6 ms·

The 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 si

The 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 ago
We 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 ago
  I 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 ago
You 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.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  >Rent control is a fantastic if trivial example of such. No it isn't. Rent control is made to provide short term relief. Regulations tend to be long term requriements. Of course making a short term temporary solution long term does not work. >we're likely to do more harm than good by imposing interventions because we cannot accurately predict their outcomes For policy, I think it is important to be risk averse. Regulations are extremely risk averse. Slowing down reckless actions so that people don't die should be considered a good thing. Of course, that can be anathema to businesses who rush to be first to market. I don't see regulations being a problem here, but the cost of the regulations. Instead of focusing on de-regulations we look into what that 100k certification is going to? Hopefully not yet another for-profit middleman with incentives to bog the process down.
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    > Rent control is made to provide short term relief. Quite the opposite. The benefits of rent control grow the longer you are in the same apartment without moving as the difference between what the tenant pays and the market value diverge further with each lease renewal. There are people in NY who have been in their apartments 50 years and pay 10% of the market rate.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      I'm talking about the policy, not the tenants. Enacting 50 years of rent control is no different from Japan's economy the last 30 years. Of course after multiple generations you scare off housing investment. But not after 5. And that should be the goal of rent control. Short term relief while doing the long term plan of building more housing. Politicians not doing it this way is like blaming your duct tape for falling apart after a few weeks of adhesive duty.That doesn't mean duct tape is bad. It means no one bothered to fix the underlying issue.
      - parineum 11mo ago
        > And that should be the goal of rent control. Short term relief while doing the long term plan of building more housing. Even when there's a plan in place, it's unpopular to remove handouts like that. Any politician up for re-election isn't going to let that expire.
locknitpicker 11mo ago
> The 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. Any form of regulation is attacked by those who seek to profit by freely causing the harm that regulation prevents. These attacks aim at completely eliminating any and all regulation, but also aim at eroding it so that complying with the letter of the law is ineffective at actually complying with the spirit of the law. Trying to make mountains out of molehills is one way to attack regulation. Look at OP's example. In no way did OP offer any support for the $100k price tag for certification, or even mentioned what this hypothetical amount represents in the total investment in a product such as an engine. We're talking about investments that range well in the tens of million of dollars. It's an insignificant drop in the bucket. The design team's salaries alone eclipse that value. On top of that, a single engine alone sells for thousands. Is this hypothetical regulatory cost that high if it can be covered by selling a few dozen units? The combinatorial explosion is also a far-fetched example of this desire to make mountains out of molehills. You do not need to recertify a whole engine if you do a minor change out of a whim such as changing the color of a knob. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that whoever wants to sell an engine isn't putting out subpar products that underperform and outpollute at clearly unacceptable levels. If proving that your product is not poorly designed and irredeemably broken is too much to ask, is regulation really the problem?
- shkkmo 11mo ago
  > We're talking about investments that range well in the tens of million of dollars. It's an insignificant drop in the bucket. The design team's salaries alone eclipse that value. On top of that, a single engine alone sells for thousands. Is this hypothetical regulatory cost that high if it can be covered by selling a few dozen units? I think you missed the context here. Revey, the company being asked to do these certifications, doesn't make diesel engines for semi-trucks. The company makes an electric "powered converter dolly" which puts a mini trailer between the semi truck and trailer that uses batteries and electric motors to reduce the amount of diesel burnt per mile. It's clever solution, there are externalities to consider (increased truck weight and length, changes to turning behavior, etc) but expensive certification per motor to prove that giving a truck an extra electric push doesn't increase the emissions doesn't strike me as making sense.

nerdponx 11mo ago

We 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 ago
I 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 ago

You 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.

johnnyanmac 11mo ago
>Rent control is a fantastic if trivial example of such. No it isn't. Rent control is made to provide short term relief. Regulations tend to be long term requriements. Of course making a short term temporary solution long term does not work. >we're likely to do more harm than good by imposing interventions because we cannot accurately predict their outcomes For policy, I think it is important to be risk averse. Regulations are extremely risk averse. Slowing down reckless actions so that people don't die should be considered a good thing. Of course, that can be anathema to businesses who rush to be first to market. I don't see regulations being a problem here, but the cost of the regulations. Instead of focusing on de-regulations we look into what that 100k certification is going to? Hopefully not yet another for-profit middleman with incentives to bog the process down.
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  > Rent control is made to provide short term relief. Quite the opposite. The benefits of rent control grow the longer you are in the same apartment without moving as the difference between what the tenant pays and the market value diverge further with each lease renewal. There are people in NY who have been in their apartments 50 years and pay 10% of the market rate.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    I'm talking about the policy, not the tenants. Enacting 50 years of rent control is no different from Japan's economy the last 30 years. Of course after multiple generations you scare off housing investment. But not after 5. And that should be the goal of rent control. Short term relief while doing the long term plan of building more housing. Politicians not doing it this way is like blaming your duct tape for falling apart after a few weeks of adhesive duty.That doesn't mean duct tape is bad. It means no one bothered to fix the underlying issue.
    - parineum 11mo ago
      > And that should be the goal of rent control. Short term relief while doing the long term plan of building more housing. Even when there's a plan in place, it's unpopular to remove handouts like that. Any politician up for re-election isn't going to let that expire.

locknitpicker 11mo ago

> The 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. Any form of regulation is attacked by those who seek to profit by freely causing the harm that regulation prevents. These attacks aim at completely eliminating any and all regulation, but also aim at eroding it so that complying with the letter of the law is ineffective at actually complying with the spirit of the law. Trying to make mountains out of molehills is one way to attack regulation. Look at OP's example. In no way did OP offer any support for the $100k price tag for certification, or even mentioned what this hypothetical amount represents in the total investment in a product such as an engine. We're talking about investments that range well in the tens of million of dollars. It's an insignificant drop in the bucket. The design team's salaries alone eclipse that value. On top of that, a single engine alone sells for thousands. Is this hypothetical regulatory cost that high if it can be covered by selling a few dozen units? The combinatorial explosion is also a far-fetched example of this desire to make mountains out of molehills. You do not need to recertify a whole engine if you do a minor change out of a whim such as changing the color of a knob. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that whoever wants to sell an engine isn't putting out subpar products that underperform and outpollute at clearly unacceptable levels. If proving that your product is not poorly designed and irredeemably broken is too much to ask, is regulation really the problem?

shkkmo 11mo ago
> We're talking about investments that range well in the tens of million of dollars. It's an insignificant drop in the bucket. The design team's salaries alone eclipse that value. On top of that, a single engine alone sells for thousands. Is this hypothetical regulatory cost that high if it can be covered by selling a few dozen units? I think you missed the context here. Revey, the company being asked to do these certifications, doesn't make diesel engines for semi-trucks. The company makes an electric "powered converter dolly" which puts a mini trailer between the semi truck and trailer that uses batteries and electric motors to reduce the amount of diesel burnt per mile. It's clever solution, there are externalities to consider (increased truck weight and length, changes to turning behavior, etc) but expensive certification per motor to prove that giving a truck an extra electric push doesn't increase the emissions doesn't strike me as making sense.