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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

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Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#191
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That source is Europe, not New York. It claims EV's are 24% heavier than ICE vehicles. That might be true in Europe but definitely not the case in the US where the average ICE vehicle is a 6000 pound truck and the average EV is a 4000 pound Tesla. It also assumes they're using the same tires. EV owners put on EV tires, which are formulated to have a lower rolling resistance, quieter and last longer. All 3 of those co…

But a 6000 pound truck doesn't get replaced with an EV sedan. Or vice versa. As things move to EV I don't know why the proportion of car body types (whatever you call this) wouldn't stay the same.

Yes, but that 24% increase in Europe is partly due to increase in vehicle size. Vehicle size is increasing over time in Europe, and the average EV is newer.

Also, cars designed as pure EV's are a lot lighter than EV's built on an ICE chassis.

A Telsa 3 is about 2% heavier than a BMW 3 whereas a Ford Lightning is 20% heavier than the comparable F-150.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel looks good if you are focusing primarily on fuel economy (mpg / L/100km), and when companies cheat the tests on other emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal When you remove the cheating and give adequate weight to those emissions, diesel for passenger vehicles makes a lot less sense.

Not only that, in France for example the liter of Diesel fuel was always 10 to 15 euro cents cheaper at the petrol station due to how regular gasoline and diesel fuel was taxed. That's why before EVs started to show up on the market en masse if you walked into a dealership they would always recommend that you pick the diesel engine if you wanted to save money of fuel costs. That was actually the reason why the Yellow…

In Canada, diesel fuel is priced around mid-grade gasoline (89). So it's slightly more expensive than regular, but slightly cheaper than premium (91/93).

Based on this, I've always thought of diesel as "more expensive", like you better get 15% more power/miles out of it if it's going to cost more! However, I suspect that most people purchasing diesel vehicles have as their other choice a car that would slurp premium, so for those buyers perhaps diesel is still a discount, even in Canada.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#193
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

> The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. And turns out the whole thing was a lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal It's unfortunate that so much rhetoric around environmentalism is based on faulty claims. It's starting to make me sceptical of environmental claims in general. The latest one is AI data center water use- the extreme numbers like 5 liters…

I'm confused by your comment.

You link an article that talks about how manufacturers lied on their emission figures.

But later you seem to imply that the actual lie was about how bad emissions are for humans/environment?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#194
post #17

Not surprising. The real question is how do we measure the opportunity cost of these measures? Is it a net gain? You could, at the extreme, ban all motor vehicles but the opportunity cost would outweigh the benefits.

I wouldn't assume your last claim.

It could also be the case that making it viable to drive personal vehicles at all inside a dense city comes with opportunity costs (parking, roads that cut through infrastructure, pollution, noise) that aren't worth it.

And I'd wager that it is the case.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#195

It may have dropped pollution in Manhattan but I guess more pollution added up to the surrounding borroughs in addition to more traffic.

> but I guess more pollution added up to the surrounding borroughs in addition to more traffic Why? Fewer cars into Manhattan means fewer cars through the boroughs. And even if they all diverted, you’re still looking at less idling and less stop and start braking.

Not necessarily. I use my brake far more in stop and start traffic on the highway than I do in Manhattan.

In the city stop and start is primarily determined by traffic lights, which are predictable, rather than the traffic itself.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#196
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone immediately pivot to EVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan SUVs and trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US policies regulating SUVs more leniently than cars on fuel efficiency?

Why does everyone immediately pivot to SUVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan Tesla Model Ys that weigh as much as a Ford Bronco and EV trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US consumer habits and the demand for huge vehicles to pick up groceries?

Aren't Tesla Model Y SUVs though?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#197
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

I believe the popularity of diesel car in Europe is actually a tax-related hack. The idea is that diesel is the "work" fuel, for shipping, construction, etc... While gasoline is the "consumer" fuel, for personal use, motorsports, etc... Make the former expensive and it will affect the entire economy, everything will become more expensive and less competitive. Making gasoline more expensive will not have the same impa…

Yes, in France as I pointed out in my other comment, the diesel fuel was always cheaper than regular gasoline. The re-alignment of the tax was (amongst other things) what sparked the massive yellow vest protests in France in 2018.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true for slower moving vehicles? I can't imagine there's a lot of brake dust generated by stopping & starting in the 0-10 mph range.

Afraid the intuition is somewhat incorrect. Similar to with tire wear what's important to emissions is the amount of force that has to be applied to decelerate and how often it occurs. At highway speeds it's far less of an issue, but in slow speed urban environments with lots of stop start driving and high vehicle densities it's a real problem. See for instance https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat…

Makes sense, good points.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#199
I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.

Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges.

Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe and Asia and is thus seen as foreign? Or because it's New York doing it, so it's branded as a tax, versus market-rate access or whatever we'd be calling it if this were done in Miami?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#200
post #2

> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death. Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines s…

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

When I was at the military they told us that in case of war the government would start appropriating diesel cars, since those are compatible with the fuel the military uses and that there were ancient incentives to buy this type of car to make sure there were enough of them.
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