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How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

theguardian.com

51–60 of 157 posts

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#51
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You may have misread what Tesla says about these technologies. They state very clearly that FSD is not here yet, and they also are very clear about the limitations of Autopilot. The problem is that people (like you, for example) mistakenly assume there are “claims” beyond the statements that are made.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#52
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Do a bad thing" is a pretty major understatement of the degree of criminality we're talking about here. Over-representing the capabilities of Autopilot is a totally different thing that embedding a defeat device to defraud every national regulatory agency.

> embedding a defeat device to defraud every national regulatory agency.

Cite this claim.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#53
post #15

European 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 electric too, but I won't exclude VW entirely. They did the most obvious cheating, but basically all Diesel cars would use some schemes to pass the exhaust tests. Their ID line seems to be a genuine attempt at going full electric. I would of course triple-check any claims about their cars going forward.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#54
post #50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-speed trains are wonderful where the population density is sufficiently high, but in more sparsely populated parts, the car (and, for longer distances, the plane) is likely the only viable solution for decades to come. With that as a starting point, the cars and planes might as well be electric. (Or hydrogen powered!)

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

Assuming one can get a house at an affordable rate to start with.

It doesn't scale because not everyone is rich enough to live close to transportation hubs nor they can take everyone that wants to live nearby.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#55
post #50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-speed trains are wonderful where the population density is sufficiently high, but in more sparsely populated parts, the car (and, for longer distances, the plane) is likely the only viable solution for decades to come. With that as a starting point, the cars and planes might as well be electric. (Or hydrogen powered!)

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

While urbanisation overall is probably a net plus for the environment, do keep in mind that, say, farming is quite area intensive.

Someone needs to work at those farms - and they are not going to commute to work by high-speed rail.

(Granted, there are experimental urban farms out there, but I don't see those feeding the planet on a short-term scale.)

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#56
post #50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-speed trains are wonderful where the population density is sufficiently high, but in more sparsely populated parts, the car (and, for longer distances, the plane) is likely the only viable solution for decades to come. With that as a starting point, the cars and planes might as well be electric. (Or hydrogen powered!)

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

>You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car

Only if you want to live in a large city and don't do anything outdoors. I go skiing, hiking, mountain biking, camping 3-4 times a week. Where I live (the Alps), it is extremely difficult to not own a car. There is no infrastructure and the terrain is unfriendly.

There isn't a housing or location option in Europe that allows me to give up my car and have access to the things I like to do

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#57
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You may have misread what Tesla says about these technologies. They state very clearly that FSD is not here yet, and they also are very clear about the limitations of Autopilot. The problem is that people (like you, for example) mistakenly assume there are “claims” beyond the statements that are made.

> They state very clearly

They state it in the fineprint. This is what the Tesla Autopilot page used to say for years (this is a 1+ year old screenshot) [0]. Which part of that is accurate? How clear are they about the limitations and the real capabilities of the system? Tesla took the narrow areas where those systems can do a reasonably good job and extrapolated to the whole self-driving experience, blaming regulations for the bits that aren't really there. No autonomous system in the world at this time is capable of anything close to what a human is.

They still claim that:

> Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed

Which is patently false.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/bsgxCCn

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#58
post #57
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have misread what Tesla says about these technologies. They state very clearly that FSD is not here yet, and they also are very clear about the limitations of Autopilot. The problem is that people (like you, for example) mistakenly assume there are “claims” beyond the statements that are made.

> They state very clearly They state it in the fineprint. This is what the Tesla Autopilot page used to say for years (this is a 1+ year old screenshot) [0]. Which part of that is accurate? How clear are they about the limitations and the real capabilities of the system? Tesla took the narrow areas where those systems can do a reasonably good job and extrapolated to the whole self-driving experience, blaming regulati…

> No, they state it in the fineprint so to speak.

Self-Driving is not even released yet, prove me wrong otherwise. What you're attempting to quote are forward looking statements. Maybe you need to read the document you linked, slowly this time.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#59
post #15

European 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.

Except lithium ion batteries are very recyclable, and rare earth elements aren't in limited supply, they're just usually very sparsely distributed.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#60
post #15

European 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.

> Instead we should heavily invest in high-speed trains.

This is ideal for obvious reasons. If only cities and governments (especially in the U.S.) would see the value. But alas it seems like only some countries can pull it off.

Also, most EV batteries today are highly recyclable and with fewer moving parts they can last much longer than ICE cars.

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