The End of Diesels is here... FT article

[neil1jnr]

toerag said:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/11...

I wouldn't expect anything less, the car manufacturers would take a big hit, the amount of developement in diesel engines recently has been huge.

Does anybody know how many deaths are due to emissions from petrol cars? On a serious note, no matter how good diesels engines get, I am all open to alternatives to saving lives... how accurate is the information though in regard to deaths linked to diesel exhaust gases?

[kambites]

neil1jnr said:

Does anybody know how many deaths are due to emissions from petrol cars?

I very much doubt it. I'm sure even the "29000 deaths per year from air pollution" is something of a guess.

[Baryonyx]

They'd never get away with banning diesels outright, but hopefully they will introduce punitive costs to drive them off the roads gradually, for good. A massive increase on tax and a huge increase in diesel fuel taxation would be a hoodt start. The benefits could even be passed on for everyone to enjoy with a tax cut on petrol.

[GadgeS3C]

Also in the news today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3195...

Suggests that we should consider the carbon footprint of manufacturing vehicles. Interesting to see how this sits with a potential move to "encourage" everyone to scrap their diesels and move back to petrol.

Most of this planet saving stuff just seemed a confused mess...

[kambites]

I think we'll see non-euro 6 compliant private passenger DERVs banned from London at some point relatively soon.

[kambites]

GadgeS3C said:

Most of this planet saving stuff just seemed a confused mess...

Unfortunately that's what happens when you take a subject so complex that even the scientists who spend their lives studying it don't really understand it and turn it into mainstream politics.

[heebeegeetee]

neil1jnr said:

Apologies becuase I realise this topic has been covered numerous times but I don't know if this article has been posted before.

Just had a read of this:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/627c6812-7faf-11e4-adff-...

'The promotion of diesel cars was a mistake'

'Aim to progressively ban diesel cars'

Based on everything I've read (my knowledge on this subject is quite low), including this article, I think it would be a good thing if taxing cars based on CO2 emissions was scrapped and an alternative method put in place. Banning diesels does sound a bit ridiculous though but in my mind, if diesels really are a bigger 'killer', becuase they are a bigger contributor to poor air quality than petrol powered cars, then I am all for having more petrols on the road than diesels.

The advent of moderns turbo petrols matching the low end shove of diesels and much improved mpg over NA petrols from 10-15 years ago, in my mind does make the diesel cars quite a silly prospect. Bring on low tax for petrol and high tax on diesel

Discuss?

Discuss? It's been discussed thrice weekly ever since I've been here at least.

[GadgeS3C]

kambites said:

GadgeS3C said:

Most of this planet saving stuff just seemed a confused mess...

Unfortunately that's what happens when you take a subject so complex that even the scientists who spend their lives studying it don't really understand it and turn it into mainstream politics.

Trouble is they screw up even the simple bits!

[kambites]

GadgeS3C said:

Trouble is they screw up even the simple bits!

I think that pretty much sums up our politicians.

[Fastdruid]

MysteryLemon said:

We shouldn't be taxing cars on any kind of emissions rating. It serves no purpose what so ever. VED should be scrapped and have the tax on fuel upped slightly to compensate. The more you use your car, the more you pay in Tax.

VED should be based on weight/size.

Something like:

Sub 500 Kg - free
501-750 Kg - £25
751-1000 Kg - £50
1001-1125Kg - £75
1126-1250Kg - £100
1251-1375Kg - £125
1375-1500Kg - £150
1501-2000Kg - £200
2001+ Kg - £500

CO2/pollution tax should be added to fuel.

[lbc]

Modern petrol engines pose more of a health risk than the equivalent diesel version, as the particulate matter consist of vastly finer particles than diesel engines.

A study, conducted by the German TUEV Nord in November 2013 and published by the Brussels-based environmental lobby group Transport & Environment, says that new direct-injection petrol engines emit 1,000 times more particles than their predecessors and 10 times more than modern diesel engines.

[clonmult]

MysteryLemon said:

We shouldn't be taxing cars on any kind of emissions rating. It serves no purpose what so ever. VED should be scrapped and have the tax on fuel upped slightly to compensate. The more you use your car, the more you pay in Tax.

With the mildly insane levels of taxation applied on petrol and diesel, this is what the government is already effectively doing.

[C.A.R.]

What about the argument that the various devices used on these cars in order to pass the Euro tests are rudimentary and only serve to acheive a 'number' for the test cycle? Once they are sold, these devices are (or at least can be) hugely problematic and expensive to replace / fix. There is no testing proceedure to actually ensure that these filters are still doing their job after the first 5,000 miles, or 18 months after being used every day.

You see many cars which are 'modern' (ie <10 years old) which chuck out huge plumes of smoke despite having been fitted with emissions control systems (like DPF filters). Whether they are faulty or whether they have been bypassed or whatever - the point is, there is no 'measure' beyond that initial point of sale. It's not a fair assumption to say that there are now X number of cars registered which 'should, when tested in a controlled environment' chuck out Y number of particulates / CO2.

TL;DR - It's complete testicles.

[lbc]

clonmult said:

MysteryLemon said:

We shouldn't be taxing cars on any kind of emissions rating. It serves no purpose what so ever. VED should be scrapped and have the tax on fuel upped slightly to compensate. The more you use your car, the more you pay in Tax.

With the mildly insane levels of taxation applied on petrol and diesel, this is what the government is already effectively doing.

The Government are not planning any tax increases for specific types of engine, but it is likely that more cities would introduce low emission zones that will either ban or charge motorists with older petrol and diesel cars.

[lbc]

C.A.R. said:

What about the argument that the various devices used on these cars in order to pass the Euro tests are rudimentary and only serve to acheive a 'number' for the test cycle? Once they are sold, these devices are (or at least can be) hugely problematic and expensive to replace / fix. There is no testing proceedure to actually ensure that these filters are still doing their job after the first 5,000 miles, or 18 months after being used every day.

You see many cars which are 'modern' (ie <10 years old) which chuck out huge plumes of smoke despite having been fitted with emissions control systems (like DPF filters). Whether they are faulty or whether they have been bypassed or whatever - the point is, there is no 'measure' beyond that initial point of sale. It's not a fair assumption to say that there are now X number of cars registered which 'should, when tested in a controlled environment' chuck out Y number of particulates / CO2.

TL;DR - It's complete testicles.

MOT testing from 2018 is likely to include emissions testing for diesels with Euro V/Euro 6 engines to ensure the DPF has not been internally removed.
This will include checking via OBD port or tailpipe testing.

https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk/how-the-eu-ro...

[Dr Jekyll]

kambites said:

I very much doubt it. I'm sure even the "29000 deaths per year from air pollution" is something of a guess.

That figure is a worst case referring to seriously ill people dying 'prematurely', normally a few days or even hours earlier than otherwise. Most of the pollutants implicated aren't from cars anyway.

[CrutyRammers]

Government "nudge" people to do one thing, then U-turn, and start blaming the very people they nudged in the first place?
this -------> is my "surprised" face.

[kambites]

Dr Jekyll said:

kambites said:

I very much doubt it. I'm sure even the "29000 deaths per year from air pollution" is something of a guess.

That figure is a worst case referring to seriously ill people dying 'prematurely', normally a few days or even hours earlier than otherwise. Most of the pollutants implicated aren't from cars anyway.

Indeed.

It is very obvious to anyone who doesn't live there but visits occasionally that London's air quality is absolutely appalling, though. Even if I didn't dislike the place for lots of other reasons, I could never live there for that reason alone. I've no idea what things contribute to that problem in what proportions, though.

[V88Dicky]

Fastdruid said:

VED should be based on weight/size.

Something like:

Sub 500 Kg - free
501-750 Kg - £25
751-1000 Kg - £50
1001-1125Kg - £75
1126-1250Kg - £100
1251-1375Kg - £125
1375-1500Kg - £150
1501-2000Kg - £200
2001+ Kg - £500

I like this.

I'd be paying a total of £600 per annum for three cars (total mileage 20k) instead of the £1280 I pay now

[scarble]

kambites said:

Unfortunately that's what happens when you take a subject so complex that even the scientists who spend their lives studying it don't really understand it and turn it into mainstream politics.

What's too complex to understand?
Rant follows:

It's obvious to any scientist or engineer worthy of the title, it is one of the fundamental tenets of science in fact, that if you restrict your scope, if you make assumptions, which you must always do to make your work feasible, then you must account for your assumptions.
Hence you look at the effect of CO2 on global warming and on health and you look at the emissions for given conditions and you advise based on this but you must always, always, make clear the limitations and when looking at someone else's research you must always be aware of their assumptions, and we all know this!

The trouble is with a lot of scientists buying into the mentalist brakepeace anti-CO2 lobby, we're in this situation where there's so much propagation of misinformation and use of deliberately emotive terms like "denier" that the noise engulfs the signal, it's become accepted in public opinion now that CO2 is bad and it stops there.
Often scientists from completely different backgrounds use their I'm a scientists credentials to lend weight to their arguments while aggressively spreading something things they read on buzzbook.
To believe anything without researching it is an affront to science, but so many "scientists" just don't get this.
It's even seeping into the industry now that sadly even some engineers won't even consider that this route we've followed isn't necessarily right and I'm gutted that as an industry we're fighting against some rare sane politics, we should have been steering it in the right direction to begin with rather than blindly piling billions into chasing legislation which we all knew was flawed!


Turbo engines are yet to prove their efficiency under real world driving, GDI still produces particulates (though not convinced 10 * as bad as diesels!) and the lean/stratified strategies used by GDI engines to improve CO2/MPG and reduce particulates end up increasing NOx.

Maybe N/A PFI is the way forward, for the sake of our planet

There's also, for example, as far as I can see no plan to legislate the emissions produced when a vehicle does a DPF regen.
The stuff that comes out does not smell nice (therefore it must be bad).

Edited by scarble on Thursday 19th March 11:53