
Diesel: How it changed Europe and how Europe might change back - bane
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/10/diesel-how-it-changed-europe-and-how-europe-might-change-back/
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PeterStuer
How come none of these articles in the VW dieselgate wake mention previous
identical scandals in this area that make me skeptical that anything will
realy be done about it? Took me less than a minute to Google (from 1998!):
'Car manufacturers can use modem electronic equipment to adapt the engine to
any type of test cycle. They can even tell the computer of the car how to
recognise when the car is being driven according to a specific test-cycle and
adjust the combustion accordingly. It was this kind of software that six truck
manufacturers, including two European firms (Volvo and Renault), recently used
in the United States to defeat the EPA's pollution control. As a result
emissions of nitrogen oxides from highway driving increased by 300 per cent. "
extract from: 'Cycle Beating and the EU test cycle for cars' \- Per Kageson -
European Federation for Transport and the Environment - November 1998

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talmand
That's because too many people think they can do something better than the
previous group. Such as situations where people think "this time it will be
different!" that usually turns out worse. In this case, they were just
thinking they could be better at cheating.

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junto
Many people who have bought diesels have made the decision based on the wrong
criteria. They bought it because the fuel is cheaper and you get more miles to
the gallon.

However people that only drive short distances daily (less than 15 minute
trips. I.e. the school run), are damaging their diesel engines because the DPF
(diesel particulate filter) needs at least 15 minutes to get to a temperature
that can burn off the particulates.

People who don't regularly drive long distances in their diesels are therefore
driving on false economy. The repair bills will end up outstripping the fuel
savings. Also, as the article points out, cheap diesel is artificially cheap
due to government incentives, which could (and probably will) be taken away at
any time. People driving diesels in Europe are sitting on a financial time
bomb.

[http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2332107/Petr...](http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2332107/Petrol-
vs-diesel-cars-Drivers-warned-diesel-filter-trap.html)

~~~
nomercy400
The criteria aren't wrong: I want to save money on my car.

Diesel fuel is cheaper, by a lot. Diesel cars drive further than a petrol car
(I get about 3.7l/100km). A diesel car produces less CO2, which makes it
cheaper to lease (14% instead of 20%-25% for added tax).

If the government taxes the diesel car equally to a petrol car, then people
will pick the cheapest.

Just get a cheap decent EV out there with similar properties of a fuel car,
and people will pick that. And cheap is in the range of 20000-25000eu, not
60000eu like a Tesla.

Fuel is already taxed heavily here (just compare Europe fuel prices to US fuel
prices).

And I don't know what a DPF is, how it works, or that my car has it. I
shouldn't have to care about all the hundreds of components in my car. I have
enought things to worry about already.

If the startup time is 15 minutes for that filter and that is too long, maybe
there should be some force applied to reduce this startup time to say 5
minutes.

~~~
mcv
> Just get a cheap decent EV out there with similar properties of a fuel car,
> and people will pick that. And cheap is in the range of 20000-25000eu, not
> 60000eu like a Tesla.

Absolutely. I was quite disappointed with the $130k price tag on the new Tesla
X. Brilliant car, but way too expensive.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The way you build cheap cars is to make expensive cars first.

The $130K Model X is the signature version. There are 1000 of them, and you
had to pay $40K to claim a spot. They are fully loaded with every option. The
lower trim packages will be available after those first 1000 are shipped.

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alkonaut
I think the recent technological development of the modern diesel is pretty
impressive. Environmental policies set the bar at 120g/km and all the
manufacturers promptly delivered on that. The engine power inflation didn't
even stop (on the contrary, it continued) so now we drive super-efficient and
super powerful small engines. 200hp, 300Nm and 5L/100km would seem like
sorcery 15 years ago. Now it's par for the course.

This would seem like a massive success for environmental regulation, and then
the VW scandal broke. To me it just seems that the regulation wasn't good
enough: all it would have taken was to have strict regulations for _all_
emissions (Particles, CO2, NOx, ...) and realistic test cycles.

At this point we should probably just tighten the regulations: set the bar at
100g/CO2 and also tighten the other emissions values to whatever a modern
1.4Litre petrol engine emits today. Then tighten the regulations every year.
If manufacturers can squeeze diesels down to those levels, great! If they
can't, hybrids and EV's will take the place of these cars that consumers will
likely find underpowered under the new emission standards.

~~~
charltones
Sadly, although this would seem to be a bonus for the environment, I don't
think it is. A lot of people have been tempted into buying diesels based on
the claimed fuel consumption and emission figures. I was one of them. However,
unless you are regularly making long journeys these figures are a false
economy. I moved closer to my work and ended up making a lot of short trips in
my car. The result? The engine's Exhaust Gas Recycling (EGR) unit clogged up
after several months which cost a fortune to replace (and of course the
environmental impact of more of these units being manufactured). The garage's
suggested fix for this was to make a weekly superfluous trip up and down the
motorway in 4th gear to burn off clogged particulates (thus wasting fuel that
was supposed to be saved). Other 'fixes' I found on the internet were to apply
a kit to bypass the EGR entirely (thus re-emitting the particles that were
supposed to be cleaned up).

My fix? Sell the car and go back to a guzzly petrol model.

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rasz_pl
>My fix? Sell the car

Did you know you could simply delete EGR? And that removing this contraption
would result in smoother engine and ~3% better fuel consumption?

Its as simple as unscrewing this piece of crap and mounting a blocking plate
(plus sensor bypass in some cases). You can even buy easy install delete kits.

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usrusr
The diesel tax advantage that has led VW on it's path to failure is pretty
much exactly the same regulatory accident that caused the SUV infestation in
the US. A taxation difference between luxury and utility, that America
happened to pin to shape and size, while Europe (well, parts of Europe) has
pinned it to the type of fuel. We'll see which mistake is easier to fix.

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rodgerd
What's interesting to me is that it almost seems like VW fooled themselves:
they aggressively pooh-poohed alternatives (hybrid, electic). BMW and Porsche
(now a WV subsidiary, I acknowledge) have been working on both those options,
chasing Toyota in the former.

VW seem to have _convinced themselves_ that they didn't need to look at other
ways of achieving clean(er) engines. Which suggests an element of truth to the
idea there was a "climate of fear" under the now-resigned CEO; it would be
typical of a couple of companies I've contracted to, where phenominal amounts
of money were pissed away because it was career-ending to tell the truth about
a particular strategy not working.

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pvdebbe
In Finland, Diesel is noticeably cheaper than gas (currently below €1.20 per
liter vs gas ~€1.45) and there's an offset in the yearly "diesel powered
vehicle" tax that is around €350-€400 a year, depending on weight. That offset
is easily countered with the Diesel engines outputing better mileage.

I drove a 1988 diesel Mercedes for a year. For a fair sized sedan and for its
age, it traveled with 5.5 L/100 km, or 42 miles per US gallon. I bought a
newer Toyota roughly in the same size class, slightly smaller, and it needs
6.7 liters per 100 km (35 mi/g). I was saving nearly €700 a year by driving an
arguably nicer car (heavier, larger, better isolation). Too bad I had to wreck
it.

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danmaz74
> To complete the large incentive toward diesels, EU governments also
> manipulated the price of diesel fuel itself, keeping it below gasoline. They
> also taxed the registration of diesel-powered passenger cars at a much lower
> rate.

I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but I know as a fact this isn't true
for Italy. Diesel fuel used to be cheaper when most cars were gasoline
powered, and cracking needed to be used to get more gasoline from the same
amount of oil. Now that consumption moved heavily towards diesel, the price is
almost the same as gasoline (as is expected). They are taxed exactly the same
AFAIK.

As for registration fees, until I think 15 years ago we actually had much
higher cost for diesels, because they were more polluting (particulate and
other nasty things). Those surcharges were only scrapped after technological
advances greatly improved those pollution problems.

~~~
DanBC
It's not true for England. Diesel has always been more expensive; the tax has
been the same.

We have good statistics for this.

[https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/oil-
and-...](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/oil-and-
petroleum-products-weekly-statistics)

EDIT: The fuel has been more expensive; there were tax breaks on the vehicles.

~~~
Aoyagi
Oh, I thought all of Europe has that tax imbalance. Good to know there's some
sense left somewhere.

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awjr
I think there's a general conversation that people seem to be ignoring. We
currently use general taxation as a way to discount certain behaviours.
Tobacco/Alcohol duty more than pay for the costs that these forms of
consumption place on society. We are even prepared to consider a sugar tax.

Yet the moment we ask the question, why cars do not pay for their costs,
nothing happens. Fuel duty should cover road maintenance and the health costs
(Killed or Seriously injured, obesity, and pollution related illnesses).

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acd
European car makers has been selling a lie to the public. That Diesel cars are
cleaner because they emit lower Co2 but instead in practise they exhaust a lot
of Nox particles.

It should also be noted that European car makers like Fiat Alfa Romeo invented
the common rail fuel injection system that makes modern Diesel engines so
effective.

In light of the recent Nox scandal. One can question if diesel cars make sense
in big urbanised cities.

Would it not be better to have Electric, Gas hybrid cars in the cities?

