I always cringe when one of these "we could have been driving electric cars" articles shows up. Cars are not bread and the vast vast majority of the planet's population (who even own a car) don't just go around shopping for new cars. It's going to take DECADES before electric cars have a significant impact on the climate change. That is an economic reality. (Not to mention that electric cars are only now starting to barely match gasoline cars in terms of usability and range.)
How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
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Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#32European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.
Unfortunately you seem to be in the minority. People are still happily buying VW.
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder why mazda or some other competitor didn’t find this by doing their own research? I make software for structural engineering and when some competitor launches a program that makes “better designs” it has usually turned out to be because they simply don’t follow the design codes/regulations. We wouldn’t be pushed from the market by that - we’d fund the analysis, reverse engineering and legal processes necessar…
If Mazda was attempting and failing to get their cars to pass the defined emissions test, one can imagine they were only ever testing their own and their competitor's cars under those test conditions—which we now know triggered the cheat mechanism in VW cars. But yes, had the research group not performed their on-road tests, it would have only been a matter of time before an honest car maker would have realised their…
> It's known that CARB ordered the research due to discrepancies in US v EU numbers—but someone pushed them to look at the numbers closely.
This is revealed in these quotes from the article:
German and his colleagues at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) in the US just wanted to tie up the last loose ends in a big report, and thought the research would give them something positive to say about diesel. ... German’s group also forwarded the findings to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California’s Air Resources Board (Carb). “We were definitely scared. We wanted EPA and Carb to take over.”
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#34I live in france, and I often spot cars that have a grey/blue smokes. Many other cars also have this awful smell.
Here, every 2 years, cars must legally be examined in a "controle technique", like an exam which controls several aspects of a vehicle.
I wonder if those fumes are legal, and I really wonder if people can manage to cheat at that exam, because I think I'm noticing an epidemic of those fumes.
How can I really be expected to ride a bike next to cars like this? I'd rather spend time in a tram or bus than expose my lungs to this.
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#35I live in france, and I often spot cars that have a grey/blue smokes. Many other cars also have this awful smell. Here, every 2 years, cars must legally be examined in a "controle technique", like an exam which controls several aspects of a vehicle. I wonder if those fumes are legal, and I really wonder if people can manage to cheat at that exam, because I think I'm noticing an epidemic of those fumes. How can I real…
In Spain we have a similar exam and unfortunately I know that there are indeed people that cheat. I don't know the details but there are ways to make their car emit less smoke only that day, and then go back to "normal".
Probably we should do as many Asians do in this, and make it normal to go out with a face mask.
Not sure what kind of masks have to be used to effectively not breathe pollution, and their effectivity, though. Getting informed about that is in my to-do list.
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#36European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.
better buy from a car company founded by a money launderer who is currently lying on tweeter to manipulate stock prices illegally and fighting hard to keep under wraps the auto pilot killer bugs. any reason why you are not buying from the dozen asian manufacturers that are not involved in either shenanigans if you base your purchases solely on moral grounds?
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Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#37European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.
My next car will be "no car at all". Even electric cars have huge externalities that you do not pay for, but your children, namely, the disposal of the batteries, pollution created by the manufacturing, costly extraction of rare earths etc. Instead we should heavily invest in high-speed trains.
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#38European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.
better buy from a car company founded by a money launderer who is currently lying on tweeter to manipulate stock prices illegally and fighting hard to keep under wraps the auto pilot killer bugs. any reason why you are not buying from the dozen asian manufacturers that are not involved in either shenanigans if you base your purchases solely on moral grounds?
you mean like zoox or xiaopeng?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/03/21/tesla...
Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#39Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions
#40European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.
Unfortunately you seem to be in the minority. People are still happily buying VW.
Why "unfortunately"? Would it be better if every company that does a bad thing was forced to just close shop?
If that be the case I'm pretty sure we'll have to shut down Tesla within a couple of years over their "Autopilot"/"Full Self Driving" claims.