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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

#241

Post by [deleted] »

zaroth wrote: post #232
tobltobs wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seriously believe those $2.50/gal peanuts do account for the whole cost and damage you create with your lazy lifestyle?

What a bizarre rebuttal to see on HN. But I’ll respond despite the poor tone. I took a guess of $2.50 per gallon in total net externality. Turns out after a bit of Googling a study out of Harvard University [1] put the number at $2.10. So, yeah I do believe it, seriously! By the way, those $2.50 peanuts would add up to $360 billion per year in the US. I don’t have a problem with a gas tax that tries to fully cover th…

[deleted]

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

#242

Post by executesorder66 »

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…

Downvote for using amp links.

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

#243

Post by jk563 »

mywittyname wrote: post #239
jk563 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong, but I would guess that your quandary isn't to do with the policy as such, but the way it's been gamed by car manufacturers. That diesel would likely have a much higher road tax if its actual emissions were taken in to account, and not just the lab-based ones. Get a petrol car pay the tax would be my recommendation. Depends on what you need too. My 5-year-old petrol Fiesta was <£10k and is £0 road ta…

> That diesel would likely have a much higher road tax if its actual emissions were taken in to account, and not just the lab-based ones. Is NOx a consideration for road taxes? If not, that's the issue. Diesels do emit less CO2 than gasoline and AFAIK, no auto companies were "cheating" CO2 emissions, just NOx.

Good point, I was wrong. The road tax policy should be updated to take NOx levels in to account. The recommendation remains :)

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

#244

Post by rndgermandude »

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…

France in recent years relied on energy imports during winters, because they heat a lot with electricity[1], and e.g. in 2015 they had to temporarily shut down a lot of their nuclear plants due to "quality concerns"[2], tho that was not the first time other European nations had to save them from going dark.

Germany mostly has a positive import rate (importing more than exporting) during the summer mornings and evenings, mostly because it's less windy in summers, it's dark so no solar, foreign surplus energy is readily available and cheap so that it doesn't make sense to increase hard coal energy production for a few hours each.

But the coal plants are far from maxed out, and Germany does not rely on imports. E.g. during summer mornings when Germany imports about 4 GW to make up for lack of wind and solar, the hard coal plants produce 4-12 GW, meaning to avoid those imports you'd have to run them at 8-16 GW. Those plants alone can produce 19 GW easily, and that's just hard coal.

If you like playing with interactive charts about energy production in Germany and the import/export rate, Fraunhofer ISE offers https://www.energy-charts.de/

PS: Since 2006 up until now, Germany had a negative annual import rate (more exports than imports)[3]. And the last month Germany imported (not necessarily had to import) more energy than exported was September 2011.

[1] https://energytransition.org/2017/01/france-cant-meet-its-ow... [2] http://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-pla... [3] https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p... and make sure to enable the Import stuff in the graphs

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

#245

Post by gascan »

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...

I wonder which ways the prevailing winds blow? (Do they follow the jetstream?) Salt Lake City, Denver, and Los Angeles all suffer significant air pollution from neighboring states and cities- air pollution is a regional, not local, problem. In other words- they ship the cars off, but the pollution could blow right back to them!

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

#246

Post by usrusr »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #44

I am so confused by government policy here in the UK. Right now I'm looking at a 5 year old used Diesel car with £0 road tax and 70+ MPG for about 10k GBP. My current Petrol engine costs £130/annum road tax, and only gets 30-40 MPG, I can also buy petrol cars with road tax of £240-500/annum (based on emissions) But if I buy the Diesel, it could be banned or worthless in a few years, because of these types of policies…

> So what is the government telling me to purchase?

At least here in Germany, the message is clear: everything is fine, as long as the replacement interval is as short as the industry needs it to be. If the carmaker lobby could get away with it, they would make the government outlaw all cars already sold biannually.

(Except for vintage cars, which are sacred temples of brand heritage)

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

#247

Post by oh_sigh »

foepys wrote: post #23
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…

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.

You could always smelt aluminium, pump water uphill, or simply boil some water etc with the excess power. Excess production is a far smaller problem than lacking production - so please don't try to play this off as Germany doing France a solid on this front.

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

#248

Post by c3833174 »

zaarn wrote: post #147
olex wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Diesel has a higher maintenance cost too, especially if you only drive short distances. IIRC the main cost here is the catalysator, which basically clogs up if it can't properly heat up. That doesn't happen on short range.

No, that only applies to cars with the more fancy antiparticulate filter that also requires urea fluid.

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

#249

Post by Noos »

stefan_ wrote: post #238
Xylakant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel fuel is taxed lower primarily because it’s historically been the fuel for trucks. Using Diesel engines in cars is a comparatively new development.

And why would anyone want to subsidize fossil fuel road transport when we have electric trains?

They are two different use cases. You need fossil fuel road transport from distribution centers and to the last mile of businesses and homes. I don't think electric will be able to handle that duty yet, and maybe not possibly unless for relatively short distance last-mile stuff.

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

#250

Post by Noos »

zaroth wrote: post #212
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…

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…

If anything, this site has a nasty "sacrifice life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for some future concept of good" thing going on at times. I sense we'd all be packed in cities, forced to ride bicycles, eat only vegetables, be unable to reproduce without a permit, and live in massive apartment towers with 200 sq of space to save the world.
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