European Carmakers defend diesel to lower CO2 emissions

I forgot to add:

Remove all subsidies and tax equally

 

True, but that only underscores my point about diesel cars struggling furiously to reach a place where efficient gassers and hybrids have been for almost two decades.

I don't have a problem with diesels.
I understand and appreciate where a farmer or a businessperson might need a diesel truck - because THAT vehicles best serves THAT need.

I'm not hating on diesels.....just people who LIE about how efficient and clean they are.
For some people?
It's actually not lying.
They're just being lied to, and spreading the myths.
Sort of like how Priuses still have $8000 batteries that still need to be replaced every other year.

 

Sounds like a political position that I could REALLY support!

 

The article proudly states that diesels from 2001 on average emit 80 mg/km Nox .
The Prius emits 6 mg/km.

And keep in mind that these figures use the drive cycle that the diesels have learned to game and is a very poor mirror of overall emissions.

 

Not quite sure what the no thanks means. I'm sure that few on this forum would take a diesel car. Some of us have driven heaier diesel vehicles and the new technology definitely makes a world of difference. It wasn't until 2006 that refiners were regulated to provide ULSD in the US.

Today's SCR and particulate filters required ULSD. With these technologies along with more traditional cooled egr and 2-way catalytic converters, diesel often produce lower pollution than gasoline powered cars. Some european countries favor diesels with tax policy, but this policy of lower fuel taxes to encourage diesel use by taxing it less than gasoline per unit energy, encourages owners to keep older diesels on the road longer. Again the trick is to get the old vehicles off the road and to test the newer ones in polluted cities.

On medium and heavy vehicles (> 8500lbs) in the US, diesels greatly reduce oil use and ghg versus gasoline. The main alternative is natural gas vehicles both cng and lng. The natural gas vehicles produce higher ghg emissions but lower tailpipe emissions. The new pollution controls seem to make them "low enough" and diesel trucks and busses are less expensive up front. Natural gas vehicles have lower fuel and maintenance costs. Maintence costs for both scr and particulate filters may drop as the technology gets older.

 

"This industry needs a longer-term strategy,” Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, told Automotive News Europe."

Translated: Can we kick this problem down the road a decade or so ? My bonus might get slashed!

 

Yes, diesels are struggling. So would gasoline cars if they had to go from early emission standards on some pollutants and pre-emission control for others to today's pollutant limits with just a few years lead time. They weren't this clean overnight, and there were performance and reliability issues at times. The CARB and EPA regulations stepped up the strictness over those couple decades. The first gen Prius was SULEV, but not the same SULEV as the current model.

There is no affordable hybrid system for midsize SUVs and minivans at this time. A small diesel maybe the answer for those vehicle classes. People aren't going to stop buying them any time soon. So let's use the on road equipment to double check and revise the official emission tests for all vehicles. In the meantime, the cost of fuel and limited selection keep new diesel car sales lower than hybrids in the US. The ones that don't meet the emission limits on the street won't be the end of the road until the testing and control systems are up to snuff.

We should pull the rolling coal trucks, and polluting gassers. I smell and see more of them with soot covered bumpers on my commute than any diesel.

Europe just has a lot of old diesels on the road. Swapping them out for even new ones that exceed limits would likely improve things.

For the US, they have to get under 42mg/km for NOx. Some diesel models are rated better.

There are issues with the test, and even gasoline cars take advantage of it. Using the AC in a gasoline car will double its NOx output. They emit much more CO under loads higher than the basic EPA test cycles. NOx also goes up then too.

 

Someone mentioned the problem of accuracy which is why I get spun-up when Autoline Daily omits the role of diesel pickups in the total diesel sales. Diesels have come a long way but their long life also means the old technologies are still running around.

GM tried to make their old-style hybrids work in pickups and SUVs. I appreciate the attempt but the Volt power train would be a better fit. Certainly the vans and small pickups.

Lutz at one time was trying to buy van 'gliders' to install EV drive trains. After all, 400 HP Tesla, it is possible. Practical is a materials and labor issue.

Bob Wilson

 

The biggest issue I have with the smog tests is that they allow older cars to pollute more than newer ones. Then we have states like california with the biggest smog problems, incentivise this further by charging registration fees based on value of the car. This is a financial incentive to keep polluters on the road.

The biggest problem with the pollutant tests for new cars in the US is they are based on how people drove in LA in the 1940s. Government is a slow moving beast. To compensate on the bad 2 cycle test they have added some math or 3 more cycles based on those 2 for air-conditioning, cold weather, or high speed. Still 2 cycles plus math is much better than the european or japanese tests. To compensate for how badly these tests approximate real driving, even in proposed tier 3/lev 3 proposed to start in 2017, we arbitrarily drop pollutants on those tests and evaporative emissions. We don't even try to set safe limits, which would be higher, on realistic tests, where vehicles would do worse. Still its lower in dangerous pollutants than other countries, but its a gamed system, that would be less expensive if the tests and levels approximated real driving.

+1

Yep old diesels are a much bigger problem than newer ones.

Well we get close with voltec 2.0. You want to haul and tow in these vehicles so the fwd layout is wrong, you need rwd or awd. The easiest modification to voltec is adding a third motor on the rear axle (mgc in voltec speak, or mg3 in hsd speak on the hihy) and probably pull out cost by reducing the power of mgb (mg2 in hsd). You probably need to add a power/towing hybrid mode that can deplete the battery pack and use the engine to provide more power (voltec already has a hold hybrid mode). Yep they are pretty close, the question is whether they violate any toyota patents if they provide that 3rd motor. Maybe you put a 2L di turbo ice that runs mainly in miller cycle in there based on the same engine family design as the gen II volt. Fisker was buying the older generation of these engines, but IIRC gm did a good job of improving the efficiency in the new one.

Lutz already bankrupted one company, would you really trust a via motors waranty? If gm or ford or toyota provided a good phev truck that could run most miles in electric mode you'd be a fool to buy a via motors one.

 

Lutz played a part but appeared to be a Volt advocate before the bankruptcy. He was as much a fool to his own propaganda before the Volt.

Bob Wilson

 

that picture reminds me of the clear days overlooking L. A. 1960'S & early 1970's as a kid.
G. C. - I never thought I'd hear about an EU - diesel change of heart. Still - I suspect a changeover will be a constipated process.
.

 

We got midsize SUV hybrids right now; the Highlander and RX. They are just too pricy for most, and while the fuel economy is good for their class, it isn't great. So people look at the pricy part and figure they won't save enough on fuel to make it worthwhile. I fear the Rav4 hybrid being too pricy if Toyota isn't releasing a base trim version as they did with the Camry.

I think Chrysler is coming out with a mild hybrid minivan. That might work if the price increase looks inline with the fuel economy increase to shoppers eyes. I think we haven't see an American hybrid minivan from Toyota for the same reasons the HiHy doesn't sell well. MPGs wouldn't be high enough for the higher price, or a 4 cylinder HSD would be too slow.

Hybrid trucks do lack in towing. Everyone released to date that carried a rating could be out towed by an ICE sibling. A diesel in a truck has a lower cost, increases fuel economy, and also increases payload and towing. That's why GM's small pick up is getting a small diesel for 2016 over a hybrid system. Manufacturers are just shying away from having a hybrid truck pull like an ICE one.

Honda's two motor system in the Accord might actually turn out the best for a truck. It is in serial mode much of the time, so closest to a locomotive, and when the engine does clutch in, there is only a few basic gears between it and the wheels.

Then there is the hydraulic hybrid wild card. Beyond some test vans at UPS, I have only heard a rumor of, again Chrysler, of a truck or van being available for private citizens.

 

Even though we have relatively clear air these days in the USA, and it's still improving as lower gaso sulfur levels come into effect, the EPA is proposing quite stringent new ozone regulations. I feel EPA might be a little over-board on it, but the rule's not final yet so it's hard to say anything except wait and see.

I am not sure how the new regs will play out, but presumably we could see wider zones needing reformulated gasoline and emissions-collecting gaso pumps etc. Prior to this, I had been questioning if we still really need (lower energy content) reformulated gasoline ....EPA's answer seem to be yes they are still not happy with ground ozone levels.

 

. . . and human lungs.

Bob Wilson

 

Sounds to me like the diesel lobby should not have wasted those decades.

Just my opinion of course. The real point is that it is not my problem.

 

A UK change of heart, not an EU one. France has much worse pollution issues because of diesel.

Thankfully not all UK cities are as bad as London in that picture. London smog is mainly down to diesel buses and taxis and London busses are the only non privately run company in the UK. My local bus company have recently introduced a 52 seat electric bus for my local route into town, amongst many others. If London introduced vehicles like that, their problem would be reduced.

 

Blame government for those wasted decades. They are the ones that ultimately set the emission limits and sulfur limits in fuel, which was why diesel couldn't even try to clean up their exhaust until 2007 or so.
It isn't like the gas lobby took the initiative back in the '70s to clean up their exhaust, and I haven't heard of any manufacturer volunteering to put exhaust filters on their DI gas engines.

Guess everybody forgot what it was like when all the buildings used coal heating. Until it gets better, the tourism board should spin it as a positive. "Come see the reenacted London Fog."

 

Not a chance.

The government is complicit, but
1. No one forced the diesel companies to sit on their behinds for four decades; and
2. The diesel companies were the political force behind the gov decisions.

Let them rot in their own tar.

I live in the four corners area of the SW where one of the most polluting coal burning electric plants is situated. Since the 1970s the plant has fought, ignored, circumvented, and in general gave the middle-finger to the EPA clean air act to clean up emissions. NOW they are spending millions of customer money on a PR blitz meant to buy them time and avoid a smack-down by the EPA issued last year. Their main argument ? The year given them to clean up or face EPA mandated change is too little.

F' them

 

The Air Pollution Control Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was signed in 1955.
"The Air Pollution Control Act was the culmination of much research done on fuel emissions by the federal government in the 1930s and 1940s."
Were gasoline engine companies working on emission controls between then and the very lax emission requirements of 1975? Didn't the Ethyl Corporation, and its backers(one being GM), fight against the EPA lead phase out of leaded gasoline? Tertaethyllead was known to to poison to catalytic converters. Aside: total lead phaseout for road vehicles wasn't complete until 1995.

I am in no way claiming the diesel industry is a clean, sweet angel. I see no point in condemning them for behaving no differently than the 'clean' gasoline one, though. As a kid in the late '70s and early '80s, the snow banks along the side of the road were coal black. The diesel to gasoline mix in the car fleet wasn't much different back then. Companies mostly need carrots or sticks to make cleaner products. Toyota is no exception. They got money and R&D results out Japan's MITI LEV(low emission vehicle) programs that went to their hybrids.

I am a bit of the realist in that I don't expect a company to spend funds over decades for products that won't sellable during that time. How many here were writing their congress critter to reduce the sulfur content of diesel to allow the use of a cat. converter in a diesel, and doing so back in the '80s? I also think that expecting diesels to become as clean as petrols without possible setbacks is unreasonable when there were decades more of carrots and sticks over emission limit ramp ups for the petrols. Just getting outraged or 'I told ya so' with these setbacks won't help progress. Diesels are going to stay for so time. Their is no gasoline engine, hybrid or not, that can work in heavy trucking with the same efficiency as a diesel, and a small diesel may become the only sellable solution for the larger personal vehicles(SUV, crossover, minivan).

 

^^ translated: the diesel lobby was more successful corrupting and buying the politicos of past eras.

I'm not about to give them a pass for their "success."

If they can meet (or beat) the most aggressive pollution standards today then they can sell their product. End of story