Posted on 06/07/2018 7:20:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new emissions study based on testing methods that are supposedly "difficult-to-impossible to cheat" has revealed that even the latest models of European diesel cars are bad polluters. The first such analysis since the 2015 Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, the results show more than 4,000 vehicle models exceeding nitrogen oxides (NOx) levels set by the European Union.
The new rating system is known as The Real Urban Emissions Initiative (TRUE). With a data set of 375,000 individual cars from across Europe, TRUE uses a beam of light to study a car's exhaust plume.
European cars are broken into numbered groups based on emission standards. All vehicles classified under Euro 3, 4, and 5 diesel levels—motorcylces and older model standard cars—showed "poor" markings for NOx levels. Perhaps more surprising was that newer cars, classified under more recent Euro 6 emission standards, also failed. Nearly every Euro 6 car got a "poor" marking, signifying that the vehicle produces more than 180 mg/km of NOx. A few showed "moderate" markings as well. No diesel car was found to be given a "good" rating.
The results are "a striking confirmation of [the] worst fears about diesel cars” says the International Council on Clean Transportation, an American non-profit which ran the tests, per the Financial Times. However, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) called the results "misleading," saying that the study does not take into account the newest models, which claim to adhere to future Euro6d standards and will come out in 2019.
“As all cars tested as part of this TRUE Initiative were pre-Euro 6d vehicles, the fact that they do not meet emissions requirements that only became mandatory after they were put on the market is not surprising,” says ACEA secretary general Erik Jonnaer, per British site Autocar.
The NGO Transport & Environment, which examines the connection between transportation and health, compared the results to the 2015 Volkswagen "dieselgate" scandal. That year, the German carmaker was revealed to be rigging their diesel cars to pass emissions tests while polluting more on the road. The 2015 scandal was a massive hit to years of cultivating diesel engines as efficient machines.
The new rating "exposes the legacy of dieselgate – tens of millions of dirty diesels that are still on the roads producing the toxic smog we daily breathe. It identifies the worst performing models and regulators must act to require carmakers to clean these up,” says T&E's Greg Archer, per The Guardian.
DIESEL KNOCK LIST!....................
So, do all car companies now face huge fines and jail time, or does VW get a refund?
How much money did Obama's thugs and Al Gore's Thugs get to allow this to happen>
Explains the constant air quality alerts over there
NO, since these are new methods of testing not official. The mfrs say the tests are misleading.................
That black soot coating many cities have comes from diesel powered commune buses, not cars. Communists have not only killed the most people the last 100 years they are always the worst polluters. Just look at China or the USSR’s nuclear power record. Commies, both foreign and domestic, always exempt themselves from their central planning decisions.
Here's the money quote:
“As all cars tested as part of this TRUE Initiative were pre-Euro 6d vehicles, the fact that they do not meet emissions requirements that only became mandatory after they were put on the market is not surprising,” says ACEA secretary general Erik Jonnaer, per British site Autocar.
“or does VW get a refund”
The question I had immediately which I never heard anyone ask was: What would make a multi national Auto maker take the enormous risk by using the computer to fudge the emissions tests? Could it be that maybe just maybe the standards are almost physically impossible to meet.
I sat and watched an interview with a retired German car engineer. He went over the various ways that diesels have advantages, and the four ways that things can fit or never fit.
So you have performance, fuel economy, durability, and emissions. You can generally group these to fit only in certain ways. You can always have great performance, great fuel economy, and great durability....as long as you lessen your desire on emissions.
The minute you raise emissions as your number one priority....at least one of these other three must fall dramatically.
Then he pointed out...most every single German who buys a diesel...has a 100 km or more drive each day...maybe even 300 km. He pointed out that even a decade ago....they had the capacity to build a filter device to take out the particle problem but this meant lesser mileage and lesser performance. No one in VW could sell the leadership on making a vehicle that got lesser mileage, and poor performance.
So here we are today....back to the same problem. I read a month ago that some parts company in Germany has a development where the temperature of the engine would be modified, keeping the same performance, and achieving the air quality desired for today, and that expected upgrade for the next decade. The problem is that virtually everyone is so negative about diesel engines now....that you can’t sell this idea. The company probably put in a minimum of 500-million to develop this, and it’s just too late to make folks happy.
“Explains the constant air quality alerts over there”
Air quality alerts exist now only because of stupid and anti-scientific regulations constantly lowering alert thresholds. It’s all a scare-based scam feeding a whole lot of fear merchants and parasites.
Exactly.
Diesels do not have to be “bad polluters”. As most of the pollution is attributed to various oxides of nitrogen, simply remove the nitrogen from the atmosphere and replace with argon.
Of course, this may not be practical. There is also the option of using various kinds of urea injection systems into the exhaust stream, which reduces the various NOx compounds to carbon dioxide and and free nitrogen. This system is available on most newer European Diesel vehicles.
Also, there is the further option of using an auxiliary alternative fuel, compressed natural gas, as the means by which high power demand is put on the power unit, such as acceleration or heavy load conditions. All internal combustion engines accelerate by overfueling, resulting in incomplete combustion in the instance of Diesel fuel, with the production of much soot. If the overfueling is provided by injection of compressed natural gas, thee is far less soot production, and consequently much less need for the urea injection system referred to above.
Diesel can work, and the technology has progressed to the point that the inherent efficiencies as compared to a spark ignition engine are a sufficiently large advantage to eventually displace the spark-ignition engine altogether.
Personally, I would go to a regenerative and recycling steam external combustion engine, much as powered the Doble steam car of the 1920’s. Double-acting pistons on the high-pressure side of the motor, coupled with a secondary low-pressure set of double-acting pistons, driving a common output shaft, connected directly to the rear axle, eliminated a vast number of multiple gearing systems. And it was all done nearly a hundred years ago.
I have always thought Doble was a great steam car that was killed by the great depression and wondered why the technology was never taken up again.
What fuel did it use to run the boiler to make the steam?
VW simply lied, as did apparently everyone else.
Mazda was screwed over.
I don’t know much about this but IIRC pollution stats are calculated on a per gallon burned basis.If that’s correct it must be noted that my diesel (2014...SCR equipped) gets an honest 53mpg on the Interstate.I’ll bet there aren’t any gas powered cars that weigh what mine does that gets anything close to that.So I wonder how my car does on a “per mile driven” basis rather than a “per gallon burned” one.
https://www.offsetters.ca/education/calculators/car-emissions-calculator
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/ev-emissions-tool
https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/
I’ve pointed out the same with Mazda before ,,, Mazda now has a gasoline engine that runs on the diesel cycle part time and gets about 30% more mpg than a straight gas engine... takes a very fast engine management computer to pull it off...
With minor adjustments, evidently a variety of different liquid fuels could be used.
Cost was $8,000 tp $11,000 in 1923.
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