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> As one example, one state agency has asked Revoy to do certified engine testing to prove that the Revoy doesn’t increase emissions of semi trucks. And that Re
by itsdrewmiller 11mo ago
> As one example, one state agency has asked Revoy to do certified engine testing to prove that the Revoy doesn’t increase emissions of semi trucks. And that Revoy must do this certification across every single truck engine family. It costs $100,000 per certification and there are more than 270 engine families for the 9 engines that our initial partners use. That’s $27,000,000 for this one regulatory item. And keep in mind that this is to certify that a device—whose sole reason for existence is to cut pollution by >90%, and which has demonstrably done so across nearly 100,000 miles of testing and operations—is not increasing the emissions of the truck. It’s a complete waste of money for everyone.
Wild - whoever did this should lose their job.
- dangus 11mo agoSeems somewhat reasonable. I don’t know why the company is supporting all 270 engine families. This company wants to put a bunch of stuff on the road going 70mph that could crash into you and kill you and is complaining about a measly $27 million of regulatory cost. They are making up a bunch of scary numbers about the cost of the status quo and the tone of the article is basically holding us all hostage. Speed out special snowflake startup company through the regulatory process (written in blood) or else you’ll lose bajillions of dollars in suffering and pain from the “status quo.” $27 million is basically a rounding error for automotive companies. Maybe do better at raising funds next time, bro.
- some_random 11mo agoWhy wouldn't they try to support a large number of engines, the testing was about emissions not safety, and they're not a huge automotive company.
- dangus 11mo agoEmissions = safety. I assume that out of 270 entire families that some are more popular than others? Why not pick the 20-30 most popular ones? The tone of this article is that OP’s company has a savior complex. If they aren’t given expedient special treatment regulatory approval, the status quo is causing a bunch of fake make up dollar values of damage. It’s kind of a gross tone.
- some_random 11mo ago>As one example, one state agency has asked Revoy to do certified engine testing to prove that the Revoy doesn’t increase emissions of semi trucks. Where in this sentence is asbestos mentioned? As for the families, if they know their product works in 270 engine families why would they chose to only sell to 20-30?
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoBecause they can't afford the required testing for all of them?
- cm2012 11mo agoThe testing that is clearly theater and a waste of money for all involved?
- potato3732842 11mo agoIt's not wasting the money of the testing people who's job it is to get paid to do work. Like a civil engineer preparing an existing conditions plan of a flat field...
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoI don't know enough about it to know whether it's a waste or not. It's certainly not surprising that the company that has to pay for it thinks it's a waste.
- dangus 11mo agoIt looks like theater when everything goes right. But when it catches a problem suddenly it’s not theater.
- ehnto 11mo agoPresumably they have so many families to serve their customers well. If they were to consolidate their engine families in such a way to avoid paying as much money to regulatory processes, that seems like a bit of a perverse incentive and outcome. In my view though the goal of the regulation isn't bad, but the cost of the process is prohibitive. Why is it so expensive to measure engine emissions?
- cm2012 11mo agoSpoken like someone who has no idea how hard it is to actually get anything done in real life vs your armchair.
- dangus 11mo agoNope. I own a business. Complying with regulations is a sometimes-difficult but necessary part of my existence. Small business owners like myself are the ones who comply while the biggest corporations use their armies of lawyers and bean counters to see how many pennies they can save by skirting those regulations. Just like OP.
- terminalshort 11mo agoIf you want to argue that adding an electric engine to existing trucks is going to make them go out of control and kill people in some completely common sense defying manner, then the burden of proof is on you and not on the company to prove a negative.
- wredcoll 11mo agoI don't think this is even what they're testing, but come on, it takes very little going wrong for a multiton truck going 80+ to kill someone.
- cool_dude85 11mo ago>Wild - whoever did this should lose their job. Why's that? Because a guy who's apparently friends with the owner of the company that produces these things told you that it saves emissions? Doesn't it seem reasonable to verify these claims?
- some_random 11mo agoNo that doesn't seem reasonable at all if it's been proven to work _really well_ in several configurations and there's no particular reason to expect that the results would be drastically different in other very similar configurations.
- cool_dude85 11mo agoWho proved it works really well in several configurations?
- squigz 11mo agoAnd how do you codify the threshold for what "very similar" configurations don't need to be tested and those that do?
- XorNot 11mo agoThat's what regulatory exemption procedures exist for, and it would be the logical next step if you had convincing hard data. Every single regulatory process has them, so the fact that this very ranty article omits any mention of an attempt to use them is highly suspect. I've worked with plenty of systems where for all sorts of reasons exemptions are granted for the express purpose of promoting innovation or recognizing a special circumstance.
- shortrounddev2 11mo agoSome kind of testing should be required but 27mil seems egregious
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- darth_avocado 11mo agoThe problem isn’t that regulations exist. The problem is that they are defined in a way that reasonable work arounds or alternative pathways do not exist for situations like this. 270 engine families for 9 engine suggests that the designs may be small variations that would not significantly change the emissions between them. The bureaucrats should waive off some requirements here. The other alternative that I can think of is that experimental engines get an exception to be not certified for X miles of operation. Once the candidates are chosen for mass production, mandatory certifications can be introduced. Even if your new design doubles the emissions for some reason, over 100000 miles, that’s barely a drop in the bucket. For reference, double the emissions for 100000 miles is roughly equivalent to having an extra semi on the road for a year, which is nothing.
- nerdponx 11mo agoWe need more information. How does this work for internal combustion truck engines? Is the regulation well intentioned poorly designed? Is it anti-competitive gatekeeping drafted by lobbyists? Is the author misrepresenting something? All of the above? Hard to say.
- maxerickson 11mo agoI imagine that the variation is in the internal combustion engines the system is being paired with. In that scenario, it can be that the regulator is treating the combined units as a new drivetrain and requiring certification of each combination as if it were a new engine. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of what larger operators have in their fleets. It could be that a few certifications go a long ways. They are going to be at least somewhat inclined to avoid variation.
- samdoesnothing 11mo agoYou cannot separate the idea of regulation from their harm because they are inherent to the concept. A system so complex and dynamical as human civilization is beyond our ability to correctly ascertain the outcome of interventions, especially those imposed from the top down. In other words, we're likely to do more harm than good by imposing interventions because we cannot accurately predict their outcomes. Which is why they often have paradoxical effects. Rent control is a fantastic if trivial example of such. We know central planning doesn't work, yet we are inclined to do it anyway under the false notion that it's better to do something rather than nothing.
- Workaccount2 11mo agoHaving dealt with regulatory bodies before - they probably did lose their job, maybe multiple times, before becoming an engineer that doesn't have to engineer anything, just come up with rules.
- IG_Semmelweiss 11mo agoThis is China's secret weapon. Luckily, the internet, software, and the digital world in general; were a bit too out of left field for regulators. That's why we kept supremacy over them. If we are lucky, AI may not be regulated to death
- wredcoll 11mo agoThis is such a bizarre myth but I guess it matches your priors.
- cm2012 11mo agoIts not usually one person, but many well meaning committees.
- potato3732842 11mo agoThe magic of the system is that we all did it, comrade. There's multiple people, laws define what those people can do, processes, comment periods. It's all spiderman pointing at spiderman. You can't find any one party so clearly culpable that they can in good conscience suffer real consequence. And it's not just this, every f-ing regulated industry is like this. I work with someone who specs out where the wires and fixtures for the lights are gonna go in commercial buildings. Ceiling lighting is full of crap like this for christ sake. The whole system is rotten.
- cindyllm 11mo ago[dead]
- rdtsc 11mo ago> one state agency has asked Revoy to do certified engine testing to prove that the Revoy doesn’t increase emissions of semi trucks and that Revoy must do this certification across every single truck engine family. It costs $100,000 per certification and there are more than 270 engine families for the 9 engines that our initial partners use. That’s $27,000,000 for this one regulatory item. Depending where that is one could read it as "fuck you, you haven't bribed us enough". And then "if we come to an understanding, we might be able to look the other way". Wonder what state that is? Anyone want to guess?
- AnthonyMouse 11mo ago> Depending where that is one could read it as "fuck you, you haven't bribed us enough". This is often fully formalized, i.e. you're not bribing a specific government official, instead you're paying a huge certification fee hundreds of times because it's a source of revenue generation for the government and whoever passed the bill gave zero fucks that it's a heavily regressive tax on new and small businesses.
- ecocentrik 11mo agoMississippi? I bet it's a flyover state with a tiny sliver of road that sees massive trucking volume.
- maxerickson 11mo agoIt's gonna be California (but I'm guessing, not sure). Other states just defer to federal regulation. That they don't put the state on blast sort of points to the big cost not being entirely real (where they either think they can induce regulatory change or the number of tests that is needed to sell the systems is quite a lot less than the number of tests that would be needed to allow 100% of the market to use their system).
- greenie_beans 11mo agomississippi doesn't make people do certifications lol. unless you drive a hybrid, then you pay the hybrid tax.
- bpodgursky 11mo agolol state and federal bureaucrats do not lose jobs
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jimnotgym 11mo agoIt's not like anyone ever added a device to an engine to deliberately defeat these tests.
- _ink_ 11mo ago> whose sole reason for existence is to cut pollution by >90%, and which has demonstrably done so across nearly 100,000 miles of testing and operations Then it should be easy to answer that request? Where does the $27M price tag come from?