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Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

reuters.com

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Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#301

Post by blau3 »

olex wrote: post #32
yostrovs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps my view of German energy industry is not detailed, but what are the advantages of diesel engines in cars if not efficiency? Cold starts can be hard, they smell, make a funny sound, slow to accelerate. Maybe maintenance is easier when there are no spark plugs.

> slow to accelerate Have you driven a modern diesel? At lower speeds, they easily beat similar-displacement petrol cars off the line with superior torque. They are weaker at high speeds, but in normal (especially city) driving, a diesel is usually faster than a petrol. But yeah, their main factor for popularity is the cost per km. They use less fuel than petrol engines, and the fuel is less expensive (in Germany). T…

> Now Germany spews out about same carbon as before giant investments in solar, electricity is four times the price as in US, plus they now have to buy from France cause they don't produce enough.

Well, they require a more complex motor which handles higher pressures and supercharging. The picture would be different if you would compare motors with the same price.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#302

Post by megy »

Zigurd wrote: post #256
tyu100 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Spain last year for several weeks and it was so depressing how every town viewed at altitude was covered in a pervasive pea soup of diesel smog. The link between German industrial policy/protectionism and environmental disasters like diesel has been known for a while now but European cities in particular will be paying the price for a long time.

Many cities in Spain also have large fleets of gas scooters. Scooters have no emission controls.

Sure, because they have a tiny amount of emissions compared to a car, which is about 20x the size.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#303

Post by megy »

andrewla wrote: post #288

Can anyone more familiar with this case comment on what exactly happened here? It sounds like two private organizations, DUH (Deutsche Umwelthilfe) and ClientEarth, sued a couple of cities (Munich, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf, possibly among others), saying they had to improve air quality. This was, apparently, on the basis that the cities had illegally high levels of NOx -- I'm not certain on what basis this was illeg…

Great summary. This is so good to see, one of the advantages of living in Europe.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#304

Post by Zigurd »

megy wrote: post #302
Zigurd wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many cities in Spain also have large fleets of gas scooters. Scooters have no emission controls.

Sure, because they have a tiny amount of emissions compared to a car, which is about 20x the size.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1083467...

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#305

Post by akgerber »

jacquesm wrote: post #143
ams6110 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing like the cars from the '70s or earlier. Every once in a while driving, I'll pass a restored car from the 60s or 70s going the other way, and can smell the exhaust for about a mile. And that's one car.

Nothing like a two-stroke moped. Those are the worst by far.

The worst people are those who drive two-stroke mopeds over the bridge bike paths in NYC.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#306

Post by megy »

enothereska wrote: post #293

Wouldn't it be great if Tesla kicks these cheaters in the bin and wins the car race (like the iPhone did vs. the other phones)? Pity producing cars isn't as fast as manufacturing an iPhone. Germany's industry is in real trouble, looks like they were cheating.

What would be really great if we could get rid of cars all together, spend all that money on an awesome PT system, and convert 80% of roads into parks and other uses. Make suburbs actually nice places to live.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#307

Post by justinv »

spapas82 wrote: post #261
jacquesm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically these bans are limited to the inner city or the historic center, there is - outside of some small towns in Switzerland - no major European city that I am aware of that has banned vehicles outright. The towns that have banned vehicles completely that I am aware of are all small and have simply set up a major parking lot right next to the access road into town. For the ones that I am aware of this was a pract…

Also, the greek island of Spetses https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spetses

Spetses is not car-free per se. You can't bring your car on the island as a visitor - but people who live there can have a car (+ taxis & buses)

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#308

Post by akgerber »

agmcleod wrote: post #92
CalRobert wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I'm trying to find a place that is free of cars because, well, they ruin life if you enjoy walking and cycling. So far, places that come to mind are central Ghent and Rothenburg ob der Tauber (sadly the latter allows cars but they're still very few in number). If I were there I would expect to work remote, or start my own gig. I'd shop locally. There are very few places in the world where you can…

In many cases I see cycling ruin life if you enjoy driving or walking ;). I do find places that i've seen be bike friendly in Europe do a much better job at this. But cyclists in Toronto can be pretty awful. Likewise can pedestrians and cars. Whichever way I travel, the other two are annoying me or causing me grief somehow.

The big difference is that cyclists can, at worst, annoy drivers, but drivers regularly kill cyclists.

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#309

Post by megy »

xioxox wrote: post #259
rmetzler wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, no German city has ban any cars yet at a larger scale. Some have done so for their inner city. This court ruling just allows German cities to ban diesel cars, so whatever a city decides to do, is possible as long as it isn't challenged by the public or there is a new law. I go by bike to work every single day. It's 8.5 km one way, today morning was -9C outside and while my beard was full of ice, I b…

There needs to be a discussion. Public transport is horrendously expensive in some German cities. For example, it costs me 8.90 euros to take the U-Bahn into Munich and back. It's far cheaper to drive, particularly if you have a passenger.

How is it cheaper if you have a passenger? Are you charging your passenger half your car trip?

Re: Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

#310

Post by mjevans »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #297
fyfy18 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically you want to keep nuclear plants running at full power all the time, as most of the costs are fixed or sunk, independent of the electricity output. Most countries use nuclear power just to generate a small fraction of their electricity, so can do this without issue. However over 90% of France’s generating capacity is from nuclear power, so during low demand times there is a lot of excess. They do actually sh…

Do they really shut the reactors down during the weekends? My dad worked in nuclear, and the plant would be down for a few days if it ever tripped, planned outages were about two weeks.

I am not a nuclear engineer; however a /trip/ (forced sudden shutdown) is probably different from a planned standby of some sort.
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