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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

#161

Post by IkmoIkmo »

kazen44 wrote: post #120
Heliosmaster wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands bakfiets ( http://img.tweede-hands.net/pics/00/13/08/63/97/3c.jpg?d0cc3... ) can be easily used to transport this kind of things. Also, realistically, do you need to transport these things on a daily basis? Can you not rent a (electric) truck whenever you need this kind of things?

Heck, a car in the netherlands is also very, very expensive. Especially if you live in the inner core of a relatively old city, which are not designed for cars and where parking space is at a premium. I'm fairly sure most people working normal office kind of jobs could easily live without a car, especially if cities use that money to make public transport available to more "remote" regions easily. My employer actuall…

Western-European capital city here. I can indeed absolutely get-by without a car, as I have for literally all my life.

There are certainly instances where a car is necessary, or sufficiently convenient. For example, I rent a truck when I move homes or get new furniture, and I get a taxi after surgery or a night out, and rent a car when doing something time/convenience-sensitive like hopping between locations on elaborate wedding days that involve a ceremony, food, drinks and after-party all around the city. But all in all, about 5% of my trips need to happen by personal vehicle, at most. Everything else is can be done via public transport or bicycles.

Nowadays we have ride-sharing and electric 'public transportation' mini-cars available that you can rent for 15 minutes or a few days. The costs are about twice that of a normal car, but as I only use it in 5% of my trips my total expenses are barely affected, while giving me the convenience of a car when necessary.

There's no real reason to keep a personal car myself. Actually I've never owned one, but it's become easier and more convenient over time. Borrowing a car from a friend or traveling far to a car rental, or expenses of renting aren't problems anymore.

Having kids or working very far from home changes the incentives quite a bit. But I think there's a lot of value in optimising for distance. As a species we spend way too much time on mundane travel, even to the point of inefficiency. I've seen people chase a job that pays $300 more for $250 in self-paid traveling costs per month. These are people who will pay $10 for delivery of groceries instead of spending 30 minutes to go to the store, but are willing to travel 20 hours more each month for a $50 net benefit.

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

#162

Post by upofadown »

tjansen wrote: post #149
IshKebab wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the pedestrians who get killed by cars were somehow "forgetting to control it"? That makes zero sense.

Why? Excluding children, most pedestrians who get killed by cars didn't pay attention while crossing the street. That's the no 1 cause for adults. The other one is walking on streets without sidewalks. (sorry, ony have stats in German: https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/Praesentation11-13_192487.pdf )

A couple of relatively recent studies done in Australia came up with the result that driver error was the cause of collisions with pedestrians/bikes around 80% of the time.

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

#163

Post by matt4077 »

1337biz wrote: post #125
TheLostOne wrote: post #45

As a German who never owned a car (have driver license 30+ years) and never will, hurray! Next: Petrol cars please. Costs for cities would decrease a lot [1], room for bicycles would increase, noise would drop to a level which can't believed, ambulances would be adjusted to walking persons instead of loud cars with their stereos on and air would be wonderful. [1] https://www.amazon.de/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236…

What do you think about the idea that this is a hidden stimulation for the German car industry, ie. If you can find a reason to ban all cars that are painted blue, you create massive demands for other colors.

This lawsuit was between cities trying to ban diesel cars and their respective states. The two states are openly supportive of their local car industry, while the cities were motivated to improve local air quality by looming EU fines. The court, being the highest administrative court in the country, is also unlikely to be in the car industry's pocket: any backroom communication with industry lobbyists would be a major scandal. To draw an analogy to the US Supreme Court: judges may bring all sorts of personal biases to the bench. But they are unlikely to risk the social prestige of their role for whatever bribe is on offer. After all, they could have chosen much more lucrative careers in the private sector long ago if money was their motivation.

As a factual matter, i. e. "unexpected consequences", your idea might become true. But it's a risky strategy to hope that premature obsolescence of your product will result in consumers coming back for more. With the VW diesel scandal in the background, it's also possible that the industry will end up having to shoulder a major part of the monetary burdens. It's much more likely that the loss to their brands, and the very public failure of their diesel strategy, will far outweigh any gains from some turnover in cars.

Some diesel cars may also be retrofitted with cleaner technology, and others can probably be sold abroad, making the losses not quite as large as one might expect.

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

#164

Post by IkmoIkmo »

IshKebab wrote: post #141
CalRobert wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, actually. All of those things can be transported by cargo bike. There is a place for automobiles, and vans, in cities (ambulances come to mind) - just like there is a place for helicopters, but what we have now is a gross distortion that came as a result of more or less legalizing killing people with your car (as long as it was an accident) and giving people ample free asphalt and parking.

A sofa can't be transported by bike. Especially not up hills, don't be an idiot. A better solution would be to restrict traffic to commercial vehicles and only at certain times.

Haha I've done it, the Dutch are a bit crazy but yeah... we transport furniture on what essentially is a (frontloaded) trailer-bike.

That having been said, I think it's a silly solution to expect bicycles to take over logistics. I think we can all agree however that if the only vehicles on the roads were for logistics and public benefit (e.g. ambulance) that'd be a massive improvement already.

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

#165

Post by jacquesm »

learnstats2 wrote: post #157
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the German economy would crash, but never mind that. Before you ban all petrol cars you will first need something that can replace them because not everybody is in a position to use public transport both due to capacity, speed and door-to-door elements.

Except that cities and towns which have ban vehicles for general use can deal with exceptions, and have dealt with this problem. Some highly economically productive cities in Europe have similar bans on private vehicles in the centre, and function perfectly well.

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 practical thing to do because the streets in winter were already more or less useless due to the snow and the inclined roads so it was a relatively minor step.

A nice example of such a town:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saas-Fee

Pop. < 2000, car free since the 1950's.

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

#166

Post by TheLostOne »

IshKebab wrote: post #135
TheLostOne wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's five years. As the internet changed everything in 10 years, mobile internet changed everything in 5 years. Change will come rapidly not slow. Also if you're a lawyer "An AI just beat top lawyers at their own game" https://mashable.com/2018/02/26/ai-beats-humans-at-contracts...

That lawyer thing is like saying "a calculator just beat top mathematicians at their own arithmetic" and expecting it to generate replace maths professors within 5 years. AI is great but it's hilarious to think much will have changed in 5 years. Have a look at the results from the Stanford Question Answering Database if you want to see how far there is still to go.

90% of lawyers do are not top notch defence lawyers. Most of lawyers work in companies and do NDA work.

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

#167

Post by ableal »

mjh2539 wrote: post #38
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.

In support of your statement, in comparison to gasoline, diesel costs less to produce, it has more energy per unit of volume, it is much safer to store and use, diesel engines produce more torque at lower RPMs, and yes, vehicle maintenance is less costly over the length of ownership for the vehicle.

> vehicle maintenance is less costly

Nowadays with turbos, injectors, particle filters (required in Europe from 2007) and other fiddly bits, it's not clear that diesel engines have an advantage.

The particle filters are especially kludgy - most rely on having fuel injected down the exhaust pipe to burn the trapped cinders and regenerate the filter. If you don't run the engine long enough at 2000 rpm or so (to get the right temperature), you may clog the filter and need an expensive replacement.

(Worse yet, some designs just use the engine fuel injectors at the "wrong time" to get the piston to expel fuel down the exhaust pipe. This can contaminate the engine oil with diesel fuel and cost a few thousand in repairs, as a colleague learned the hard way ...)

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

#168

Post by TheLostOne »

igravious wrote: post #123
TheLostOne wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a gambling problem? HN is surely not the right place for seeking help, they [1] will help [1] https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/national-helpline...

I never gamble. Effectively what I'm saying is: polite way–"I'm so confident you're spouting rubbish that I'm will to risk €3000 of my money to prove you wrong even though I never gamble." less polite way–"Put up or shut up." Also I'm from a neighbouring (check out how I spell neighbour for a clue!) EU country so a link to a US gambling site is no use to me. ;-)

I never gamble. I know next time is black.

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

#169

Post by matt4077 »

TomMarius wrote: post #52
TheLostOne wrote: post #45

As a German who never owned a car (have driver license 30+ years) and never will, hurray! Next: Petrol cars please. Costs for cities would decrease a lot [1], room for bicycles would increase, noise would drop to a level which can't believed, ambulances would be adjusted to walking persons instead of loud cars with their stereos on and air would be wonderful. [1] https://www.amazon.de/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236…

It'd also practically stop economic growth of areas outside large cities and slow down economic growth of the city itself. Many businesses would be ruined (and thus people working on them). Many people would loose their jobs. This is a very backwards approach. Why don't we destroy our cities that have replaced the beautiful nature that used to be there instead of them?

Living in a densely populated city is far less resource-consuming than living in rural areas.

You should be thankful for cities, especially if you enjoy living in nature. Distributing city populations evenly across the land would do serious harm to that natural beauty you claim to enjoy.

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

#170

Post by Xylakant »

jacquesm wrote: post #91
Xylakant wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel is taxed significantly lower than petrol in germany which accounts for most of the substantial price difference. One could argue that this is a form ob subsidy.

Absence of tax is not a subsidy. A subsidy is when something is cheaper than it should be because the government picks up some of the costs.

They are both taxed, but at a different rate. The government picks up the cost in terms of lost income. Yes, it's a subsidy (a deliberate tax break). The historic reason is that diesel was used for trucks. Later, diesel cars were considered to be environmentally better since they produce less CO2 per kilometer. They're just worse in other regards.
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