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After VW was outed for falsifying environmental data in its cars hundreds of thousand of VW vehicles were taken off the road now sitting in storage sites. Hundreds of thousands of cars now lie in lots in the Mojave Desert, a shuttered suburban Detroit football stadium, and a former Minnesota paper mill in America alone. These vehicles are now in the open slowly breaking down with pollutants entering the environment. Is the the modern cost of corporate greed? What can we do to ensure this never happens again?
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Half a Million VW Vehicles Dumped in Graveyards
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Madness takes its toll.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:18PM (76 children)
I know more than most of you about the car industry, because I have been employed by various companies in that industry as a consulting engineer for over 40 years.
And what I know is, nearly ALL the major players in the car industry cheated with respect to emissions and fuel economy testing.
The governments which mandated goals which were unrealistic must share a large portion of the blame. Companies were forced to meet the goals whether the goals were realistic or not. Anyone who is surprised that cheating resulted is a naive idiot.
Governments are not worth a damn when it comes to engineering. If you doubt this, consider the wisdom of daytime running lights which all too often result in drivers not switching on headlights until long after dark, so they are driving without tail lights. Consider the idiocy of RED turn signals, which are legal but which are far less likely to be visually noticed by drivers. Consider ABS that cannot be switched off despite the fact that road conditions such as gravel will result in ABS causing significantly longer stopping distances.
I'm sure some idiots will try to claim that the government should be involved in car design. These idiots are wrong, full stop.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:34PM (6 children)
this is what i thought of when i read this summary. why are these cars abandoned? i have no idea but i'm guessing it has to do with government and their partners in organized crime the insurance companies. i doubt eco conscience drivers just decided to dump their cars and buy more supposedly, eco friendly alternatives. corporate greed? give me a break.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:58PM (4 children)
And
Isn't this the fate of all cars?
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:12AM
They could at least recycle the tires.
The metal is worth recycling.
Batteries.
How much can a car be broken down by a recycling plant?
Or was it deemed too expensive to do so?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:10AM
Sure, but at least they do something useful first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @05:00AM
Don't some countries factor in the recycling costs of cars right up front in the purchase cost? Total cradle to grave sort of thing? I think the cars *must* be recycled.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:08PM
uhh, everyone knows that cars from companies that do what the government says turn into rainbows!
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Sunday December 09 2018, @07:20AM
Part of the punishment for getting busted for cheating on the emissions testing for their diesel vehicles, Volkswagon was forced to offer a buyback the owners of any of the affected vehicles. The offers were fairly generous, and given that recent Volkswagons have rather dubious build quality anyway and repairs are expensive, many owners took Volkswagon up on their offer. So now Volkswagon is stuck with a bunch of vehicles that would need an expensive retrofit with the emissions equipment they should have had in the first place. Otherwise, they can't be resold, and since few would pay much for the cars even if they were retrofitted, instead they sit.
I'm actually surprised that Volkswagon doesn't just ship them off to some other part of the world that doesn't care so much about emissions and sell them for what they can get for them, but perhaps the feds won't allow them to be exported. Since it doesn't seem that Volkswagon cares much about keeping the cars in resalable condition, I'm guessing they'll eventually all be crushed.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:43PM (23 children)
Not so noticeable on dry gravel roads. VERY significant on rainy nights, especially when one side of the vehicle might be splashing through mud and unstable gravel near the edge of the road. I expect it when leaving the house on a rainy night, so I slow quite a lot sooner before reaching the highway. The killer will be on a strange road, when a stop sign pops up as you round a curve. The law will just write you up as another statistic, "driving too fast for conditions".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:53PM (21 children)
Which you would be. If you can't see far enough ahead to be able to stop within that distance, slow down.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:34PM (20 children)
ROFLMAO - I can stop my car within a hundred yards - if the brakes don't just decide to quit working. Which is what ABS is all about. You've been modded insightful, and in most cases, I would agree with the statement and the moderation. But - context. Your brakes have just decided to go on strike, and you're screwed.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NewNic on Saturday December 08 2018, @07:36PM (17 children)
If you approach a stop sign and have to put on the brakes hard enough for the ABS to engage, then, yes, you were driving too fast: you were to blame for the accident.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:20PM (16 children)
You're just not getting it. I live on a quarter mile long county road, with a gravel surface. I approach the end of my road, going no more than 30 mile per hour under any weather conditions. I've described the wet, soggy conditions. The driver's side wheels are on firm, solid gravel bed, with very little loose gravel. The right side gets wet, soft, and squishy. As I approach the highway, I'm naturally slowing down, I don't run right up on the stop sign, then make a panic stop. I may only be going 10 mph, or only 5 mph, when I decide that it's time to brake. Those right side wheels start spazzing, because the slightest braking causes them to "skid". You can feel which wheels are locking and releasing - the left side has a nice steady positive braking thing going on. The right side simply doesn't want to stop.
Having experienced this on hundreds of rainy nights, I expect it. I COULD move over to the center of the road, instead of staying on my side. But - if another car turned into my dead end road while I were in the center, that potential accident would be all my fault. I much prefer to be on my own side of the road, despite the ABS dislike for the softer, unstable surface near the edge of the road.
The original poster to whom I replied stated the case perfectly. ABS brakes don't do their job properly under some weather conditions. All that I have done is to confirm his statement, then observed that if a person were taken by surprise by similar circumstances, he could be in serious trouble.
If all four of my wheels were pulsing from the ABS, then you might have a valid point. The two left wheels are indeed on a good stable surface that doesn't get saturated, even in very heavy rains. If/when they were pulsing, then it would be pretty obvious that I was approaching the stop sign too fast.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:49PM (8 children)
I concur. I live on pavement, but it's in poor condition. The first stop sign I come to when leaving is on a down-hill with potholes and some loose gravel. Anti-lock engages unless I really pussy-foot it. I've also had this happen when reacting to city traffic. Fortunately I've never had an accident with it, but if given the choice I think I might strip out anti-lock entirely. One time I was driving with my Dad in the passenger seat. Some idiot did some thing and I cadence braked--I had read about it someplace and practiced it a few times in an empty parking lot. Tons of old school Detroit sheet metal came to a stop so fast it made us gasp. My Dad didn't think his car was capable of that. Anti-lock can't do it. It's based on the premise that you'll maintain maneuverability more easily, and it sacrifices stopping distance to do that. I can't think of any time I've ever panic-stopped in 30+ years of driving and had time to think about dodging stuff. It was all about stopping. If there was time to dodge, there was time to stab the brake and turn like they taught us back in the days when standard transmissions were still common. I know that anti-lock is better in theory, but how well is that thing actually set up? It can't read road conditions, that's for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:07AM (7 children)
What do you think ABS does? ABS is cadence braking at a far higher rate than any human could possibly achieve.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:20AM
Maybe the problem is that ABS is doing it TOO often for best effect under the conditions being argued about. The human can make judgment calls; the software.. maybe not.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @03:15AM (4 children)
> ABS is cadence braking at a far higher rate than any human could possibly achieve.
Sort of, but you do *not* have the whole story. Deformable surfaces like gravel, slush over ice, mud over clay, possibly loose sand on pavement, all require a different braking strategy than normal hard road surfaces. Every ABS system I've tried (many, but not all), fail to distinguish these cases. The correct strategy is a *very* slow cadence, allowing time for a large wedge of the loose material to accumulate in front of each tire. This provides the best deceleration on these surfaces.
If you just want to stop in a straight line, locking the wheels is the best strategy. If you need to do some steering, release the locked wheels long enough to steer, then re-lock up all the wheels. Often some steering is needed to stay in lane, even on nearly level surfaces, so let the wheels roll over the 'wedges" and then steer (locked wheels are like having rubber pads--no directional control is possible).
Here in the Great Lakes, slush over ice is common. Many knowledgeable drivers either have an older "winter car" w/out ABS, or have figured out how to pull the fuse. In the worst ABS cases (which I've experienced a number of times), I can approach an intersection at 5-10 mph, start braking a hundred feet (30 meters) in advance and feel helpless as the car just rolls into the intersection.
The most recent time it happened, a few weeks back, I was able to make a partial right turn onto the crossing street before the cross traffic got there. So, you could say that ABS was doing its job since it let me steer, but I really just wanted to STOP!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @05:11AM (3 children)
You're dangerously wrong!
> If you just want to stop in a straight line, locking the wheels is the best strategy.
That's not true. The static friction is much lower than the dynamic friction under almost all cases, as the surface rubber softens and road material lubricates the interface. Note that rolling is static friction at any instant (contacting points stay aligned), and skidding is dynamic friction (contacting points on surfaces shift relative to each other).
Locking the wheels is the best strategy under some conditions, but DEFINITELY not in the general case!
Source: lots of easy to duckduckgo theory, and I've confirmed with my own force studies on bike wheels. Setup never included intentional particulate (sand, gravel) or pooled water, but results obtained for slick-wet and dry. Rubber on cement and asphalt and wood produces more backwards force in stiction than in skid.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @06:51AM
You missed the context (on purpose?), sorry that I didn't make it painfully clear. I only meant that locked wheels are the best strategy for deformable surfaces - which was the clear topic of my post, this whole thread is in response to Runaway and his gravel road.
What I wrote (and you quoted):
> If you just want to stop in a straight line, locking the wheels is the best strategy.
What I should have written:
> If you just want to stop in a straight line on a deformable surface, locking the wheels is the best strategy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @07:01AM (1 child)
> ... my own force studies on bike wheels.
Upright or recumbent bicycle? On an upright, any serious amount of braking on the front wheel leads to pitch over.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday December 10 2018, @12:30AM
Braking my old Schwinn (which was heavy -- 40 pounds on the scale) on ice... had to use rear brake ONLY. Touch the front brake and the whole bike would instantly swap ends, making for an exciting ride...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:52AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:27AM (5 children)
If the wheels on the right side are locking and releasing, then without ABS they'd just lock and slide providing LESS effective braking.
It might be better if your brake system could operate with more subtlety and provide still more braking power, but your brakes are hardly "on strike" and you aren't better off without ABS.
On a late rainy night when there's no traffic around, pull the fuse on your ABS and give it a try. But be careful, you might be in for a surprise.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @06:58AM
> If the wheels on the right side are locking and releasing, then without ABS they'd just lock and slide providing LESS effective braking.
Probably not true. If the wheels on the right side are in deformable mud and gravel, locking them will build up a wedge of loose material in front of the tires and this will (in many cases) give more deceleration than with ABS operating.
Yes, try without the ABS. Pulling the ABS fuse is a common strategy by knowledgeable drivers in my area (Great Lakes) where slush over ice is frequent. In my case, I keep an older "winter car" that does not have ABS. I learned to pump the brakes as a kid (someone else called this "cadence braking"). On slush there is some skill in deciding when to pump vs. when to lock (for a short time) and then release if steering is needed. None of the ABS systems I've tried (many but not all) are not "smart" enough to detect a deformable surface and change strategy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @07:10AM (3 children)
Without ABS (and without manual brake pumping) the loose material builds up in front of the tires. Given the bad surface, this is your best option. Pushing those piles of loose material is better than nothing; with ABS you get nothing.
ABS is OKish on normal asphalt that is perhaps a bit moist with light rain. Experienced non-ABS drivers can do as well however, by manually pumping the brakes.
We have ABS because the typical driver is a distracted or sleepy idiot, and because mildly slippery conditions are more common than loose surfaces. Under less typical conditions, such as an experienced driver on very loose gravel or sand, ABS makes things worse.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:17AM (2 children)
Perhaps it is necessary to state clearly for most people:
On dry, stable surfaces, ABS in a panic stop is frightening when an old-school driver uses it for the first time in a panic stop. I thought that I understood how it would work, only to find that my concept was pretty wildly skewed from reality. (Panic stop means I should have begun to stop many seconds, perhaps a whole minute before I did attempt to stop.) Until the first time you NEED ABS, you are accustomed to wheels locking up, but with ABS, they don't lock. No screeching, no skid marks, just brake and release, over and over. And, it's frightening, because your brain just KNOWS that you're not stopping quickly enough.
It's only after the fact that you can evaluate what has just occurred, and you can compare it with the old-timey skid.
In those conditions, yes, ABS really does work well. And, the same can be said for stable, but wet road surfaces, with no ice. In these conditions, ABS prevents skidding that can cost lives. It's difficult if not impossible to induce a skid in a car with ABS under these conditions.
All through this discussion, however, we have been discussing all those OTHER conditions that auto engineers don't, and can't, exactly plan for.
I will say that when all four wheels brake independently of each other, you probably have the best all-around setup. But, it is necessary to point out that the whole system needs to be serviced regularly to be reliable. When any component decides to quit, for whatever reason, that ABS isn't going to work as intended. And, you will not discover that fact until just exactly the wrong moment.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
> On dry, stable surfaces, ABS in a panic stop is frightening when an old-school driver uses it for the first time in a panic stop.
What, the first time you tried your ABS was in an actual panic situation? Where is your curiosity, did you lose it in the Navy? Is your car/truck new enough that it has other "nanny" features like ESC (stability control)? If so, I strongly suggest you find a safe place to try them out, so you won't be surprised when they take away (some of) your control of the vehicle.
The first time I was in a car with ABS (early 1980s) I drove to a quiet/empty/dry/hard road and tried it for myself, first at a low speed, then working up to higher speeds. Got used to the noise and pulsation and after that I wasn't surprised when it engaged. Also, tried steering when ABS engaged, it works surprisingly well, in general it seems that the harder you turn the car the less braking you get...
Now, if I'm on a marginal surface (around here could be fresh snow), I still look for an opening in traffic and test the brakes to see how much stopping power I've got. Often this engages the ABS, no harm done and I've mentally "calibrated" the surface.
Te worst is slush stirred up around intersections, the wheels can lock so easily on slush that ABS nearly defeats all braking. That's when I really want the ABS-OFF switch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:27PM
Uhhhhhhhhh, sorry, that's not what I said. What I said was, the first time I made a genuine panic stop, it was a frightening experience. Maybe a better way to state the case is, I didn't have faith in the brakes. Maybe I didn't play around long enough, or hard enough to learn to have faith in them. But, yes, like yourself, I've made use of empty lots in the rain, and in the snow, as well as learning how a "new" car handles. It can be surprising when a "sporty" looking car handles like an ancient station wagon, but a pickup or an SUV is almost sporty. It's always best to discover those things in an empty lot.
(Score: 1) by kai_h on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:42PM
I don't know what's up with your ABS, but the ABS in my car deals with this specific situation quite well.
I went to a drive day held by my car manufacturer where they had a slippery vinyl tarpaulin covered with water covering half of a straight piece of track. The wet tarp was covering one side of the track and extended down the track for ~50 metres. We were instructed to drive at 50 km/h and as soon as the wheels were on the tarp (the left-hand side, IIRC) we were to engage emergency braking (try and push the brake pedal through the floor). The ABS in the car handled the situation perfectly and the car stopped in a straight line.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:17AM (1 child)
ABS doesn't even engage unless you are at risk of breaking traction. It's true that the most skilled drivers can stop slightly shorter than simple ABS systems can, but most drivers are not in that category, including most drivers that think they are (this likely includes you until proven otherwise). And if your ABS is independent, even the most skilled driver can't beat it since the brake pedal doesn't offer individual wheel control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @01:05AM
But on soft surfaces, breaking traction can be the right answer.
It's called cadence braking -- you alternate between braking and steering. Lock the wheels to plow through the soft material for maximum braking, then as the car starts to drift off-axis (or as needed to follow the road, avoid obstacles, or whatever) you lift off the brake pedal and steer. Repeat (in a cadence, hence the name) until you're at a speed and direction you're happy with.
I agree most drivers aren't the mythical expert that can outperform even simple ABS on wet blacktop, but you don't have to be; it's actually pretty easy to outperform ABS in soft materials, if your car lets you do it.
The problem is, ABS is optimized for urban/highway driving, where wet blacktop is the number one killer surface. Which is great for them, but it screws rural drivers who are more likely to drive on muddy or snowy (unplowed) roads, and it screws learning drivers by not letting them learn how to drive in snow and mud.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @07:34AM
You probably have a parking/emergency brake that isn't connected to ABS. It may even have entirely different brake pads.
If you have it as a hand lever between the seats, this is easy. Hold the button, and brake with your hand.
If it is a foot pedal with a release handle, it is decently easy. Hold the release handle, and use the pedal.
If it is a foot pedal that is push-to-release, you're screwed. Don't buy those brands.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:48PM (13 children)
so, the vehicles were harmful to the environment but nothing should be done? do you also like corporations to skip it's share of the fuck up?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:02PM (9 children)
They could have fined car companies the cost of the pollution times a punitive multiplier, and left the purchased cars on the road.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:26PM (7 children)
How do you determine this multiplier when we don't know how long these cars would remain on the road?
I have a better idea: fine them out of existence. What, you don't like government overreach? I don't like breathing in polluted air. I guess there could be a compromise. How about the government tells the car companies how much pollution is acceptable and the car companies stay within those limits? If they can't stay within those limits then they can't sell in that market. And if no one can stay within those limits then no one can sell into that market, which will result in the government reevaluating and adjusting the limits.
The "no car company could meet the requirements" argument to justify cheating is bullshit. If no company could meet the requirements then the requirements would have to change. By cheating these companies not only broke the law, and poisoned the environment, but they enabled the unrealistic limits to remain in force.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:34PM (6 children)
Another example of this is the destruction of the hemp industry after the Second World War due to anti-marijuana regulations. The US didn't "reevaluate and adjust" the limits. They just destroyed the industry.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:41PM (5 children)
Some perspective on the destruction of the hemp industry. In a word, nylon. Or, in a name, DuPont. The DuPont family had a lot of monetary reasons to push for outlawing hemp, because their nylon was going to replace hemp in everything from rope, to sails, to clothing.
These are the same DuPonts who would later enjoy protection from first the French, then the US governments in Vietnam.
In a more sane, rational world, hemp would never have been outlawed. In this crazy world in which we live, the DuPont family offered a replacement for hemp, so gubbermint proceeded to pursue it's insane agenda.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NewNic on Saturday December 08 2018, @07:51PM (3 children)
If nylon was going to replace hemp anyway, what benefit is there in outlawing it?
Hemp used for sails and rope was mostly replaced by terylene (Dacron) not nylon -- ICI, not DuPont. Unless you are talking about spinnakers, which must be a tiny market. It's possible that there was a a short transition period, but nylon isn't really suitable for most sails or ropes.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:07PM (1 child)
That's just it - nylon may or may not have eventually replaced hemp. Nylon does have advantages over hemp, but hemp also has advantages over nylon. The advantages were never really tested, especially by the Navy, because the hemp was simply removed. No head-to-head competition was permitted, and commander's personal preferences were never given any consideration.
Personally, I have never used a dacron rope. Nylon is pretty much all I ever used in the Navy. Since my Navy days, I've used a lot of polyethylene and a lot of nylon rope, no dacron.
Keep in mind that hemp was not obsoleted, it was outlawed instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:49PM
We know what you're really getting at. Damn kids these days and their reefer madness!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @11:37PM
Not that synthetics might not have gotten a benefit, but the taxation on hemp started much earlier and was due to the southern cotton/textile industry not wanting hemp, which could be grown with less labor, poorer soil, and in harsher northern climates to take away from its financial position. Hemp was actually illegal before WW1 due to tax stamps and only exempted due to the demand for ropes and uniforms during WW1/2 before having tax stamps denied after the war causing all the farmers who had produced hemp to stop since they couldn't renew the necessary tax stamps to continue farming hemp.
Source: Conservative Independent Businessman family member.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday December 08 2018, @11:56PM
It wasn't just DuPont. Hearst had huge timber investments that he could use for paper if hemp was outlawed, and the tobacco companies didn't like hemp competing with tobacco.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:31AM
They could flash the ECUs and put them back on the road right now, fullt compliant with the law.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:01PM
Building the vehicles was probably more environmentally significant than the difference between claimed and actual pollutant emissions over the life of the vehicle.
It makes sense to punish the company, but it doesn't make sense to compound the environmental hit in the process.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
Were those vehicles harmful? That hasn't been shown.
If no actual harm was done, then yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @12:47AM
Yes, it has. Truly you are an idiot, khallow. You should stick to denying AGW and sucking up to rich people.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @04:49PM
What does it matter what color the tail turn signals are, when people aren't even using them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:18PM (1 child)
I've also got 40+ years consulting experience to various car manufacturers. My take is that they cheated on emissions and fuel economy because it was cheaper that way. Which goes back to the first post about greed. When new stricter rules have been mandated, the car industry has had its day in court to fight the rules on technical grounds, and often there has been compromise.
Not sure when this started, but as early as 2009 I've seen a car with DRLs + a sensor. It turns on the normal headlights when it's dark, including the tail lights. This one happened to be a smaller Toyota.
And I'm 100% with you on ABS, around here we often have slush over ice. Locking the wheels (to build up a wedge in front of the tires) actually slows the car down. A relatively easy solution would be for the system to notice that the driver is pumping the brakes (pre-ABS technique) and conclude that the driver is competent to take over--then switch the ABS off for that braking event.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Sunday December 09 2018, @07:32AM
People don't understand ABS. The point of ABS is that it allows you to still steer the vehicle while it's slowing down. That's what it does. It's not intended to stop the car quicker, it's intended to allow the driver to still control the car. Because otherwise once you've locked the wheels on a car without ABS you have no steering control and the car is going to slide wherever it wants to - unless you are quick enough to realize whats happening and start pumping brakes to get some control back.
So yes, without ABS you can stop a car quicker by locking the wheels and letting it slide. That's fine I suppose if there's nothing in the path of where the car is sliding. But I'd much rather have the car with ABS, especially if something is in the way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:21PM (3 children)
I think the red as a turning signal color is fine, if the whole tail light is used as the turning signal, and i do not see a reason why it wouldn't be. Or if the turning signal is far enough away from the tail light. I personally don't like orange turning signals. It just plain looks ugly, like a thing built from many different colored legos, but then again current cars are fugly anyway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)
Found the clueless interior decorator.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)
I know what was said and what i said. I am an engineer. If you hadn't called me clueless i might've taken your post as a joke.
The orange color does not bring any advantage other than perhaps being somewhat more visible, when the blinker and the tail light are on at the same time and close to each other. So there are options to that practicality which also look better. And i told you the options in my previous post, perhaps read them.
Like i said, personally i find it ugly. Just like the low profile tires and plasti-chrome on a car with no other chrome parts than the few pieces of trim and the badge, which also are not practical in any level.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @12:02AM
To something like 7% of the male population and 1% of the female, red is a rather dull color. Orange is much brighter.
You are a clueless interior decorator. Or possibly a fashion designer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:37PM (3 children)
By the looks of it, the fuel economy standards for passenger cars in question were 35 mpg, with a target of 39 mpg. You tell me that's unrealistic, but I'm driving a car that gets around 48 mpg (not just advertising, that matches my own observations and math) and was built a decade before the 39 mpg standard was in effect. And my mother used to drive a Camry that still got 40+ mpg that had been built around 1992. If you're trying to claim that those standards are unrealistic from an engineering standpoint, then how come the technology has existed to meet them for a long time?
You've got a lot of nerve saying something couldn't have been done when there were people already doing it. Just because your company couldn't figure out how to do it for a price that the suits liked doesn't mean it couldn't have been done.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Farkus888 on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:22PM (2 children)
Those cars ran far leaner than modern cars. Better fuel economy but far worse emissions per mile driven. As a closer to the article example older dodge ram diesels often got 20 mpg. The controls to reduce nox emissions brought that down to 12 or so real world mpg. Both of those with the same 6bt inline 6 cylinder. The simple explanation is that leaner air fuel ratios means hotter combustion and hotter means worse emissions.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday December 08 2018, @10:49PM (1 child)
I don't think so. The introduction of catalytic converters in the mid '70s eliminated lean burn engines before they went into production.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @11:48PM
Honda's CVCC was a form of lean burn engines, and in fact didnt' require catalytic converters until they were mandated in... 79? 80? All of the modern ultra efficient engines are also superlean burning engines in low load cruise modes. HOWEVER, due to the the mandated catalytic converter requirement, most engines had to maintain a minimum richness to bring the catalytic converters up to operating temperature and then maintain a stochiometric air fuel balance to keep the cat at temperature. The ideal ratio is 14.7:1, but the ratios used in practice were 13.5:1 for naturally aspirated vehicles and 12.5:1 for turbocharged vehicles. What ended up changing this significantly was the introductions of both cheap wideband o2 sensors, and heated o2 cats with PCMs capable of temperature regulation. Those two features, combined with EFI/timing allowed ultra-lean engines to become practical again, combined with variable valve timing it allowed them to provide either fuel economy or performance comparable to much lower efficiency engines.
The Fieros with iron dukes and a few other cars during the early 1980s had ultra-high efficiency lean burning engines, but the torque curve was anemic and Americans demanded drivability over fuel efficiency except in a small range of mostly japanese econobox vehicles.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Whoever on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:40PM (9 children)
Tell us something we don't know. This was obvious from the start, because none of the other car companies ratted out VW. They must have known.
No one force VW to sell diesel cars. Furthermore, many of the cars have now been modified to comply, so the goals were not unreasonable.
I don't think it is the DRLs that are to blame for that. Instead, it is the illumination of the dashboard when the headlights are off (or just the DRLs are on) that I believe is the cause of so many people driving without putting on their lights.
No going to argue with you on that one. But note that red turn signals are not mandated by laws or regulations. Amber turn signals are legal, so it's more of an example that a lack of regulations allows car manufacturers to make less safe choices in vehicle design.
The real point of ABS is that it allows you to steer around an obstruction under heavy braking.
Without government involvement, we would likely still not have seat belts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:50PM (7 children)
Seatbelts were standard equipment in automobiles long, long, LONG before government mandated their use. That mandate is a tangled web of insurance industry coercion, and federal government corruption. The STATE governments resisted seat belt laws for decades, literally. The feds were bribed, coerced, and otherwise motivated by the insurance industry to force the states to pass seatbelt laws.
However wise you might consider seatbelt laws to be, you don't owe any thanks to government for those laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @12:56AM (6 children)
Once again our dear Runaway is factually incorrect. He also is wrong. And somewhat ignorant. They let this bozo drive an eighteen-wheeler? I somehow feel less safe on the roads.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 09 2018, @01:20AM (5 children)
It's your ignorance that is flapping in the wind, little anonymous coward.
https://itstillruns.com/history-seat-belts-5110697.html [itstillruns.com]
Seat belts were standard equipment when I was a young child. No one used them, but they were there. Many vehicles didn't have seat belts in the rear seat. If you know anyone with a car from the sixties, ask if you can poke around, looking for the seat belts. You won't find a shoulder harness - all you'll find is the belt. You'll probably have to reach down behind the seat cushion to find it, unless it is used frequently. There is nothing to prevent it sliding down behind the seat.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday December 09 2018, @01:49AM (4 children)
You are conflating two separate issues:
1. When did fitment of seat belts as standard equipment become mandatory
2. When was wearing seat belts mandatory.
As far as I can tell, the fitment of seat belts started to become mandatory in 1961 (Wisconsin) and was fully mandatory in 1966. In 1961, the fitment of seat belts was by no means universal. It took legislation or the threat of legislation to make seat belts standard equipment on all cars. The histories that I can find credit Ralph Nader for the 1966 legislation, not the set of lobbying interests that you list. But who cares? It took legislation to make them standard equipment on all cars.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:06AM (3 children)
I don't think I conflated anything. Please re-read my original post - https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=28965&page=1&cid=771619#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] The post I replied to implied that seat belts wouldn't exist without government action. The fact is, seat belts existed long before the feds or the states mandated it. Seat belt usage is a whole 'nother story. And, those usage laws were almost universally passed at the behest and coercion of the insurance industry.
I will acknowledge that first some states, then the federal government did pass laws requiring seat belts in all seats, eventually. Those laws ended any options for vehicles to be equipped with belts, or not be equipped. In my opinion, it seems that the laws trailed well behind efforts by the insurance industry, and auto manufacturer's willingness to install those seat belts. Ralph Nader had a lot to do with auto safety, but let's remember that he used the court of public opinion as effectively as he used the court of law.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:56AM
Well by no means should you allow pesky facts to get in the way of your "opinion."
The long quotation you provided in a previous post states that manufacturers were mostly providing belts by 1962 or 1963, while the federal government didn't mandate them until later. Thus, I guess, your "opinion" is that manufacturers adopted then with no government prodding.
Except your source conveniently omits the fact that states started mandating them in 1961. By 1962, six states mandated them, and over the course of 1963, that grew to 23 states. At that point, it no longer made sense for manufacturers to insist on keeping them "optional" to try to create distinctions between markets to save a few bucks.
Perhaps manufacturers would have eventually adopted them as standard anyway (and some manufacturers were headed in that direction), but claiming government pressure had no role here is simply factually wrong... Regardless of your "opinion."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:05AM (1 child)
Let me quote from your post:
"Seatbelts were standard equipment in automobiles long, long, LONG before government mandated their use."
See that: on the one hand installation, on the other use. That's two separate issues that you are conflating.
If your post should be read as mandating their installation, then your post is at best a misrepresentation and at worst false. They were not standard equipment in cars for a long time before they were required by law. Except for one or two smaller manufacturers, almost no manufacturers installed them as standard equipment in the late '50s. In other words, a niche, not widely installed. Even Nash did not install seat belts in all its models.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @10:16PM
That's our Runaway! Dumber than a bag 'o hammers, that one!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @06:54PM
And we would still be driving Ford Pintos, or at least rear-ending them just to watch them burn, and cutting off Chevy Corvairs, just to watch them flip over for no reason. You know, if it wasn't for Volvo and the three-point restraint system, . . .
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 08 2018, @08:49PM (1 child)
Because Mom is so short she has to sit on a pillow when she drives.
This led Dad to assert that an airbag deployment would kill her.
I don't know either way but he was convinced of it, and was a top-notch engineer.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @01:14AM
"Because Mom is so short she has to sit on a pillow when she drives."
But her legs are quite long?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Saturday December 08 2018, @10:24PM (3 children)
There's a difference between "we pass the test, but it's not how people drive normally" and VW cheating (which was "Hey, we're being tested, literally kill the car performance so we don't get caught polluting but never, ever, ever do this in real-world usage".
The mandated goals weren't that unrealistic. A small handful of companies got caught REALLY taking the piss . They now make cars that are compliant. Everyone else was making cars that were compliant. None of them needed to cheat anywhere near as badly as VW did or, in some cases, at all. Hence the goals were tough, sure, but do-able. What VW didn't want was to do the groundwork and/or let people see how inefficient their cars actually were. And that's come back to bite them a billion times more than any mandated goal and compliance with it.
And guess what? If your product is legislated out of profitable production - make something else. ALL of those car manufacturers had options. The options they chose were "build such a car", "build a car that plays the test", or "build a car that outright lies while polluting the fuck out of everyone". There's a fourth option: "Stop building diesel cars, or price them appropriately". Do you see Coke or Pepsi whining like shit because of the EU sugar taxes imposed on soft drinks? No. They put their prices up, carried on, focused on other areas. And that's a sugary drink, not a car capable of killing people and literally choking up the air with fumes.
For decades scientists couldn't work out why low-emission zones weren't actually all that low-emission. It turns out that some manufacturers were literally fucking people over and deliberately polluting. Hell, they should pay for it. It's like making a 747 that "can hold enough fuel for 10 hours of flight" that crashes after 8 - and they know that, and still lie about that, and even go to the extent of making the clocks in the cabin read false times whenever they are in testing.
The goals were not unrealistic, they were necessary. Companies thinking they can just ignore the law and pollute wholesale for decades because of their profit margin (how's that working out for ya?) were unrealistic.
I wouldn't touch a government-engineered car, no. But then, when they say that all cars can only have one wheel now, it's up to the manufacturer's to work around that, and explain why that's a bad idea, not just make four-wheeled car that has a fake single wheel visible from the outside and then LITERALLY LIE whenever it's tested.
DRL have been around for decades. Drivers that are too stupid to realise they can't see shouldn't be on the road anyway. The problem there is really LIT STREETS. Ride down a country lane with just side-lights or DRL and see how far you get. People being dickheads is the reason you have DRL anyway - because people are too stupid to let themselves be seen because they can see out the front of their car "so they must be visible". A 5W LED on your car is not the end of the world.
Red turn signals are stupid and American. European ones are and always have been orange. For good reason. But your cars have been like that for 50 years and you've not done a damn thing about it. Nor about seatbelts being required. But if a driver is ignoring a flashing red light, again you have bigger problems than what the government wrote on a vehicle manufacturing standard.
ABS is demonstrably, provably and repeatable better than a human driver. Except on gravel. Question: Why are you going fast enough on loose gravel to make this an issue? My car actually warns me when traction isn't correct for the ABS to function properly, and temporarily turns off the ABS. That would most likely be the result of a government-mandated safety feature. Because, sure as fuck, manufacturers aren't going to put that kind of thing in their cars AT ALL until they are forced to, especially when you consider that they would ACTIVELY rather just pollute everything and lie about it in government tests. You think if it was an unregulated market they'd bother with airbags or ABS?
The government absolutely should not be involved in car design. The government SHOULD however tell you what the car needs to do, and if it isn't capable of it, you can't sell that car. Which is what they do. They don't care if you use electronic ABS, mechanical ABS, or some quantum-entanglement ABS that does the same job. They say "Cars need to be able to stop in this distance from this speed in these road conditions, at least comparable with what we know is capable with modern technology". How you actually do that is up to you. Case in point: Electronic handbrakes. They don't care whether the handbrake is electronic or cabled. So long as it's independent, operates in the case of primary brake failure, reliable, and passes the same standards as a cabled one would. You might not like it, but it's the car manufacturer that mandates how gadgets like that manifest themselves. The government just say what needs to be achieved. And in the case of the EU, that's 27 governments all agreeing on that. And, for damn sure, if the car manufacturer can say "we're going to totally change how braking is done, how steering is done, how engines are managed, how timing is achieved, how the passengers are protected, how windscreens are made, etc." (just to pick a few of the areas where features that were never standard were put into luxury models, proved popular, got into lots of cars, and proved themselves so much that only THEN did they get mandated by government standards), then they can stop fucking over consumers by deliberately cheating on tests that impact not only the driver, or passengers, but everyone who lives in a city.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday December 08 2018, @10:57PM (2 children)
Not true. In the UK, they were required to be amber [orange] for cars registered after 1958. Not before.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/may/17/new-rules-car-indicators-1956 [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @02:26AM (1 child)
So what color were they then before?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:08AM
Some were red. Some did not flash. Some were little "flags" that were raised on the "B" pillar.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 08 2018, @11:32PM
Just pull the ABS fuse and call it a day.
It's the first thing I do on any car of my own I'm going to be driving. I haven't yet had a problem braking in any of them, although a few have particularly mushy pedal feel in comparison to fully manual braking cars.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:07AM
Don't EVEN try blaming the bad ol' gubermint for this one. The facts don't support you. Those cars could be re-flashed and become street legal today. If they had a urea system on them, they could have all the performance they were advertised to have and meet standards just fine.
Government DID keep out of the engineering and said instead, just do whatever you want as long as you meet the standards, and here we have the result. The engineers knew what to do, but management decided to take a different more criminal approach.
Shame on you!
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday December 09 2018, @11:50AM
I pretty much agree 100% with your post, thanks for sharing! One bit though:
> Consider ABS that cannot be switched off despite the fact that road conditions such as gravel will result in ABS causing significantly longer stopping distances.
I have always been taught the main reason for ABS is not to shorten stopping distances. It is in order to allow some ability to change direction while stopping. It is basically automated cadence braking.
If you lock your wheels because you slammed on the brakes instinctively, you are essentially sliding, and have no control what so ever. To prevent this, ABS pulsates the brakes, allowing limited turning of the wheels. The idea being that even with your foot stomped on the brake, turning the steering wheel will result in the car changing direction. It was decided that the longer stopping distances of ABS was worth the ability to keep in control of the car during the emergency stop.
In a non ABS car, if you are about to hit something, and you slam on the brakes, you can't turn to avoid the obstacle. You have to do one of the most unnatural things, and actually take your foot off the brake while hurtling towards an object in order to be able to steer out of the way of the object.
I actually had to do that once, and it call it luck, quick thinking on my part, but I managed to avoid the collision.
I can tell you now, it is one of the most unnatural things ever when rapidly skidding towards an object with the brakes slammed on, to actually take your foot off the brake. I found it psychologically very hard to do, my foot had trouble actually following my brain commands. Once I did it though, the wheels started turning, the tyres found grip and I could steer out of the way and avoid a nasty accident. However had I not done that, I would have hit the obstacle at quite some speed.
ABS avoids that completely. You can slam on the brake, turn the wheel, and the car will still be steerable (unless you are on a surface with almost no grip whatsoever, but then braking won't help you, ABS or not).
Without ABS, the right thing to do is cadence braking, but how many people, under those circumstances, would do that? Fact is, a lot of people struggle with the basics of operating a vehicle. Even simple things like parking. Quite a few struggle with clutch control and gear shifting. Training them up on cadence braking, and then hoping they actually remember to use it while in the process of having a potential accident, is a bit too much to ask of them. Easier to build a system that does something similar automatically.
Worst thing is, they don't even teach cadence braking anymore, because cadence braking in an ABS car just messes up both systems. After my little near miss my dad taught me it (up till then he assumed I was taught it at driving school like he was decades ago)
In some cases, ABS causes more problems then it solves, especially on non hard surfaces (I too find ABS on gravel or roads with dirt on them to be dangerous). Which is why it (used to be) something you could switch off (along with the traction control, which also buggers up at times), with the default being "on" as most people drive on tarmac.
However, the brainacs in governments of the EU made it a law that these things must not be switched off ever, so now you either drive an older car, or start pulling out fuses (at least until the braniacs stop you from being able to do that too).
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday December 09 2018, @08:04PM
This works fine on my old truck where the dash lights are wired to the parking/headlights. As soon as it is dark enough, namely a cloudy day, to not see my speedometer, I turn on the parking lights or headlights. Car manufacturers are at fault by now turning on the dash (or screen) lights when the car is started. This would be a problem without daytime running lights, at that when I had vehicles old enough to not have running lights, I still often forgot to turn on the headlights till quite dark, dangerous when I had a grey vehicle.
So combination of government and industry bad engineering.
So more government regulation required? I'd guess the red turn lights were meant to be a grandfathered thing but for some stupid reason the car manufacturers kept producing them.
Don't have enough experience with ABS to comment.
While you have a point about government being too aggressive pushing some of this stuff, the alternative is manufacturers ignoring stuff until too late. Just have to look at the American auto market in the '70's, though in an ideal free market world, they would have all died. Instead there has been how much money pumped into the industry to protect jobs.