How far is this VW thing going to go?
- Thread starter Diddums
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UK Government inquiry finds that all of the top 37 selling Diesel cars break legal NOx limits. The least bad of the bunch was the Citroën C4 at a mere 3x the legal limit.
http://gu.com/p/4tgp4
But this is the UK. We aren't about to fine these companies, or ban diesel cars, or place a heavy tax on their sale. Instead, we're bringing in a new testing regime to ensure that cars no longer slip through. But, as that's a bit harsh on manufacturers, we've decided to double the legal limit for a bit to give them some leeway. Oh, the taxpayer funded inquiry cost £1m by the way. No, the manufacturers aren't paying that, either.
Meanwhile, over in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36103903
This country...
http://gu.com/p/4tgp4
But this is the UK. We aren't about to fine these companies, or ban diesel cars, or place a heavy tax on their sale. Instead, we're bringing in a new testing regime to ensure that cars no longer slip through. But, as that's a bit harsh on manufacturers, we've decided to double the legal limit for a bit to give them some leeway. Oh, the taxpayer funded inquiry cost £1m by the way. No, the manufacturers aren't paying that, either.
Meanwhile, over in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36103903
This country...
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UK Government inquiry finds that all of the top 37 selling Diesel cars break legal NOx limits. The least bad of the bunch was the Citroën C4 at a mere 3x the legal limit.
http://gu.com/p/4tgp4
But this is the UK. We aren't about to fine these companies, or ban diesel cars, or place a heavy tax on their sale. Instead, we're bringing in a new testing regime to ensure that cars no longer slip through. But, as that's a bit harsh on manufacturers, we've decided to double the legal limit for a bit to give them some leeway. Oh, the taxpayer funded inquiry cost £1m by the way. No, the manufacturers aren't paying that, either.
Meanwhile, over in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36103903
This country...
What's wrong, the tests, the limits or the cars?
Consider the test bears zero resemblance to actual driving on a road and the limit is based on what manufacturers are able to achieve in the test.
I would suggest we went wrong on the test.
UK Government inquiry finds that all of the top 37 selling Diesel cars break legal NOx limits. The least bad of the bunch was the Citroën C4 at a mere 3x the legal limit.
http://gu.com/p/4tgp4
But this is the UK. We aren't about to fine these companies, or ban diesel cars, or place a heavy tax on their sale. Instead, we're bringing in a new testing regime to ensure that cars no longer slip through. But, as that's a bit harsh on manufacturers, we've decided to double the legal limit for a bit to give them some leeway. Oh, the taxpayer funded inquiry cost £1m by the way. No, the manufacturers aren't paying that, either.
Meanwhile, over in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36103903
This country...
Why would we fine them, they didn't cheat.
In the us they did cheat and thus a totally different situation.
However expect EU to drastically change tithe testing in the near future.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Because they've done nothing wrong. The problem here is that the mandatory lab tests do not reflect real world use. This isn't the fault of the manufacturers. They've built cars that conform to the regulations - the regulations state they must have XYZ emissions in Conditions ABC. Which is exactly what all of them do.
Because this is excessively punitive to both consumers who have purchased them and manufacturers who have pumped billions of R&D into them at the effective request of the government.
Which is the corret approach.
Why should they pay for it?
A completely different scenario.
This country...
....is full of people who form strong opinions on subjects without bothering to understand them first?
It even explains it to you in the article you quoted yet presumably didn't read:
This entire issue is caused by government policy.
It is government policy that created the demand for diesel cars in the first place through high levels of fuel tax. It was government policy that steered even more people into diesel cars through focus on CO2 emissions and setting company and personal vehicle taxation based on CO2 emissions. It is government policy that is to blame for the fact that in some cars you can't even buy a petrol now. It is governmental policy which introduced the lab testing.
Go to a country where the government does not levy high taxes on fuel and you will find very few diesel passenger cars.
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Caporegime
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£295 a year here lol
[TW]Fox;29415786 said:
You're right, though the article on the Guardian and similar ones on the Telegraph and Independent websites have been updated since I read them earlier. My post was in relation to the information in those articles at the time, which has since been changed to reflect the full story.
With all the facts, yes, this is the government's fault. Absolutely and totally.
We might have the truth but it seems you had difficulty reading it. Only VW lied, nobody else did.
[TW]Fox;29416395 said:
I haven't read into this fully but is it as simple as that?
They advertise their cars saying it does X mpg and has Y emmissions, this is obviously intimating that's what the car does, not that's what the car does under specific testing conditions and under real world conditions (what the consumer is interested in) it's something vastly different.
I fully agree that it's Government policy that has led manufacturers down this diesel route, but isn't it a case of following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law? Which can be construed as duplicitous
Man of Honour
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My green choice of car is a soot chucking tonka-toy .
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Soldato
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Basically diesel is dirty and everyone is now suprised?
I put this on something and it caused loads of arguments about efficiency etc but I just posted them to a scientific study about effects of NOx or nitrogen oxide and they quietened down....
My car does barely 20mpg but is less polluting to people and the planet than their 70mpg diesel it turns out.....
Now Mitsubishi lied and admitted it.... I bet the only ones who didn't lie weree Volvo. They seem the most and upfront about things and safety especially.
Soldato
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Same. I think? I dunno lol.
Vehicle tax is a load of crap- every car should be taxed because EVERY car destroys the roads! Smaller, less powerful cars do it less but basing it all purely around emissions is so stupid and short-sighted.
Use a car? Pay to maintain the roads at least...
I know vehicle tax doesn't go to that but it should! A bit of acknowledgement of responsibility.
It's you that is missing the point - the 'scandal' (If you can call it that) here is the testing methodology and it's suitability in the real world. Just because the investigation was inspired by the VW affair doesn't mean its even close to be the same thing - it's not. C'mon Cosimo, let's have a proper debate rather than a copy+paste session for once.
The limits were drawn up based on lab testing so they can only apply to lab testing - if they'd been designed to be met in real world testing then it's almost certain there would have been an entirely different set of standards to meet. The regulations are quite clear - the car must emit no more than Y emissions of X in an NEDC test cycle. The cars meet this. It's not even news that the test results do not correspond to real life usage - it's been a point of discussion for years and the official response has always been the tests are there for 'comparability' purposes, which I always thought was a cop-out anyway.
Government policy didn't so much as lead manufacturers down the diesel route it positively forced them down it because it's 'low carbon' and until recently nothing in the world mattered as long as everything was 'low carbon'. Some manufacturers continued to offer petrol alternatives to the best selling diesel models and were forced to stop selling them because nobody would buy them.
The testing system and the relentless focus on CO2 is where the rage should be aimed at here, not the vehicle manufacturers. If we hadn't have had governments obsessed with Co2 and hydrocarbon fuel tax we'd have a road network where only lorries were powered by diesel. But we don't, we have a market where are fuel costs multiple times that of fuel in other countries and we have a taxation system that penalises vehicles that emit high CO2. The obvious result is a market demand for vehicles that use as little fuel as possible.
It's quite difficult to fix in the short term because you can't hang the public out to dry for doing exactly what you intended and encouraged them to do through taxation.
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[TW]Fox;29416453 said:
Yea, fair enough, I guess it has always been a bit of an in-joke that your car is never going to return the mpg stated, but I suppose it wasn't expected for emissions to be this far out.
But you're right, the 'scandal' is the system in place that allows manufacturers to only conform to and report non-real world conditions
We all knew they were lying but now we have the truth (Times):
Stick that in your tank and smoke it...
Nice to see my old smoker on there!
