
Nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits - known
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/23/diesel-cars-pollution-limits-nox-emissions
======
verytrivial
I'm willing to take down votes for this position, I don't understand the fuss
here, nor to credulity of the actors whom should have (and probably did) know
better. If the tests were meant to reflect real-world conditions, they should
be be designed to do that -- they clearly weren't, and were only tiny sample
of performance from which (wild?) extrapolations were drawn.

Don't have a cry about it, fix the tests. Get together some disinterested
parties to design them to capture the behaviour we all apparently expected the
current dud tests to measure.

This actually reminds me of how the failure of the bodies responsible for
banking oversight cry WOE when the industries they were charged with
overseeing did bad things. Failure of _real_ oversight again. And it the same
way, we have these same bodies (NOT end users) expecting to be paid for making
these mistakes. Who benefits from the fines? Not car owners, not car makers.

~~~
awjr
There is a lot more riding on these tests than is currently being admitted.
The simple fact is that based on the tests and the impact of NOx on population
health, the sale of diesel cars should be stopped immediately.

Even London has doubled the congestion charge fee for diesels.

A further step would be to recognise that petrol cars also emit NOx and that
the long term goal should be the removal of these from the road.

Politically this is a hard thing to do, however some countries are forcing the
issue [http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-
news/95237/du...](http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-
news/95237/dutch-move-to-ban-diesel-and-petrol-cars-by-2025)

This is going to hurt the car industry in ways we don't fully understand yet.
In the short term I would be end-of-lining their diesel production and
restructuring to electric.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> The simple fact is that based on the tests and the impact of NOx on
> population health, the sale of diesel cars should be stopped immediately

Extremely disingenous. You know what happens when the sale of diesel
cars/taxis/buses stops? The old ones get driven longer.

You know what vehicles create the lion's share in NOx emissions? The ones
built and sold before 2000 when Euro3 emission standards started limiting NOx
emissions. The majority of London "quaint" TX4 black cabs are of this toxic
variety, as are the majority of their buses. (This is probably similar to much
of the rest of Europe). Taking 50 new diesel vehicles off the street will do
less than upgrading a single one of these legacy vehicles to a state-of-the-
art diesel engine. Your proposed policy would be counterproductive.

~~~
kuschku
> (This is probably similar to much of the rest of Europe)

In Germany, we actually limited almost all cities to cars passing Euro 4, and
many even to cars passing Euro 6.

Cars get a sticker with a color based on which standard they pass, and the
zones are limited to cars with a sticker of the proper color.

So most busses in Germany are Euro VI now.

~~~
Symbiote
London's bus fleet is also pretty new. All meet Euro 4, and over 20% at least
Euro 5. [1]

The taxis are the problem -- London's low emission zone (similar to those in
Germany) only applies to large vehicles, taxis are not included. There are
thousands of taxis over 10 years old still running in London [2].

> So most buses in Germany are Euro VI now.

Really? That would mean most buses in Germany are less than 3 years old, which
seems unlikely.

[1] [https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-
releases/2014/july/w...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-
releases/2014/july/world-s-largest-bus-retrofit-programme-compjeted)

[2]
[https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/spread_of_ages_of_lon...](https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/spread_of_ages_of_londons_black)

~~~
kuschku
In my city all busses are Euro VI, in several others they already switched to
hybrids or are testing fully electric busses.

------
andy_ppp
Ouch, that's gotta hurt: "Surprisingly, the tiny number of models that did not
exceed the standard were mostly Volkswagens"

~~~
makomk
Not terribly surprising. Their engineers are competent, it's just that the US
(where diesels are less popular) set some rather unpleasant requirements for
diesel cars, in particular insisting that they couldn't require the diesel
exhaust fluid tank to be topped up by the end user and setting lower NO2
limits. In order to meet these conflicting requirements, VW cheated. I think
some of the VWs they tested actually have the same engine and emissions
control system as some of the US models that cheated, just without the defeat
device intended to reduce exhaust fluid usage.

~~~
teh_klev
> _in particular insisting that they couldn 't require the diesel exhaust
> fluid tank to be topped up by the end user_

Not being rude, but I'm having trouble parsing that part of your comment.

Do you mean that the US authorities won't let diesel car owners re-fill the
diesel exhaust fluid tank by themselves, i.e. the re-fill must be performed by
a dealer?

Also is the DEF tank just a US thing? I'd never heard it before (UK resident
here).

~~~
makomk
I'm pretty sure that owners can refill the tank by themselves, but
manufacturers are required to have a big enough tank that it can be done by
the dealer as part of the regular servicing schedule. The tank itself not so
much a US thing as it is a modern diesel car thing; it's part of the emissions
control system on I think most new diesels.

~~~
gherkin0
My dad has a US Volkswagen diesel. He's told me he _can_ refill the urea tank,
but he _can 't_ reset the computer to tell it the tank was filled, so there's
very little point for him to actually refill it. His car will stop working
unless he brings it into the dealer, one way or the other.

~~~
Grishnakh
See, this is a great example of how our regulators have failed miserably. This
kind of practice should be outright banned. There should not be anything on a
car that requires you to take it to a dealer to reset; any competent mechanic
should be able to do any service on the car, and not need a special dealer-
only computer system to make the car recognize the service.

------
f_allwein
> There is no suggestion that any of the cars tested broke the law on
> emissions limits or used any cheat devices.

Since all these cars passed the laboratory test, that means there must be
something very wrong with the test and the way the standards are enforced. Or
all car makers do cheat.

~~~
stinos
I thought it was common knowledge the lab tests are a joke? Has been posted on
HN as well IIRC.

~~~
f_allwein
I thought it was more a case of "some car manufacturers cheated" and not
"almost all diesel cars emit several times more than they should". How is this
possible?

~~~
Spare_account
The test is accurate and measures emissions very well. The cars emit NOX at
levels lower than the legal limits during the test. There is no mistake during
the test and no cheating (apart from VW).

However, when the cars are used by normal drivers, the usage patterns are so
significantly different than the test sequences that the emissions profile
changes. In the majority of cases the NOX emissions from cars used by normal
people exceed the EU limits.

This does not, as I understand it, mean that the cars are illegal. The cars
all passed the tests in the test environment. That is the requirement and they
met the requirement.

No law is being broken but that is only because the law is not fit for
purpose.

------
kinofcain
Every gasoline car is going to put out more pollution in "real world" driving
scenarios as well. This isn't a problem with diesels, per se, it's a problem
with all emissions standards.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its supposed to be 'built-in' to the emissions standard. The lab levels are so
low, because that makes the road emissions in an acceptable range. Everybody
involved knows this; its not a secret; there's no news here.

~~~
kinofcain
Yes, I was trying to figure out an eloquent way to add something to that
effect to my comment, but I think you've done a better job than what I had
drafted anyway.

What _would_ be interesting, is if diesels were predominantly more likely to
exceed those lab levels than gasoline cars to a significant amount, or if they
were exceeding those standards to an unexpected level.

That's still possible, and it would mean we need to update the emissions
standards and/or the test process, but this article doesn't make that case.

------
alkonaut
Nothing strange about that - if there is a limit that is hard to meet (which
there should be) then manufacturers will make a car that _exactly_ meets the
standard.

And just like advertised fuel consumption figures, it will meet the standard
under very controlled circumstances. In case of fuel consumption the
manufacturers can reach the figure by taping shut door seams, using
overinflated tyres, throwing out interior to reduce weight etc. Those aren't
"real world conditions" but apparently they are real-world enough to use in
advertising. Presumably the same conditions can and are used when testing
emissions.

The only conclusion we can draw is that emissions tests aren't used to make
manufacturers build cars that emit at most X in real world conditions. That
would be both unfair and expensive - it's _better_ to say "use whatever
extreme conditions you want and the emissions should be at most Y".

In that case authorities can make Y < X and the whole thing is simpler and
easier for everyone. If cars emit too much in real-world conditions? Then
tighten the limits.

This of course only works so long as no one cheats and designs workarounds
_specifically_ for the test conditions (which is what VW did).

~~~
deelowe
Why couldn't a third party just take a production car and do the testing? This
is how it works for most compliance testing. This whole situation seems
needlessly complex. Or, probably more aptly, it reeks of crony capitalism and
politics.

Testing and compliance is an engineering problem. It should treated as such.

~~~
mikekchar
Although keep in mind that requiring 3rd party, independent auditors creates a
market for crappy/soft auditors. I learned that from ISO 9000 work. Companies
don't want to hire someone who will fail their product/process, so they hire
someone who will conveniently look the other way. Probably the only way is to
have government testing... which brings us full circle to the potential of
crony capitalism and politics.

~~~
deelowe
Industrial certifications like ISO 9000, six sigma, etc... are kind of a joke.
What happens to those companies if they fail to maintain an acceptable
standard? Quality goes down? Who cares? There's no liability.

A better comparison would be something like UL or FCC. Make the standards and
testing body liable for their claims. Require PEs to be part of the
organization and personally responsible for signing off.

This is a solved problem. We build bridges and electronics that don't kill
people using similar methods.

~~~
intrasight
The difference is that those two examples have insurance/liability
implications and therefore there is an incentive by some party (insurance
industry) to do the certification. There is no equivalent insurance or tort
market for emissions.

------
_yosefk
"Unlike other parts of the world, European nations incentivised the use of
diesel vehicles over the last 20 years because they emit less carbon dioxide
per mile than petrol cars. Governments thought stricter regulation would
sharply reduce NOx emissions, but carmakers found ways around the rules and
governments failed to clamp down on the practices."

How typical in so many ways (I particularly like the claim that governments
"failed" without either suggesting to strip the governments of those powers
which they failed to use so consistently throughout all of Europe, or charging
government officials with criminal incompetence or fraud.)

~~~
halviti
Governments 'failing' in this scenario seems to be referring to not acting
quickly enough.

If you're going to strip governments of power for this, there would be no more
governments left in the world.

~~~
_yosefk
Not acting quickly enough?.. VW's "defeat device" wasn't uncovered by the
government, and it's been deployed for years. I'm not sure what would make
governments do anything about this at any future point in time if the issue
wasn't reported by a non-government entity. The article also elaborates the
measures governments are taking to let perpetrators get away with this into
the future (and another source reported how governments keep postponing random
checks of cars on actual roads.) There are at least three reasons for
governments to side with the perpetrators - campaign contributions or outright
bribes to politicians, concerns about the economy/employment, and a revolving
door between car makers and regulatory agencies, all this is true for any big
business regulated by the government.

The belief that fraud is conducted on this scale but the regulator is not to
blame is stunning to me (same with banking fraud etc.) I didn't say
governments should necessarily be stripped of this power, just that if they
all fail so miserably at something, you ought to either suggest that they
cannot ever succeed (and if so of course you'll want to strip them of this
power) _or_ that people currently employed by governments to oversee this
should be investigated, in the hope that eventually the governments can be
trained to find competent people to fill these roles, and find some mechanism
that prevents corrupting these people. Meeting extreme government incompetence
with complete understanding ("they just didn't act quickly enough") and zero
penalties, however, is IMO perpetuating the problem.

------
S_A_P
I don't get the math about diesel. American refineries produce 12 gallons of
diesel and 19 gallons of gasoline on average[1] from a barrel of oil(42
gallons). I seem to remember that figure being lower and it looks like googles
answer was 10 gallons at one point using the same site reference. I think that
there was a push to get most cars off of gasoline and on to diesel before the
VW scandal, and that diesel was going to save the world. I didn't see how we
were going to make that work when there is 50-80% less of the stuff per barrel
of oil. I think in the real world the MPG gains are 25-35%[2]

I don't know that EVs are the savior they're pitched as, unless we can make
battery tech and power generation cleaner. It looks like there is progress in
that arena, so hopefully that continues. I think that we have demonstrably
cleaned up gasoline cars while also increasing power output and MPG, and
progress in that arena should continue as well. I think that diesel for
passenger cars is a dead end, and it should be left to big rigs and heavy duty
vehicles.

[1]
[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=327&t=9](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=327&t=9)
[2][https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/di_diesels.shtml](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/di_diesels.shtml)

~~~
commenter1239
I think the main push to go off gasoline onto diesel, is mainly biodiesel,
where crude oil is not required for production.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel_production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel_production)

------
walrus01
Now I wonder what the diesel emissions of a 20 year old ford f350 are. A lot,
I imagine.

~~~
Shivetya
Well it wasn't that long ago that a study found that school buses had many
times the acceptable levels of pollutants inside because they sat idling while
waiting for kids.

All I have to do is watch the local bus service, mostly the city one, to see
how bad some vehicles pollute. So let us be honest here, the government needs
to clamp down hard on all vehicles in its employ at all levels even more than
going after consumer cars

~~~
jschwartzi
I rode the bus every day as a child, and I will always associate the smell of
diesel exhaust with the inside of the school bus, because it always smelled
like exhaust.

------
codecamper
My feeling is that catalytic converters go the wrong way.

The biggest problem today is global warming. We want to stop burning diesel.
By hiding the NOx, there is less of a problem with burning diesel so we burn
more. That's sort of a hard ass approach, but.

Also using a catalytic converter also saps some energy and so requires more
diesel to be burned and so more CO2 released.

~~~
TorKlingberg
Diesel cars have lower CO2 emissions. That is one of the reasons they are so
popular en Europe where vehicle taxes are often based on CO2.

------
mhw
While it makes good headlines, I think most of this could be summed up as
"vehicle emissions are more complex than the simple model you might expect".

Go and read the Wikipedia page on the New European Driving Cycle -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_European_Driving_Cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_European_Driving_Cycle).
Notice that in the test procedure every instance of acceleration is described
as "the car slowly accelerates". Now think about the range of driving styles
that are found in the real world. Some people might be quite laid back about
accelerating, but I think there's an awful lot of "floor the accelerator to
get back up to the speed limit" as well. It's hardly surprising that in those
periods the emissions from the engine will be higher than they were under the
test cycle.

So who do we blame? The vehicle manufacturers? Well, given current popular
sentiment, down that path may lie vehicles which are designed to never exceed
the emission limit. At the extreme end we might finish up with cars that
automatically throttle back when they hit an emission limit, similar to
processors throttling back when they hit thermal emission limits. But what do
we do when we start having fatal accidents when people tried to overtake and
the engine suddenly reduced power in an unpredictable way because it had gone
over the emission limit?

So, blame the emissions tests? Well, what should the emissions test be
targeting? Never going over a particular threshold, say? In which case, how do
you define a standard protocol (to ensure fairness across vehicles) that all
vehicles will be able to follow? At one end you've got cars like the Peugeot
Bipper Tepee with a 0-60 time north of 16 seconds (with both petrol and diesel
engines - [http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/peugeot/bipper-
tepee-20...](http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/peugeot/bipper-
tepee-2009/?section=data)). At the other you've got cars like the BMW X5 4.4
V8 which can accelerate roughly twice the mass in a quarter of the time
([http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/specs/detail/?v=MBMWI-X50311](http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/specs/detail/?v=MBMWI-X50311)
\- the diesel engined version isn't far behind either). I'd imagine that a
protocol that produces the highest emissions from the BMW would not even be
achievable by the Peugeot.

The only other party left to blame seems to be the drivers, and particularly
their inability or unwillingness to drive in a style that minimises emissions
(and at the same time most likely increases fuel economy). But the media seem
reluctant to point the finger in that direction.

I think we need to blame all of the above, but we need to get past the
simplistic model of emissions being a constant that you can set a limit on for
all vehicles regardless of how they are driven.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>I think there's an awful lot of "floor the accelerator to get back up to the
speed limit" as well //

When I took my UK driving test (quite a few years ago) my instructor informed
me that I needed to accelerate hard on a [uphill] dual carriageway section in
order to not be perceived as "failing to make progress" (ie. keeping up with
traffic). I wonder if modern tests take account of safer aspects of fuel
economy, such as slower acceleration, or if it's still penalised?

~~~
lb1lf
> I wonder if modern tests take account of safer aspects of fuel economy, such
> as slower acceleration, or if it's still penalised?

-When I took my driver's licence last year (I am in my mid-thirties, only didn't have any need to be able to drive a car until recently), part of the curriculum was economic (=less damaging to the environment) driving.

However, my instructor told me that if the examinator brought up the subject,
I just had to murmur the right noises - while accelerating hard so as not to
upset traffic flow.

Bingo, the examinator suggested I explain to him a couple of principles of
green driving, and after doing so, I observed that I had yet to see another
car in traffic that morning which paid attention to said principles.

He shrugged and suggested that if I did drive like we had just discussed, I
would probably fail the test for being a traffic hazard and general nuisance -
but he had to ask, I had to answer - and now, could we get on with the test,
if I didn't mind?

I think we follow an EEC guideline for driver's training, so presumably it is
the same all over the EU.

------
TwoWheelWonder
My 1998 Ram with 12 valve 5.9L Cummins then... Is killing us all, loudly. Gets
25mpg on the highway though.

------
codemusings
Color me shocked.

------
tomtompl
More central planning!

~~~
donatj
Is that sarcasm or a genuine call to action? By Poes law I have no idea.

------
mtgx
Well this should put an end to the "It's not dieselgate, it's just VWgate"
thing.

