Aftermarket truck mods pollute as much as 9 million extra pickups:
As automotive subcultures go, intentionally modifying your truck's diesel engine to make extra pollution is one of the more antisocial ones out there. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, diesel trucks with disabled emissions controls are far more widespread than you might think and emit more pollution than the diesel engines that got Volkswagen such hefty fines.
In 2016, Volkswagen agreed to a pair of court settlements totaling nearly $16 billion after it was caught selling diesel vehicles fitted with emissions defeat devices. In total, the VW scandal affected more than half a million cars and SUVs sold in the US, which produced up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) when in daily operation.
According to the EPA's Air Enforcement Division, the use of aftermarket emissions defeat devices by diesel truck owners rivals that problem. In a report first obtained by The New York Times, it estimates that 550,000 medium trucks have had their emissions systems tampered with over the last decade—fully 15 percent of the diesel trucks on US roads.
[...] They sure are dirty. The EPA report says that 570,000 tons of excess NOx and 5,000 tons of excess diesel particulates are the result over the course of these trucks' lifetimes. Or to put it another way, "due to their severe excess NOx emissions, these trucks have an air quality impact equivalent to adding more than 9 million additional (compliant, non-tampered) diesel pickup trucks to our roads."
(Score: 3, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:58AM (1 child)
Mah freedumb to shit in your lungs is guaranteed by constitution. Or something. Same with masks.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:35PM
Yeah -- lets burn this city down!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @12:15PM (4 children)
Some of the things they mentioned in the comments are that when parts break it can be more expensive to use EPA compliant replacement parts and so truck owners just replace them with much cheaper non-EPA compliant parts.
One possibility mentioned could be that the EPA limits what they approve and so the competition is limited. Some were also speculating that this could be due to illegitimate conflicts of interests with EPA employees (hard to know, this could be the same with the FDA as well) but some of it, of course, is due to the fact that making something EPA compliant naturally costs more and so it's cheaper to use non-compliant parts. People were saying that the only thing to be considered should be the smog output with respect to what the EPA allows and nothing else and that there should be more EPA compliant replacement parts on the market by different vendors.
There were some other discussions in the comments worth reading as well for those more interested.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/11/25/2359218/illegal-tampering-by-diesel-pickup-owners-is-worsening-pollution-epa-says [slashdot.org]
(Score: 2, Touché) by EJ on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:24PM (3 children)
Please do not link to Slashdot. Why do you want to make us all dumber by going there?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:41PM
I also linked to Soylentnews from slashdot. I also want to make them dumber for coming here. The more we read both sites the dumber we get.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday December 03 2020, @04:11PM (1 child)
Hey, don't invoke the Green site's name! Don't you know it works like Voldemort, if you say it out loud, BizX executives will emerge from the aether and try to eat your face?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @03:45AM
just like headcrabs
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 03 2020, @12:20PM (29 children)
With the numbers these guys are throwing around, I should be seeing these trucks all around me.
Uhhhh, hey, who else noticed that little factoid? The trucks under discussion are NOT your typical privately owned vehicles. 8,000 pound is a four ton truck, generally used for local deliveries, Fedex, UPS and the like. 14,000 pounds are more like hotshot trucks, and heavy duty industrial trucks. An F-350 Super Duty or larger. These are mostly commercial and/or farm/ranch vehicles. So, the article isn't really about Bubba Redneck and his one ton dually, modified to roll coal.
There are more than half a million of these vehicles? They say ~15% of the trucks on the road? Huh - sounds like the EPA and the DOT have been falling down on their jobs. Both are supposed to police commercial and industrial vehicles.
Now, for just a tiny bit of history: Back in the day of naturally aspirated diesel engines, the fuel pump alone determined how much power you could get out of an engine. Turning the fuel pump up would indeed contribute to a thick black column of smoke coming out of the stacks. Today, you'll have a hard time finding a diesel engine without a turbocharger. People who want more power from a turbocharged engine will screw around with the turbo, or just replace the turbo with a larger turbo. That sort of modification is NOT a major contributor to pollution.
The author's story just falls apart in so many ways, it's pathetic.
I'm NOT believing that medium duty commercial trucks are polluting to the extent claimed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @12:41PM (4 children)
Around here the profile is: any two bit contractor who finally landed a decent job or two goes out and gets himself the F-350 Super Duty, jacks it up 'till the door sill is about 4' off the ground, puts in a couple of vertical chrome stacks, runs some "Blu Def" through it and modifies it to be able to roll coal on demand.
Seriously though, most pickup owners around here are good people, polite considerate drivers, keep their trucks in good clean running condition, and don't drive like redneck assholes whose only rage outlet is their small dick compensating vehicle. Most: I'd say around 60%.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:31PM
Funnily enough, you've also accurately described ~90% of the people I know with emissions-modified trucks (leaving aside "good clean" from the exhaust emissions perspective, of course).
The remaining ~10% are indeed assholes.
- D
(Score: 4, Interesting) by anubi on Friday December 04 2020, @02:20AM (2 children)
I run a 7.3L International Harvester diesel in my old Ford E350. Completely mechanical. All gears, cams, pistons, rods, cranks, and shafts. It's such a simple thing. Drives like a walrus. But I am not a hotshot driver either. Robustness and reliability are at the top of my list. Passing the BMW is at the bottom.
I am limited by how much air I can naturally aspirate.
I disagree with a poster above about being limited by the amount of fuel. If I floor this thing, even with stock minimal injection pump settings, it will roll coal, and I really hate to do that. It makes a mess in the air, neither did I get full benefit from the incompletely burned fuel. More power means I get a turbo. That means more stress on the block, which negates why bought this thing in the first place. I wanted very conservative design. I want this thing to last me for the rest of my life. I don't want want a "trophy wife" that's a maintenance nightmare, then leaves me anyway... Hollywood style. At this stage in life, I want something I can count on to be there for me. I don't want the prettiest tools in town, I want things that don't break down all the time. And don't run me to the poor house with financial obligations, terms, conditions, DRM, snooping, bundled crap, whatever.
This thing is massive. I use extra caution to use it responsibly. I got it to replace my 40 year old Toyota.
Surprisingly, they both get about the same fuel mileage... About 20 MPG.
Oh Incidentally, thanks for your lead on inductive plethysmography in an earlier post... That made way for some interesting reading!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @02:59AM
Yep, this [wikipedia.org] was us. VivoSense "by VivoMetrics" is the port of the software I developed from 1991 through 1998. Credit Suisse First Boston tried to hit a .com homerun with our stuff in a spinoff company based on taking the datalogging portable on Palm Pilots but only got a solid base hit, and so screwed all the other investors out of their startup investments, and me out of my employee shares, with some Delaware Corporation gyrations that meant they could give us all $0.01 each for our shares and take 100% ownership of the company.
Marvin Sackner [legacy.com] was the doc behind it all. He had been developing Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography since the late 1970s starting with a grant from one of the major automakers. I joined his company in 1991 straight out of school, and stayed with them until they hit the financial wall in 2003 and went "volunteer only" for a few years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 04 2020, @03:04AM
I'm going the other way for our "next truck." In 1993 I bought a 1977 GMC 1500 with a 350, drove that until we replaced it in 1999 with a new Dodge RAM 1500 with a 360 that we still have. We're thinking that we're going to hold out until the single motor Tesla trucks hit the streets and get one of those, hoping that the EV is both simpler than ICE, and also better developed by the time they're available in 2023 or so. Right now, the truck is limited to truck duty only and we're driving a 2002 Mercedes S430 (22mpg vs the truck's 15mpg, and unbelievably cheap to buy - not too bad to maintain in reality) for the "family car" - hopefully the Tesla can replace both with something even more massive, as comfortable, and even more economical to operate.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:10PM (7 children)
In my crystal ball I see annual smog checks in the future...but Federal, not state by state as it is done for cars/light vehicles now. At first this could be used to quantify the problem, later it could be combined with legal requirements.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:43PM (3 children)
I see small anecdotal reports like TFA being waved around as justification for federal smog inspection programs whose true aim is to drive purchase of new electric vehicles, not to benefit the environment but to benefit vehicle manufacturing industries located in the home districts of the bill sponsors.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by deathlyslow on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:41PM (2 children)
I would think that it would be more along the lines of the fines will be a much better revenue stream for the government than the selling of cars. Let's face it the government hasn't been "For the people, by the people" for far longer than I've been around. They will get their cut of the pie either way. They tax sale of EVs for the one time deal with a tiny, in comparison, tax credit for buying EV, Then the fines getting levied/paid on/for the older vehicles that otherwise are perfectly fine for the user. It's a WIN WIN.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:54PM (1 child)
Fines are for small town police departments.
The Feds line their pockets with industry kickbacks.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by deathlyslow on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:45PM
Nah, the kickbacks go to the individuals.
<sarcasm>
The government has to barely squeak by on the low low taxes, that you or I have to pay, and any fines that get paid for not paying the original taxes. Big business just loses too much money to pay anything to the gov.
</sarcasm>
I also consider a fine of that type to just be another form of tax.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:52PM (2 children)
Not sure if you're in the US, or have a car, or maybe in a state with different requirements, but in my state we must do an annual emissions inspection. It is mandated by the feds, and the vehicle must conform to federal emission limits, and be in OEM condition. It's "mandated" in that the state must comply if they want federal highway money, so the state requires it of car owners.
One loophole: people can pass inspection, then modify the vehicle for the rest of the year, then put it back for inspection. You can get big fines if you get caught, but I'm not aware of many getting caught.
Another loophole: vehicles 1996 and newer are only tested by connecting to the car's OBD-2 connector and asking the car's computer if it thinks it's "emissions ready". I'm not aware, but there probably exist mods to jack up an engine's power but still report "emissions ready".
They could do random tailpipe "sniffer" tests, but that would cost a lot and I'd speculate would be unpopular with most car owners.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:28PM
And to add to the mix, as someone who is also directly affected by this: The EPA and the state often mandate testing on a county-by-county basis rather than a statewide basis, so a vehicle owned by somebody in or near a major city has to get a regular emissions test and would thus either have to be compliant or fake it convincingly enough to fool people whose job is to not be fooled by common tricks, while that same vehicle owned by somebody who lives a little over an hour away from that city gets no emissions testing at all and thus wouldn't.
All that makes a certain amount of sense if the problems you're trying to solve are local in scale, e.g. too much ozone in the atmosphere of a specific city, on the theory that most residents of the hinterlands won't visit the city and affect its air quality all that often. It doesn't make any sense at all if you're trying to solve problems that are on a much bigger scale.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:35PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:55PM (5 children)
Actually it is a major contribution to pollution. It will reduce the CO and particulate emissions but will increase the NOx emissions.
For the simple fact that the turbocharger increases the compression ratio. Which causes the air to be hotter during fuel burn part of the cycle. Higher temperature and higher pressure will drive the nitrogen to combine with oxygen in higher proportions**.
The real reason VW needed to cheat the emissions was because they cranked up the compression ratio in their new line of diesel (to gain the efficiency/low consumption competitive advantage). If my memory serve (I was in the market for a new car around that time - 2010-ish), they went as high as 18:1 on the account of BlueTec [wikipedia.org] but I think they found BlueTec insufficient for the very low limits regulated for NOx emissions in US.
---
** You can blame a principialed Frenchman for that, namely Le Chatelier [wikipedia.org], who took after that Newton royalist with his action and reaction; so this Frenchman decreed that it applies to the chemistry too. Higher temperature will cause the nitrogen molecule to decompose in atoms (just to consume a bit of that thermal energy) while higher pressure will drive the atomic nitrogen to recombine with whatever gases it find around (and oppose the increase in pressure).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday December 04 2020, @02:55AM (4 children)
Aren't thunderstorms a major maker of NOx?
The reason plants like rainwater so much?
Plants ( legumes excepted ) have a hard time with N2 gas, but readily absorb nitrates, NOx dissolved in water, which is already commercially done at fertilizer manufacturing plants...
Nitrogen is required by plants to make amino acids, the basis of life, which are assembled into proteins.
Someone is baking up the wrong tree.
Look it up. Fertilizer. NPK.
Plants need this stuff, and as plentiful as nitrogen is, so little of it is biologically available.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 04 2020, @04:49AM (3 children)
The dose make the poison, anubi.
The plants evolved enough ways to get their nitrogen naturally (directly from rain water or by symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria). Add too much of it and they'll wilt away**.
I trust you know about fertilizer burn [wikipedia.org], the thing that happens usually due to excess nitrogen salts.
---
** some may thrive in high nutrient environ. But I don't think you [wikipedia.org] like [wikipedia.org] them [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 04 2020, @05:45AM (1 child)
Fertilizer burn? Yes. Nitrogen fertilizers will do this. Even a dog peeing in the grass ( urea ) often does this.
The point I am bringing up is that NOx is a naturally occurring thing. Like rain. Getting some is required. Getting way too much is not a good thing.
But by and large, a bit more nitrogen is readily assimilated into plants, who need it to make amino acids.
Grandpa raised corn. He went through tons of granular fertilizers. Without it, his crop was practically nil.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 04 2020, @06:06AM
I guess the amount of nitrogen from the rain was enough to sustain the grasses in the prairies or the trees in the forests that existed before that land being used for agriculture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 04 2020, @05:54AM
Thanks for the links. Excess nutrient runoff is definitely a problem. Sewage is extremely high in nutrients and causes lots of problems if in the wrong place.
The stuff has to be offered to that which needs it. Wish we would recover more nutrient rich product to offer to crops, and keep it out of the waterways.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by helel on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:56PM (1 child)
Looking at truck classifications [wikipedia.org] there seem to be plenty of pickup trucks in the 2b and 3 range, and exactly the type of large trucks I'd expect to see rolling coal. Truck classification seems to be based on gross weight, not curb weight, in the US so if your three ton truck can carry a ton of cargo and passengers it's a 2b, not a 2a.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 04 2020, @05:58AM
Those old 2 cycle diesels were notorious for rolling coal.
I don't think any of them are still in service.
They were made for the day when fuel was cheap and few cared if you left clouds of black exhaust in your wake.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:33PM (2 children)
This is just as anecdotal as your lack of evidence, but I've seen quite a few trucks that look like they've been (sometimes illegally) modified driving around my relatively rural area. I think it's also worth mentioning that these modified trucks usually look like they've never seen a day's work - not a spec of dirt or any sign of scratches or rust, sometimes no trailer hitch.
Unless the point of the truck wasn't to work on a farm or ranch, but to help create the image of a country boy. An actual farmer wouldn't be all that likely to make these modifications, since they make the truck louder, more expensive to fuel up, or harder to use (e.g. lift kit = harder to lift cargo into it), but a fake country dude trying to imitate what they see in country music videos, truck commercials, and leather product ads absolutely would.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:50PM (1 child)
Around here that is exactly the profile. The real money isn't in hands-on work, the real money is in contracting (selling jobs to customers) and getting subs to do the actual work for you. So... the big expensive trucks are all driven by the guys who don't actually do the work. Once in a very rare while they might use the truck to bail out a problem situation, but only if they and their subs have screwed up unusually.
What the big shiny new trucks are used for is to go see potential clients and bid jobs. When an ex-sub contractor finally breaks in to the big bucks, that's when they buy the "I always wanted a..." machines. Often as not, they overspend on their toys, work hits a slow spot and it all gets repossessed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @04:07AM
> getting subs to do the actual work for you.
One of my standard questions to anyone bidding on work around my house is, "Do you use your own crew?" We specifically avoid anyone that is a contractor with no crew, don't want sub contractors working on our house/property.
Before she moved in with me, my SO had her former house re-sided. It was covered by insurance (wind storm damage), but the contractor they suggested used a sub who did a really crappy job. Had to be called back several times to refit vinyl pieces with big gaps, and didn't have anyone on the crew that could lay a straight bead of caulk either.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:19PM (1 child)
Nope, those are ordinary three quarter and one ton trucks. F250, Ram 2500 and so on. 14000 is a little big, but all of these trucks have GVWR over 8000, and the newer ones have GVWR over 10000 - which is kind of a problem sometimes because 10000 is the cutoff for when you have a "commercial vehicle" which means if you use it for work you are supposed to have a DOT number and keep log books and track driver hours, all with the new mandated GPS electronic log book. It's swell for towing your motor home, not so much for putting a utility body on it and being an electrician.
I do agree that the article is misleading and sensationalist. Aftermarket emissions equipment is often *better* than the certified version. And areas with smog problems also have emissions tests that don't let you just do whatever you want. On top of that, diesel emissions equipment doesn't, you know, work properly in the first place, and diesel trucks can often *double* their fuel economy (and cut their carbon emissions in half) while also extending their engine life by getting rid of it. Ironically the emissions diesels often emit almost as much pollution as the non emissions ones, but it's diluted more (because of all the extra wasted energy and fuel) so it's "compliant." Carbon emissions are a global problem, NOx and particulates are a local one. It does not make any difference how much NOx you emit in the middle of Nebraska, so we're trading a problem that doesn't matter for one that does. Yay.
If they want diesels to actually run properly they need to completely overhaul the way the emissions controls work. Diesels aren't gas cars and the same emissions technology won't work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @10:06PM
Diesel engine pollution controls kill engine life and lower delivered power.
Diesel has some inherent operating characteristics, and these controls violate them.
POLITICS! But at least in America, unlike Europe, we were never stupid enough to basically mandate (via fuel taxes) that most passenger cars were diesel. Which Europe did because POLITICS! Diesel is for very big vehicles, not passenger cars.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:19PM
That being so, then yeah, there are a helluva lot of pickup trucks out there like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:20PM
But at least 1 in 3 Dodge Ramtard and F150+ Heavy Duty Diesel in California seems to be rolling coal as described in this article.
I can only assume the cops are complicit in this, because it is FAR FAR too common to not result in these vehicles having their registration pulled for the year (California is at least, on paper, supposed to be really hard on unregistered vehicles, violating emissions, and not having insurance... whether this applies to everyone or just non-white undesireables in some regions may be more suspect.)
Contrary to all you 'Libtardia' ranters out there, California has quite a large conservative presence, and while benefiting from our economy and ecology, they seem to like showing us how much better they are by shitting all over the place, verbally, ecologically, and politically.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:06PM (5 children)
Naval transports ships with diesel engines pollute the planet in orders of magnitude higher than all existing trucks together.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:23PM (4 children)
In your world:
- does this mean you should stop short of doing something about pollution by trucks only because the transports ships pollute more?
- do those ships often go through densely populated areas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:31PM (2 children)
Politicians and UN eurocrats deemed their flying all around the world on private jets to be essential. We need not consider their pollution.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:49PM (1 child)
1. Private jets are a fairly small fraction of the problem, less than 0.5% of total global emissions.
2. There are about 18,000 private jets in the world. Funny how you're focused heavily on the approximately 0.15% of them being used by people you don't like rather than the 99.85% of them being used by people you've never even thought about.
So we might need to consider their pollution, but we could reasonably put our priorities on the other 99.992% of the problem.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @04:28AM
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_jet#Fleet [wikipedia.org] there are more like 22K private jets, but either way, it's just not that many to make a big difference.
From https://www.elitetraveler.com/luxury-transport/private-jets/quick-guide-fractional-private-jet-ownership [elitetraveler.com] it looks like about 1000 small jets are in service under fractional ownership (where you buy 1/16 (etc) of the annual hours on a specific model of jet). These are the ones that get high usage, the leasing companies try to keep them flying as much as possible.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:37PM
Kinda [fineartamerica.com].. They do pile up
Surface vehicles and smaller aircraft can all be electrically powered now. Save the diesels for the generators.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:48PM (3 children)
I have a pre-DEF stock Duramax which has way enough power and so far, aside from filters, fluids, and glow plugs hasn't been a maintainence hog.
It's fancy computer controlled exhaust does seem more noxious than a good ole sooty diesel.
I sometimes wonder if the EPA is helping or hurting the planet. If you measure the percent of something in an exhaust instead of the amount, then it creates peverse incentives to make things worse to pass the tests.
Perhaps the modding is more about testosterone than performance or drivability?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:24PM (1 child)
If the EPA is artificially limiting competition to make prices higher due to any conflicts of interest hence driving people to cheaper non-compliant illegal alternatives this could hurt the environment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:26PM
With respect to replacement parts.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @03:36PM
As best as I can tell from the modded trucks I've seen, yes, testosterone explains a lot more than any actual benefits.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
Run a turbodiesel engine with more boost and you get more power, more fuel efficiency (thus less CO2 per mile), and the only downside is increased NOx.
NOx emissions can, at high enough concentrations, cause problems several ways: as a direct respiratory irritant, as a minor contributor to acid rain, and as a primary element of photochemical smog.
Photochemical smog becomes a severe issue at the lowest concentrations, so EPA's NOx levels are based on that.
But smog is specifically an urban problem; trucks on highways or in rural areas (regardless of whether used for actual work or as cowboy cosplay props) will do little harm in ignoring NOx limits designed for cities, and may even do less harm as the better fuel economy means less CO2 etc.
The VW diesel cars, OTOH, would've been primarily used for urban commutes (like cars in general), where smog is a problem and the EPA's NOx limits are presumably appropriate; this makes comparing the two on a basis of NOx emissions ridiculous.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dwilson on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:33PM
This. So much this. Emissions are a problem. Population density is the root problem to many problems, emissions included.
- D
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:26PM (1 child)
Create a smog check system that has a ton of bureaucracy, as much as possible. Make sure you have the smog check look for things that have nothing to do with emissions so that it's really easy to fail for unrelated problems.
The fees can be seen as increased tax revenue, and the repair shops will make a ton of money off the work they didn't really need to do.
If people want to pass the test when there is no way in hell the vehicle can, they still have the option to bribe certain shops, like the one their buddy knows that will get them a pass sticker anyway.
Sorry, for a minute there I thought I was still living in California again. My bad.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday December 04 2020, @03:31AM
I was gonna say, that sounds awful familiar... did 28 years in SoCal. Learned which shops kept their test probe clean (made a huge difference).... and which ones knew how to goose the test.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:43PM
Estimate from driving is 99% of time it is empty