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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

#71

Post by jk563 »

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…

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 tax.

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

#72

Post by kazen44 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #40
guardian5x wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regardless of exporting a lot of electricity, they are also now completely dependent on French nuclear power for energy security. German renewable sources are intermittent. In short, they produce energy when there is enough wind and when the sun shines, and both of those are conditions that correlate heavily over all of Germany. German electricity demand largely does not match them -- unlike in hotter climates, air c…

> Regardless of exporting a lot of electricity, they are also now completely dependent on French nuclear power for energy security.

most western european nations have a very interdependent energy grid. (more so then the post-warsaw pact countries). The corridor BeneLux, Germany, france and italy is highly integrated. These systems are already reliant on each other, so power dependency in terms of nuclear power isn't really an additional issue.

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

#73

Post by Xylakant »

blensor wrote: post #49
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.

Can you please elaborate where you got your data points from. I am a diesel car owner (have been for about 15 years) and I have yet to experience those issues you mention. Currently it has -12°C outside and my car starts just fine.

Usually diesel fuel in winter contains additives to prevent freezing/clogging the filter. Some diesel cars also have heated filters. I’ve had a diesel car fail due to a frozen/clogged filter in winter, but that was more like -20. It’s rare, but it happens.

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

#74

Post by adrianN »

TomMarius wrote: post #60
kss238 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A city ban on cars would effect areas outside of cities?

Yes, of course. People from outside the city come to the city by car to buy goods and offer their services because mass transit is not available or not practical. It's impossible to make mass transit practical for everyone.

It is practical to offer parking at train stations at the outskirts of the city so that people can commute to the train station and leave their car outside the exclusion zones.

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

#75

Post by madez »

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...

The EU comission threatened to fine Germany for the air pollution caused by these cars. I expect they'd treat other EU countries the same.

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

#76

Post by bildung »

72deluxe wrote: post #65
jonasvp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Cars are a net negative for societies (see e.g. https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ivs/voeko/ressourcen/dateie... ). Just imagine having most (80%+) of goods transported by cargo bike: lots of (local!) employment, lots of new technology needed, etc.

Like sofas, armchairs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, flat-screen TVs and oak beds? Great idea, but how would you feasibly transport them? The deliveroo boxes are going to have to increase in size...

Been there, done that :) Just buy a good trailer. You get 10 top notch bikes plus trailer for the price of a car.

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

#77

Post by majewsky »

72deluxe wrote: post #65
jonasvp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Cars are a net negative for societies (see e.g. https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ivs/voeko/ressourcen/dateie... ). Just imagine having most (80%+) of goods transported by cargo bike: lots of (local!) employment, lots of new technology needed, etc.

Like sofas, armchairs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, flat-screen TVs and oak beds? Great idea, but how would you feasibly transport them? The deliveroo boxes are going to have to increase in size...

Most of these could be transported on bike trailers. The bed will probably need to be shipped in disassembled form, but then again, I've never seen beds shipped in one piece.

That said, there are certainly things that you absolutely have to transport with some sort of automobile. But there's no problem with exempting such transports from a possible car ban.

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

#78

Post by TheLostOne »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
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…

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.

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.

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

#79

Post by Heliosmaster »

72deluxe wrote: post #65
jonasvp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Cars are a net negative for societies (see e.g. https://tu-dresden.de/bu/verkehr/ivs/voeko/ressourcen/dateie... ). Just imagine having most (80%+) of goods transported by cargo bike: lots of (local!) employment, lots of new technology needed, etc.

Like sofas, armchairs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, flat-screen TVs and oak beds? Great idea, but how would you feasibly transport them? The deliveroo boxes are going to have to increase in size...

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?

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

#80

Post by brownbat »

cwal37 wrote: post #13
dingo_bat wrote: post #3

Is this backed by real science? I was under the impression that modern diesels were highly efficient and quite within the acceptable emission standards.

There's a big difference between general "emissions" which a lot of people take colloquially to just mean greenhouse gases (and CO2 in particular with combustion engines), and then the small particulates and other things (like NOx) that create worse local air conditions[1]. Most "modern" diesels in use do still have the latter problem. I think at the very cutting edge, if you maintain a very good filter and operate i…

Most local air pollution, counterintuitively, doesn't even come from exhaust.

Wear on tires, brakes, and the road each contribute more individually.

There's another process called resuspension that dwarfs even these. Cars grind down large particles sitting on the road, making heavy particles light enough to float in the air. Then the cars' wake kicks those newly light particles into the air, suspending them in the air.

That process is driven by vehicle weight, size, and aerodynamics, and contributes about two-thirds of the particulates from all vehicle sources.

One of the interesting takeaways from all that is that average vehicle weight can be massively important to local air conditions (no pun intended).

I think there's still some debate about the exact relationship between weight to PM output, but lighter frames and smaller vehicles are probably a good idea:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/04/20160418-pm10.html

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