RE: Merc Hit With Efficiency Fine
Discussion
dpbird90 said:
Another reason to hate America, because with recent goings on, whatever happens over there soon happens here. And as it's been said 35 US MPG is 42 proper MPG, and who in their right mind would make all their cars do 42mpg? Stupid "green" arguments. America has the most money of any country in the world, why don't they just find a use for all this CO2 we are producing. We had a discussion in chemistry earlier; if anyone could make an engine that ran on CO2 then they would undoubtedly become the richest man or woman the world has ever seen, ever!
Someone has already made an engine (ok, power source that powers an electric motor) that runs on hydrogen, which is far more abundant then C02, one of the major problems facing the emergence of a new fuel source is the infrastructure for supplying it to customers. which wont be done until everyone owns a car with the new technology, which wont happen until the infrastructure is in place etc etc etc.Edited for speelling
Edited by jimmy306 on Friday 9th January 14:27
collateral said:
Hardly surprising then. afaik they don't offer anything under a '300' sized engine over there, even in the SLK, and of course no diesels.
Although they're bringing out an EcoBlue (or something like that) E-class 350 diesel in the USA. Interestingly, in the USA diesel is viewed as more polluting than 'gas'.jimmy306 said:
dpbird90 said:
Another reason to hate America, because with recent goings on, whatever happens over there soon happens here. And as it's been said 35 US MPG is 42 proper MPG, and who in their right mind would make all their cars do 42mpg? Stupid "green" arguments. America has the most money of any country in the world, why don't they just find a use for all this CO2 we are producing. We had a discussion in chemistry earlier; if anyone could make an engine that ran on CO2 then they would undoubtedly become the richest man or woman the world has ever seen, ever!
Someone has already made an engine (ok, power source that powers an electric motor) that runs on hydrogen, which is far more abundant then C02, one of the major problems facing the emergence of a new fuel source is the infrastructure for supplying it to customers. which wont be done until everyone owns a car with the new technology, which wont happen until the infrastructure is in place etc etc etc.Edited for speelling
Edited by jimmy306 on Friday 9th January 14:27
carl_w said:
collateral said:
Hardly surprising then. afaik they don't offer anything under a '300' sized engine over there, even in the SLK, and of course no diesels.
Although they're bringing out an EcoBlue (or something like that) E-class 350 diesel in the USA. Interestingly, in the USA diesel is viewed as more polluting than 'gas'.Did see a few TDIs and some sheddy old Mec dervs last time I was over though.
There's also a price differential and some gas stations just don't sell it at all
Edited by collateral on Friday 9th January 14:48
dpbird90 said:
jimmy306 said:
dpbird90 said:
Another reason to hate America, because with recent goings on, whatever happens over there soon happens here. And as it's been said 35 US MPG is 42 proper MPG, and who in their right mind would make all their cars do 42mpg? Stupid "green" arguments. America has the most money of any country in the world, why don't they just find a use for all this CO2 we are producing. We had a discussion in chemistry earlier; if anyone could make an engine that ran on CO2 then they would undoubtedly become the richest man or woman the world has ever seen, ever!
Someone has already made an engine (ok, power source that powers an electric motor) that runs on hydrogen, which is far more abundant then C02, one of the major problems facing the emergence of a new fuel source is the infrastructure for supplying it to customers. which wont be done until everyone owns a car with the new technology, which wont happen until the infrastructure is in place etc etc etc.Edited for speelling
Edited by jimmy306 on Friday 9th January 14:27
I think they are looking at ways to convert c02 back into a usable fuel source, but whether it will ever happen on any scale i dont know. see link http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19909/?a=f
Edited by jimmy306 on Friday 9th January 14:55
dpbird90 said:
Yep, hydrogen is more abundant then CO2, but it still would make sense to make a CO2 powered engine; there is still one hell of a lot of CO2 about these days,.
Actually pure hydrogen is quite difficult to find in the natural world as it is normally combined with some carbons or some oxygensSo while CO2 is easier to find there isn't actually loads of CO2 around it is still a tiny part of the atmosphere and if you look on a geological timescale you will see that CO2 has been far higher when the dinosaurs where stomping around
So maybe you should pay more attention in chemistry
dpbird90 said:
America has the most money of any country in the world, why don't they just find a use for all this CO2 we are producing. We had a discussion in chemistry earlier; if anyone could make an engine that ran on CO2 then they would undoubtedly become the richest man or woman the world has ever seen, ever!
Yup, it's that simple :SThe people talking about hyrdogen being a fuel are wrong too, it's an energy carrier, not a fuel, and a very expensive, inefficient one at that.
LOGiK said:
Since MB are not doing so well, they should refuse to pay the fine and threaten to withdraw from the US market completely thus creating unemployment and massive costs for the US.
Pretty sure they made a loss this year and their cars are piling up on US shores, complete withdrawl would certainly be an entertaining threat.
How would refusing to sell cars in America hurt the country more than Merc?Pretty sure they made a loss this year and their cars are piling up on US shores, complete withdrawl would certainly be an entertaining threat.
berkorich said:
$30m a year - a fraction of the cost to develop more energy efficient technologies. Let me guess, the authorities know this and are just dressing up environmentalism to swell their coffers. Perish the thought.....
mb already has the technology, its just that yanks who lust after mercs lust after the ones with the really big engines, not the normal sized ones like the average brit.It's the same with all cars. In the UK, the V6 is often the top of the range but it's the bottom in the USA. For family-sized cars, usually the smallest engine they will sell in the US is a 2.4 litre four, whereas here often the biggest is a 2.0 litre four. Exception to this is the Astra which they've just started selling in the USA, even then the only engine they get is the 1.8 whereas I think they go down to 1.2 or certainly 1.4 here.
Why are they fining Volkswagen? For years they have been trying to get there efficent TDI engines in the states, they are pretty much the only car manufcatuer there offering diesels. The latest 2.0 TDI CR 'Clean Diesel' is outstanding, Prius beating, yet they still get these silly efficeny fines..
J400uk said:
Why are they fining Volkswagen? For years they have been trying to get there efficent TDI engines in the states, they are pretty much the only car manufcatuer there offering diesels. The latest 2.0 TDI CR 'Clean Diesel' is outstanding, Prius beating, yet they still get these silly efficeny fines..
For the same reason as anyone else will get the fines...elster said:
Frimley111R said:
elster said:
berkorich said:
$30m a year - a fraction of the cost to develop more energy efficient technologies. Let me guess, the authorities know this and are just dressing up environmentalism to swell their coffers. Perish the thought.....
Yes because with 150 million people $30 million is going to make a huge impact on their purse.Just shows how many big engined cars get sold in US by merc.
So 30 million really is a bit of a pointless exercise is what I am saying.
MB sold 225,100 cars in the US last year. That makes a fine of US$133 per car sold.
collateral said:
Does anyone know how the fines are calculated? A certain amount for every car under 40 mpg sold or something?
If so, the cars are probably already marked up to cover the fine anyhow
I used to work for a car company and for every car imported into the US we factored CAFE into the contribution calculation and priced the car accordingly to cover the cost. An accrual was posted for every car sold, so when the fine was served we already had a provision on the books to cover the cost. M-B will act in exactly the same way, so every US customer would have paid the fine for M-B when purchasing the car, and the $30m fine would have been provisioned on the balance sheet in the previous years financial accounts. Therefore M-B current financial performance shouldn't be effected by this fine.If so, the cars are probably already marked up to cover the fine anyhow
H22K said:
No to Kyoto.
No to agreeing to set targets on climate change.
Why would they agree to Kyoto and Climate Change targets when both buy into the belief that climate change is man-made when we know it isn't? Setting climate change targets is like King Canute ordering the sea not to come in.No to agreeing to set targets on climate change.
J400uk said:
Why are they fining Volkswagen? For years they have been trying to get there efficent TDI engines in the states, they are pretty much the only car manufcatuer there offering diesels. The latest 2.0 TDI CR 'Clean Diesel' is outstanding, Prius beating, yet they still get these silly efficeny fines..
They are probably covering the cost of the fine for, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. What other brands do they own which are sold in the US?Munich said:
collateral said:
Does anyone know how the fines are calculated? A certain amount for every car under 40 mpg sold or something?
If so, the cars are probably already marked up to cover the fine anyhow
I used to work for a car company and for every car imported into the US we factored CAFE into the contribution calculation and priced the car accordingly to cover the cost. An accrual was posted for every car sold, so when the fine was served we already had a provision on the books to cover the cost. M-B will act in exactly the same way, so every US customer would have paid the fine for M-B when purchasing the car, and the $30m fine would have been provisioned on the balance sheet in the previous years financial accounts. Therefore M-B current financial performance shouldn't be effected by this fine.If so, the cars are probably already marked up to cover the fine anyhow
BigLepton said:
H22K said:
No to Kyoto.
No to agreeing to set targets on climate change.
Why would they agree to Kyoto and Climate Change targets when both buy into the belief that climate change is man-made when we know it isn't? Setting climate change targets is like King Canute ordering the sea not to come in.No to agreeing to set targets on climate change.
It seems pretty reasonable to me, they are trying to encourage the market to think of new solutions to reduce the dependance on oil (or use less of the stuff). I agree that the fines when compared to the profits are pretty insignificant and as a result probably won't be a major factor in developing new technologies, but the intention of the CAFE fines seems to be pretty good to me.
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