8 ms·
The number of ICE cars I get stuck behind from time to time that just REEK is amazing. I’m in a decently well off area too. Some putting off soot clouds, white
by MBCook 9mo ago
The number of ICE cars I get stuck behind from time to time that just REEK is amazing. I’m in a decently well off area too.
Some putting off soot clouds, white smoke, nothing visible but clearly not doing complete combustion. Sometimes I wonder if half the cylinders are even working.
I’ve heard one car like that is the equivalent of a surprisingly large number of modern ICE cars is in good shape.
I love EVs. I’ve had one for 5 years now, and I’m glad they help. But I think the “are new EVs worse than new ICE” discussions so often miss a fact.
The pollution from ICE isn’t just from very modern well tuned vehicles, things vary wildly. But all EVs use the same power supply (assuming local grid only), so no individual vehicles put off 10x the pollution per kWh.
- tonymet 9mo agotragically, because of efficiency standards, modern engines are known to burn oil . Otherwise you may be smelling cars who have had the cats stolen.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoA lot of old cars also since new cars are so expensive.
- MBCook 9mo agoI think expense is basically the problem. Cost to replace the catalytic converter, cost for new exhaust pipes, cost to diagnose ignition timing problems. Whatever. If the car drives and you don’t have the money I can completely understand why someone wouldn’t get the problem fixed. Even if it means they’re burning a 1/3 of their fuel, that’s still less in the short term than the $1500 it may cost to fix it. It’s insanely rare I get the sense that the person is running really dirty on purpose. I don’t know what a realistic fairway to fix it is. They’re probably isn’t one. I don’t think fines would work, it would probably just make things worse. Seems like the kind of thing where a little government group to find the worst 0.1% of cars on the road and just get them back to reasonable levels would be a huge help. But that’s not how we do things.
- rblatz 9mo agoSome states handle this by requiring cars over a certain age to be emission checked before you can renew its registration. Failing cars have to be fixed and rechecked before you can get your tags.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoI think they stop checking cars after a certain year. Like, if you are driving a 1980 Buick, they won’t make you scrap it because it’s emission tech is way out of date.
- realityking 9mo agoI can only speak about Germany. Here the technical safety and exhaust check are mandatory every two years. The exhaust check is relative to what the manufacturer specified when they first started selling the car. No one is getting their car taken away because technology improved but you can‘t let your car degrade (or modify it) so it becomes more dirty.
- formerly_proven 9mo agoOldtimers are still excluded from all emissions checks.
- MBCook 9mo agoI live in one of the US states with no emissions checks at all. Well that’s not strictly true. If you move into the state you have to get one emissions check to get your car licensed. After that, or if you buy the car in the state, no checks for you.
- SoftTalker 9mo agoYep. My newest car is over 20 years old. May be a bit more polluting (though it doesn't smell or smoke) but I've in theory saved the environmental impact of the manufacture of one or two new cars by keeping the old one. I'm not spending $30-40k or more on a car. That just isn't going to happen.
- tonymet 9mo ago2005-ish cars were more reliable and had better emissions profiles compared to cars today. Yes cars today are more advanced ,but less reliable, so their emissions overall are worse.
- MBCook 9mo agoStolen cars, exhaust leaks before the cat, incomplete combustion so bad the cat can’t cover it up. I assume it’s stuff like that. It’s not whatever tiny bit of oil gets burned in a healthy engine.
- SoftTalker 9mo agoIncomplete combustion will ruin a cat. That's not its purpose, it's there to reduce NOx emissions.
- Der_Einzige 9mo agoA lot of Americans take their cat off on purpose for louder noises. Additionally, a lot of conservatives love to "Roll coal", and literally will shit up the environment on purpose just because they feel schadenfreude from pissing of an environmentalist.
- MBCook 9mo agoI’ve run into a few of those. They’re generally pretty obvious. Usually a big truck, lots of MAGA & adjacent bumper stickers. I haven’t noticed people removing the catalytic converters just for noise. The rare time I see a car that wants to be loud it usually just seems to be the exhaust end they changed, or maybe removed the muffler. The kind of stuff I’m complaining about mostly seems to be older cars, or those in poor mechanical shape. Cases where the people probably just don’t have the money to fix it.
- Aurornis 9mo ago> A lot of Americans take their cat off on purpose for louder noises. Some people remove catalytic converters when they install a performance exhaust. Nobody is doing it for louder noises because the muffler portion is what dampens the sound. Also I wouldn’t say it’s “a lot of Americans”. We have emissions inspections in most major cities and your car won’t pass if you remove the catalytic converter. They can now detect modified ECUs, too. Someone would have to be so determined to do this that they’d swap the exhaust in and out every time they had to do emissions inspections.
- Der_Einzige 9mo agoI know a LOT of people personally who swap their exhaust in and out just for emissions inspections. That's the meta.
- pvab3 9mo agoa lot of people have custom exhausts, particularly catback systems that don't affect emissions. A lot of people are definitely not rolling coal.
- adrianN 9mo agoEven modern cars pollute a lot (especially in winter) because you need a certain temperature for the cats to start working. On short city trips it happens frequently that you never reach proper operating temperatures.
- chrisbrandow 9mo agoI used to work for the Air Resources Board of California, and while there is a warm-up period, modern ice cars are so profoundly cleaner than cars even from the early 2000s. It’s pretty stunning. Regardless, there’s nothing cleaner than no combustion, and I can’t wait until EV‘s have replaced them all
- trimethylpurine 9mo ago[flagged]
- decimalenough 9mo agoEvery single survey that I'm aware has concluded that by any measure EVs are more environmentally friendly than ICEs. The only caveat is that the "startup" footprint of an EV is higher (because batteries), but the ongoing cost is far lower, even with polluting electricity sources like coal, because it's still way more efficient to burn coal in a proper power plant than it is to ship around gasoline and burn it badly in ICEs. The breakeven point (depending on your assumptions and driving habits) is a couple of years in, and after that EVs wipe the floor with ICEs. Here's a bunch of those surveys: https://evcentral.com.au/which-is-best-for-the-environment-ev-or-ice-heres-the-truth-about-co2-emissions-across-the-lifecycle-of-new-cars/#:~:text=In%202018%20the%20EEA%20published,cycle%20GHG%20emissions%20than%20ICEVs. https://evcentral.com.au/which-is-best-for-the-environment-e... Keen to hear your expert opinion on what (eg) the International Energy Agency got wrong.
- trimethylpurine 9mo ago[flagged]
- andsoitis 9mo agoBesides the crap they pump into the air, they also excrete gunk onto the road. It’s so primitive.
- nine_k 9mo agoI'd say that putting off sooth clouds is a way to sequester carbon (which obviously failed to burn). Such over-enriched fuel mixes must generate much more CO though, and I wonder if those who "tune" their cars like so take care about the catalytic converter :(
- zdragnar 9mo agoThe health consequences of inhaling exhaust particulates are far more harmful than the equivalent CO2 contribution to greenhouse effect warming unfortunately. All in all, a well tuned ICE is better for everyone than a poorly tuned one, if you had to pick between the two.
- tcfhgj 9mo ago> The health consequences of inhaling exhaust particulates are far more harmful than the equivalent CO2 contribution to greenhouse effect warming unfortunately Short term for the individual definitely, but long term for all individuals affected?
- jabl 9mo agoAt least soot from ships is an issue in high latitudes, as it turns out that the soot reduces the albedo of the ice and it thus has an outsized global warming impact.
- TheCapeGreek 9mo agoI know in some car tuning circles, or even just blue collar Joes in some places, will recommend removing the catalytic converter. Supposedly it makes the car use less fuel at the cost of worse emissions, and can make it sound better for those who care about that.
- coderenegade 9mo agoDepending on the type of catalytic converter, both of those things can be true.
- m463 9mo agoSpeaking of smells.... One good thing about driving an EV is that weird oil or hot coolant smells are from someone else's car (and not a problem with your car) (although yes technically many EVs have coolant loops)
- londons_explore 9mo agoAs the fleet of EV's age, I'm sure we'll see equivalents... "The high voltage wires were just dragging on the street sparking, presumably with all the safety features disabled" "They were driving with a 10 gallon coolant tank on the roof, presumably because the coolant loop had a big leak and needed continuous topping up".
- consp 9mo agoAre those even user serviceable? So, it won't stop everyone but it will stop most of them.
- Loudergood 9mo agoIt isn't until it is. Manuals will appear, guides will show up online, shadetree mechanics will get better at electronics(they used to be experts in carburetors after all), software will be cracked if necessary.
- cinntaile 9mo agoYou're not allowed to drive cars like that in a functional society. When you go for your compulsory car checkup it wouldn't pass the required safety standards.
- aziaziazi 9mo agowhile I agree, there's many places where the compulsory car checkup is tied to your relationship with the mechanic. I don't think my parents ever had a "valid" car but the certificate always was. It never felt wrong (although I think it is) but more like mutual aid or service.
- Braxton1980 9mo agoMany car enthusiasts remove the catalytic converter for a combination of additional power and/or better sound. It has a massive impact on emissions and what you might be smelling is hydrogen sulfide which is normally converted to sulfur dioxide which is orderless. I should note the power increase may not have a major impact on newer cars where the cat has been optimized to reduce it's negative power impact. Infact a popular tuner company, APR, that provides flashes tested the recent Volkswagen GTI and R generation with their most common tune and determined that with their tune removing the cat had a nominal impact. *Basically they can bring the cars power as high as the OEM internals can handle reliably while keeping the cat. There are cars where it still has some impact and of course, different from power ,"straight piping" a car can offer a subjective sound change.
- mr_toad 9mo agoFor every car enthusiast there are probably a hundred poorly maintained vehicles on the road. Black smoke is likely soot, and white smoke is almost certainly an oil leak.
- drzaiusx11 9mo agoOil in the exhaust in quantities high enough to produce acrid white smoke is extremely common on a number of ICE engines, like blown head gaskets on E25s (found in most Subarus before their Toyota involvement in 2010) for example
- cucumber3732842 9mo agoSubarus with bad head gaskets leak combustion gas into the cooling system displacing the coolant. If you run a flat engine low on coolant it will score the upper cylinder walls and the you will have oil consumption. This is fundamental to all flat engines. Oil in the exhaust is blue smoke. Coolant is white.
- drzaiusx11 9mo agoI never got the "blue" and "white" thing. Both look "white" to me, but you're right about subarus also leaking coolant in the exhaust which is easily identified by a "sweet" smell. Blown gaskets on ICE engines like E25s leak both oil AND coolant, no? I might be mixing up blown heads with cracked manifolds which often go hand in hand since temp extremes in engines fissure cast parts like the manifold. Either way the end result is the same: noxious fumes in the exhaust.
- dzhiurgis 9mo ago> get stuck behind from time to time that just REEK is amazing It’s crazy. How do we even allow selling cars without HEPA filters.
- torginus 9mo agoHEPA filters stop dust particles and not those tiny organic molecules that cause the smells. Filters for these exist as well, usually used in respirators, but those need to be exchanged pretty frequently and are not cheap.
- formerly_proven 9mo agoActivated charcoal filters are a common option even out of the factory, and I’d be surprised if there were a car you can’t get them aftermarket. They don’t last that long but honestly I’d recommend swapping the cabin filter yearly anyway.
- MBCook 9mo agoSomeone recommended them to me years ago and I’m never going back. One of the reasons I wrote the comment above is because my filter has worn out and needs replacing, so all of a sudden I can smell all this nonsense again. 1000% with the money.
- dzhiurgis 9mo agoI never smell anything in my Tesla. Only my own farts.
- jodrellblank 9mo agoWe love privatising the benefits and socialising the harms of everything. If the exhaust had to go through the cabin so the driver got the worst of it, car exhaust would be the cleanest air on the planet within months and/or alternatives to cars would rocket. But as long as it’s other peoples health affected, meh.
- 9mo ago
- srmarm 9mo agoMy city is covered by a low emissions zone so the odd van polluting sticks out. I was in Athens recently and the pollution from so many old rough cars was so noticeable (and quite unpleasant). Reminds me of how I didn't really notice cigarettes until they were banned from public spaces and the base level of normal was recalibrated.
- HPsquared 9mo agoI could see a single "bad" ICE car being the equivalent of 100 "good" ICE cars. Even the VW emissions scandal (where the cars were still functioning as designed, just not as well as they should) had instances where pollutants were 35x higher than they should be. So I could see an emissions deleted diesel (of which there are many, i.e. catalytic converter and DPF removed) could easily have more than 100x the usual emissions of noxious substances. Maybe even more! Especially if (as is often the case) the DPF was removed because something is faulty on the engine and was overwhelming the capacity of the DPF in the first place. You can smell these cars from halfway up the road sometimes, when they're 100 metres ahead.
- Analemma_ 9mo agoI don’t have hard numbers on this, but I once read a claims that the lawnmowers and weed-whackers in California with their two-stroke engines are responsible for more nitrate and particulate emissions than all the cars and trucks in the state put together, even though by fuel burned the latter outnumbers the former by orders of magnitude. I could totally see a malfunctioning four-stroke ICE with dirty burns being worse than 100 maintained ones.
- seanmcdirmid 9mo agoThat probably explains why California banned the sale of gas powered leaf blowers, law mowers, and weed whackers in 2024. You can still use them if you have an old one or by one out of state.
- LordDragonfang 9mo agoAnd at the right time too. At almost every point before that, a gas powered engine was justified for duration and power, but the significant advances in both batteries and electric motors in the past 10-20 years have finally made them good enough that ICE tools are totally unjustified.
- anamax 9mo ago> the lawnmowers and weed-whackers in California with their two-stroke engines What's the intended precedence in that sentence? I ask because I've never seen a lawnmower (in the US) with a two-stroke engine. There are probably some, but they're not common.
- B1FIDO 9mo ago[flagged]
- cucumber3732842 9mo agoWhite smoke is water vapor. It's a normal byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion and tends to condense in the exhaust at low loads or immediately after exiting the exhaust, especially in colder temperatures, so you'll see a lot of it in stop and go traffic.
- xnx 9mo ago> White smoke is water vapor. Could also be coolant or oil
- cucumber3732842 9mo agoEven the faintest bit of oil will turn the smoke blue. Could be coolant, but "coolant into engine" failure modes are generally rare and are usually the kind of thing that needs to get fixed promptly.
- Loudergood 9mo agoCoolant will have the dead giveaway sweet smell.
- mrj 9mo agoIf it "reeks" though it's not just water vapor. I see a lot of these cars too, and you can tell it's been going on for a long time when the back of the car is covered in a layer of black grime. I think that's what kind of car problem the post is referring to.
- maxerickson 9mo agoThe exhaust from a well functioning modern ICE is likely enough to have less pollutants than the air. Of course it still has carbon dioxide, but less other pollutants.
- _bent 9mo agoyou still have tyre rubber, which is a major source of microplastics
- grosswait 9mo agoAnd not a distinguishing factor of ICE vehicles
- pirate787 9mo agoEV have far more tire wear because they are heavier and also probably from regenerative braking
- thfuran 9mo agoWhy would regenerative braking emit more particulates? It’s no harder on tires than braking mechanically but doesn’t abrade the pads or rotors.
- CraigJPerry 9mo ago>> EV have far more tire wear because they are heavier Is this true? If an EV were 30% heavier than an ICE, would it produce 30% more tyre wear emissions? Or would it produce more or less than 30%? Is the primary factor in tyre wear weight and is the relationship linear? The types of tyres appear to be quite different, the EVs seem to have smaller contact patches (narrower wheels) and they're made of different "less grippy" compounds that drag less. Does this change the equation at all?
- _bent 9mo agoyeah I just wanted to contest the very idea that a car could be clean.
- Hikikomori 9mo agoWe have mandatory inspection of road vehicles almost every year and we measure exhaust as part of it.