Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 345 posts

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

#221

Post by Tuxer »

theothertom wrote: post #216
zaroth wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a ___ who never owned ____ I would love to see ____ completely banned. I guess I sometimes feel this way about some things, but then pretty quickly get over it and realize that other people have different utility functions than me, and that I kinda like this whole life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness thing. I much rather take the approach that externalities be accounted for properly than to ban anything tha…

$2.50/gal would be a massive price cut in most of Europe. A quick glance suggests that petrol is around 1.359 €/L in Germany at the moment.

He/she meant in pure taxes

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

#222

Post by kazen44 »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #161
kazen44 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 elabo…

> But I think there's a lot of value in optimising for distance.

i definetly agree to this, spending time on travel is pure waste. One of the best decisions for my personal health and my career was getting a job which is located 10 minutes from my home by bicycle. The amount of free time you have left because you spend a lot less time traveling should not be understated. Also, i find commuting very boring and stressfull, and living close to work has done wonders for my mental health aswell.

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

#223

Post by to3m »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #198
epanchin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government policy is to not retroactively change tax bands but to control vehicle use through other means, eg emissions zones. I’m sure you can work out the morally correct action based on the types of areas you drive through. You don’t really need the government to make this decision for you.

Right, but what happens when I take the morally correct action and suddenly have a worthless car?

Ignoring the question of whether there's even a morally correct action here, why not keep the worthless car you already have instead of replacing it with a newer one? That £10,000 will pay for a lot of petrol, car tax and repairs.

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

#224

Post by IB885588 »

MasterPI wrote: post #132
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.

> pervasive pea soup of diesel smog How do you know it's smog caused by diesel? LA has suffered (don't know how is it today) for years from smog and the majority of the vehicles there are petrol. I mean you can't blame it all on diesel.

Back in those days, gasoline/petrol cars had much worse emissions than they do today. They've since been cleaned up a little when it comes to smog-forming emissions. Diesel hasn't.

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

#225

Post by pebers »

MasterPI wrote: post #39
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.

> they smell And petrol cars don't smell? > slow to accelerate I think you've never driven a big modern engine diesel car. I have driven this BMW 535d[0] and believe me this monster is not "slow" in any way (0-100km/h in 5.5 seconds). It accelerates faster than the petrol equivalent because of the more torque it produces. [0] http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/2011/1337945/bmw_535d....

> And petrol cars don't smell?

I at least find the smell of diesel actively unpleasant; petrol isn't something I'd choose to smell all the time but it's still nowhere near as bad.

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

#226

Post by IntronExon »

jacquesm wrote: post #117
InTheArena wrote: post #111

European law has been very tilted towards Diesel engines for a long time. As the recent VW debacle proved - oversight was quite lax compared to the US diesel regs. This laxness was the result of the influence of BMW, Mercedes and VW and the outcome of years of corporate lobbying. It’s a good first step, but they have further to go. Despite the rhetoric, Germany has also been very restrictive with Tesla, viewing it as…

A big part of the problem here is the the EU was focusing on CO2 rather than NOx and that diesels are actually really good in the CO2 department.

Very true, but that’s partly because they believe NOx emissions were lower than they really were, thanks to cheating. I like to think that if they’d realized the magnitude of the non-CO2 issues, they would have taken a different path.

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

#227

Post by technofiend »

neverminder wrote: post #68

Eastern Europe will be flooded with those cars now. http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-dirty-diesel-cars-en-route-for...

Right. Seems like Germany needs a cash for clunkers program like the US had. The best way to guarantee a car not pollute is recycle it into constituent components.

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

#228

Post by [deleted] »

xaldir wrote: post #108
foepys wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop touting "Germany buys electricity from France because they don't have nuclear power". France always exported electricity because they cannot power their nuclear power plants up and down as easy as others can their coal plants. In hot summers and cold winters France relies on Germany electricity to stabilize their net because nuclear power then becomes a problem.

It is possible to power up and down nuclear power plants, it is however very inefficient. And when you have neighbors wanting to buy your surplus electricity and a grid that support it, why bother? France and other countries (like Switzerland) import electricity from time to time not because they are unable to produce it, but because it's cheaper to do so. Germany on the other hand have to import electricity when the…

[deleted]

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

#229

Post by pelasaco »

guardian5x wrote: post #20
yostrovs wrote: post #19

It's important to note that popularity of diesel is the doing of the German government. The fuel is subsidized for the sake of the environment because it's more efficient. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/eb8be120-de5... The situation is similar to Germany's work on its electric power sources. Nuclear was turned off because it's dangerous. Now Germany spews out about same carbon as before giant investm…

Sorry, but some of your statements are only partially correct. In fact germany exports more energy than it imports. ( https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/news/2016/germa... ) Also the popularity of diesel might have other factors as well.

from 2016 to 2018 the numbers changed for sure

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

#230

Post by nawitus »

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…

You need power for acceleration, not torque. (But I agree that modern diesel cars accelerate fast enough).
Post reply on HN