Diesel cars can be banned from German cities, court rules • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by mywittyname » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #255

mywittyname wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a big engine diesel is quick, but small-engine ones are slow. The lack of top-end power makes them suffer at highway-speed passing. The diesel Cruze, for example, has a 5% (4mph) lower trap speed at the end of the quarter mile over its gas sibling (with the same 0-60). Also consider that 3.0L I6 diesel has the same 0-60 as a 2.0L turbo four-cylinder Honda Accord, but a huge reduction in highway acceleration (tr…

Diesels have better torque, which is mostly what feels like "power." Few people travel at top speed, so lower horsepower does not have the same feeling to the driver as high torque.

Diesels have literally the worst powerband for automobiles, especially mated to automatic transmissions. Diesels have power down low in the RPMs, but that's never where you are when you need power. When you need to accelerate, you floor the throttle and the transmission downshifts into the upper RPMs.

They are good for accelerating 0-40, but they are significantly slower at 40+ -- which is where most people accelerate hard, like merging on the highway or passing.

When I merge onto the highway, I use 5500-7000rpms, when I don't want to accelerate quickly, I use 2000rpms. It's why I hate driving diesels: 280ft-lbs at 2000rpms is useless and only 105hp; I want 280ft-lbs at 6500rpms (345hp).

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

#282

Post by kaybe » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

rmetzler wrote: post #217

jacquesm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VW just closed one of their highest quarters ever, the Diesel scandal seems to have not affected the brand much. This is not what I expected but consumers apparently care less than what you might think. Politicians will say whatever they want to get people to vote for them regardless of whether or not their plans are actually realistic. The electrical car is doable as a complete replacement, but not overnight. It wil…

Yes, this is how I try to argue with my dad. And then I pick one little example, calculate what is needed and figure - no, it's just impossible. If you know German, there is a video on what it costs to use wind and solar energy in Germany's energy network: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV_0uHP3BDY This isn't news for the Germany's big four power grid operators: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Stromnetz-unte…

What do you think we should do to replace fossil fuels?

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

#283

Post by kaybe » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

agmcleod wrote: post #273

tarmstrong wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say cyclists in Toronto can be awful, what do you mean? Are they mean to you, or do they not follow the rules of the road, or something else? When I cycle I fear being killed by a motorist; when I drive I fear killing a cyclist. It's important to clarify whether cyclists are putting you in danger or if they are stressing you out. Both suck, but one sucks a lot more.

Most of them are good. But i've seen many run red lights, go the wrong way on a one way street, i've been nearly hit by cyclists a few times. In terms of driving with cyclists, I think the main thing is lack of space more than actual actions. So an infrastructure problem. When driving what tends to give me pause is people acting out of place. So someone jay walking, or a cyclist cutting across lanes, as I then need t…

The rules are not made for cyclists, and you can see that in their riding. When you expend your own power for every acceleration and have better vision & hearing, a red pedestrian light with nobody using it suddenly looks less absolute. A one-way street that can easily take 5 of you next to each other, and probably nobody even driving there, when the way around is 500m longer - the same.

You can see the same behaviour from car drivers when the rules don't make any sense (as for example in some upcoming countries).

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

#284

Post by s73v3r_ » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

to3m wrote: post #223

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As someone's who's tried that, depending on how old the car is, that 10k can be burned through rather quickly. And then there's next year's maintenance to worry about.

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

#285

Post by s73v3r_ » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #84

TheLostOne wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economy will crash in the next 5 years either way with mass replacement of people by AI (call centers, taxi drivers, truck drivers, ...). Edit: Plus German car industry will crash either way because most people work not in building cars, but motors, electronics, transmission etc. which are mostly redundant with electric cars.

Just like it did during the industrial revolution with mass replacement of people by machines.

Most of the farmers were able to get jobs in factories, with little downtime or retraining necessary. What are today's factory workers going to do that's comparable? Remember, they still have rent to pay, food to buy, families to support.

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

#286

Post by bwindels » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

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…

The thing is, I don't see how you can put a price on these externalities. 13.000 people die early in Germany alone because of this. What would you have them do with this money? Planting trees wont do them much good.

Liberty is not an absolute thing. My freedom to drive my car ends where it encroaches on other peoples freedom to have a passable living environment.

We've banned smoking in public spaces for exactly the same reasons. The current system is really the tyranny of the majority. Let's just be honest about that and not use euphemisms like "accounting for externalities".

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

#287

Post by lulmerchant » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

0xfeba wrote: post #258

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…

> Nuclear was turned off because it's dangerous Nuclear was turned off because of FUD.

Exactly. It's one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy in the world.

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

#288

Post by andrewla » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

Can anyone more familiar with this case comment on what exactly happened here?

It sounds like two private organizations, DUH (Deutsche Umwelthilfe) and ClientEarth, sued a couple of cities (Munich, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf, possibly among others), saying they had to improve air quality. This was, apparently, on the basis that the cities had illegally high levels of NOx -- I'm not certain on what basis this was illegal, whether German or EU regulations.

Munich offered a ban, which everyone was happy with. Stuttgart and Dusseldorf attempted to offer a mitigation strategy, and DUH and ClientEarth sued again saying that the mitigation was insufficient, and the judge ruled that they only a ban would suffice.

The cities appealed, apparently on the basis that they were not legally allowed to impose such a ban(?) and now, a higher court has ruled that they are legally allowed to impose such a ban.

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

#289

Post by xyzzyz » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

c3833174 wrote: post #248

zaarn wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, this has nothing to do with urea fluid. This is just a quirk of some DPFs.

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

#290

Post by bdamm » Tue, Feb 27, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #234

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…

It's an illusion that diesel vehicles are faster than gasoline. Gasoline engines have way more horsepower and are faster that the diesel options (unless Germans are getting neutered or smaller power plants than say, the USA)

That's a strange statement. More horsepower based on what? I think if you look around, you'll see that the largest and highest horsepower combustion engines all burn diesel. Semi-trailers are exclusively diesel.

Your statement on speed is also odd. Record setting cars may burn gas, but your typical car driving around a city or highway needn't ever go faster than 160km/h. Most cars can achieve this, and most modern cars, whether diesel or gas, can achieve this without much difficulty.

This leaves us with acceleration, where diesel vs gas is equally unclear. As small diesel engines often ship with turbos, you'd be perhaps comparing a turbocharged 2.0L diesel vs a normally aspirated 2.0L gas engine. Assuming roughly equivalent mass of the cars, with higher low-end torque, the diesel will win just about any street race.

If what you're comparing is purchase price to acceleration, then indeed the gas cars may win.