is customers eventually getting failed inspections and thus higher repair bills eventually, which presumably then leads to them complaining about the cost of the cars maintenance, that's a pretty weak feedback loop compared to direct punishment for producing products that fail emissions checks. The problem is that once you punish manufacturers more directly they start installing these braindead systems in self defense, after all, if nobody can drive their cars when they're broken then they can't be punished for failing emissions checks. I guess you could just forbid them from blocking customers at the same time as you punish them, but that's a little unsatisfying. Maybe just require a way to detect modification or emissions override, and anyone who does that pays the fine if they fail inspection, and for anyone else the manufacturer pays. They'd presumably be begging people to install modifications so they can hand off any fines...

shagie 4y ago

From the post: > And then we wonder why some people hate EVs I consider that irrational. The issues with difficulty to repair the emissions systems on diesel vehicles should be something to complain to the vehicle manufacture - not the clean air act itself just as the ire of "can't fix a phone" should be focused on Apple rather than people who use a dumb phone or have a pine phone.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
This is not a good argument if you have watched diesel truck progression. Even if it was easier to repair, the emissions standards are what partly caused this design mess in the first place, as they were the only reasonable way to meet the standard (all diesel trucks right now are suffering design issues like this), so it absolutely takes blame. Diesel trucks were only designed like this because of the emissions standards. Imagine a legislature mandated that all smartphones must be watertight to 200 meters deep, no exceptions. They must also be no thicker than 1/4" of an inch, no exceptions. And then if, for example, all the smartphone makers used adhesive instead of screws to do that. Your argument is that the smartphone markers are to blame for the adhesive, not the legislature. I would argue that it really is the legislature's fault. Edit @scratcheee: I would first look over how much damage the vehicle actually causes the environment and whether the standards are reasonable. Look up Leaf Blowers vs Diesel emissions for example - it's really ugly how unfairly biased towards Leaf Blowers and other small engines the emissions standards are. They can have absolutely absurd emissions by comparison without any restriction. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-california-emissions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-cali...) (This is another reason why, if your vehicle was shut down due to emissions, knowing that a leaf blower is doing more damage is even more infuriating and destroys credibility and faith in the standards.) After that, assuming that the standards aren't moving downward, I would have a self-service daily exemption system. Basically, send $25 or so to some complaint CO2 capture or similar organization, get a code, punch code into truck, get exception for the whole day. Obviously this adds up ($500+ a month assuming normal weekdays), incentive enough to get it fixed soon. My dad would be the kind of person who would be greatly relieved - because modding your truck to ignore emissions is awfully tempting whenever planning a long road trip. Just knowing you wouldn't be stranded if something went wrong is enough to kill the temptation. Edit @lcnPylGDnU4H9OF: Neither myself, nor my dad, bear ill-will towards EVs. Any ill-will towards them is your misinterpretation of the argument. We are, however, arguing that the stringent and very flawed enforcement of emissions standards undermines the credibility of all emissions standards, as well as faith in EVs and other marketed-as-environmentally-friendly solutions. And that, therefore, blame can be shared both ways when we see people opposed to EVs and stricter emissions standards.
- scratcheee 4y ago
  Out of curiousity, what solution do you think would work (assuming you accept that enforcing any sort of emissions standards is a good idea overall). My best attempt: perhaps as long as systems to maintain emissions standards have failed, the vehicle could be made to pay a fine per X miles travelled that approximates the cost of correcting either the actual emissions of that engine or if such data is unavailable, a plausible worst case emissions of the engine. At a vague guess I could see that being $250 per 1000 miles or so (simplifying emissions to be "4x typical CO2 emissions of a van", which could be way off, and current best-case DAC costs to undo the damage ~$250 per tonne). That's still a fairly steep fine, but at least it isn't artificially limiting the vehicle.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Living in a state with mandatory annual vehicle inspections, these are obviously the solution. You can put non-compliant parts on your car, swap them out before inspection, find a dodgy shop that will let some things slide, etc. But for the most part it significantly raises the barrier to driving around with a derelict vehicle. Emissions should be checked with a tailpipe sensor, as they used to do before they started to lazily rely on OBD2. Then digital restrictions on the emissions computers (etc) could then be narrowly scoped to reporting the last time the firmware was flashed. And if someone is still willing to swap that module out and back every year, then just let them. They could also just burn diesel in a 55 gallon drum in their back yard.
    - scratcheee 4y ago
      That does seem sensible yes, I'm also not particularly interested in preventing people from doing stupid things to their cars if they're that insistent on doing them, it just hurts everyone else. I guess the problem is how to encourage manufacturers to ensure their emissions functions remain high quality. If the _only_ feedback is customers eventually getting failed inspections and thus higher repair bills eventually, which presumably then leads to them complaining about the cost of the cars maintenance, that's a pretty weak feedback loop compared to direct punishment for producing products that fail emissions checks. The problem is that once you punish manufacturers more directly they start installing these braindead systems in self defense, after all, if nobody can drive their cars when they're broken then they can't be punished for failing emissions checks. I guess you could just forbid them from blocking customers at the same time as you punish them, but that's a little unsatisfying. Maybe just require a way to detect modification or emissions override, and anyone who does that pays the fine if they fail inspection, and for anyone else the manufacturer pays. They'd presumably be begging people to install modifications so they can hand off any fines...