Europe's love affair with diesel cars has been a disaster
vox.com
vox.com
I haven't been able to figure out how wildly mistaken I was in making the decision to buy diesel over gasoline for environmental reasons. Most newer trucks have the urea-based system to reduce emissions, but mine is old enough to pre-date that addition.
Even with the regulations being stricter in the US for some time, am I driving a climate nightmare despite trying to choose the more efficient option? (It does get somewhat better mileage than the gasoline version of the same truck. So, at the very least, I'm burning less fuel. That counts for something, right?)
Unless you've set up your truck to belch pillars of soot and smoke, I wouldn't worry about your purchase decision vs. gasoline.
The EPA says [2] that N20 account for 5% of all US greenhouse cases from human activity, and 5% of that N2O comes from transportation. N2O is a more effective greenhouse gas, with a Global Warming Potential 298 times that of CO2.
31% of 81% is about 100 times as much as 5% of 5%, but when you then include the GWP of 298 for the N2O, doesn't that mean that the N2O emissions from transportation are actually about 3 times as damaging as the CO2 emissions?
That also implies that any reduced CO2 in the VW cars is not going to be anywhere near enough to even make a dent in compensating for the extra damage from a 40x increase in N2O.
[1] http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.htm...
[2] http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/n2o.htm...
Those people make no goddamned sense, to me. The folks who make their vehicles noisier also make no sense. Anyway, my truck has had no modifications and it passes emissions testing.
Admittedly, without policy change for the very large polluters, any individual act is a drop in the bucket. Nonetheless, individual decisions matter when scaled across populations of hundreds of millions.
Diesel is great for gas mileage, but much, much worse for human health because of particulate pollution. It causes heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
The US is in the right here. Diesel should be phased out, and I look forward to a day when diesel is no longer used.
What makes you say that? The EU has made plenty of decisions that are aimed at improving air quality which has a direct impact on health, I don't see the US taking the lead here, in fact there are quite a few cases where the EU has lead and the US has definitely not followed.
There is a strong push from US automotive companies against diesel simply because they don't really have the engines, the ones they do sell are quite often sourced from other companies (such as Cummins, which is definitely a fine engine). In the US diesel is for trucks and tractors and gas for light vehicles with only some pick-ups and large SUVs available with both fuel options from domestic manufacturers.
The VW scandal is definitely very bad for the diesel engine but it's not the engines per se that are the problem here, diesel can run clean, it's just that VW decided to cut corners and then cheat on the tests when they found that their corner cutting made it impossible to comply (what amazes me about the whole thing is that it took this long to find out they cheated so massively).
The U.S. certainly is ahead of Europe on the regulation of toxic emissions, and European cities are much more likely than American ones to have dangerous levels of pollution:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/upshot/pollution-around-th...
Anyway, NOx is not the only gas that the EU is concerned about, C02 figured very large in the whole reduction program as well.
Doesn't that lend further support to the point that U.S. regulations, while also obviously not perfect, are stronger in this area?
> Anyway, NOx is not the only gas that the EU is concerned about, C02 figured very large in the whole reduction program as well.
But you were challenging pwthornton's assertion that "The US is also much more concerned with air pollution that affects human health." While CO2 emissions are undesirable, NOx and particulates are what actually kill people in polluted cities.
Simply put, this is the death of diesel for automobiles. It's just a dead end technology that has thrived by cheating. Europe was dead wrong in their automotive efficiency priorities and public health has suffered as a result.
So this not 'the death of diesel for automobiles', though it may definitely be the death of diesel sales for VW in the United States.
As for public health suffering: the best way to improve public health is to promote cycling, reducing the total mileage a person spends driving during their life is the biggest public health benefit you could score and from that perspective whether you focus on diesel or petrol or CO2 emissions versus NOx as the most important is time, effort and resources wasted.
I'm trying to imagine everybody that I see cycling here driving a vehicle and the resulting pollution would be astounding, especially for short trips (when the catalytic convertor has not yet warmed up).
Europe is cracking down on diesel, and they're going to remove tax breaks that cheating manufactures enjoyed. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, is talking about ban these vehicles from the city by 2020. This is the end of european diesel cars.
people need to stop thinking that Americans are so different than Europeans, and especially that there is so much superego-tic morality attached to everything we each do.
Of course, it was in the US where the widespread European diesel cheating was discovered :) but again, that was a small number of Americans measuring, and they don't speak for the whole country either.
And I did pretty much answer the question, it was asked if there are more big cars in the US as rumored, and I didn't say "no", I said "...it's because of these reasons"
Listen here boy, I'm from Texas [1] and them's fighten words!
/s?
1. Actually am from Texas.
But also diesel engines have so much more torque you don't have to wring the piss out of the engine to get moving. With diesel you get most torque at 1500 rpm but for a gasoline engine you're revving it to 5000 rpm to get any torque, and burning more fuel.
Less rpm less engine wear too but most diesel engines are built very well to handle the compression ignition.
Diesel are also better in wet weather compared to gasoline engines although gas engines are better than the used to be.
I think people in the US still imagine a diesel with visible exhaust spewing out soot something from 30 years ago.
Diesels better in wet weather, really? I've never owned one, but neither have I ever had to leave my petrol car at home because it was raining, and I've owned some fairly old cars :)
Not to be antagonistic but what gasoline engines which are not a hybrid get (US or Imperial) 50 to 60mpg? I could see diesel engine vehicle average mileage for small manual transmission getting high Imperial 60mpg gas maybe high 40s mpg.
Deep water and gasoline engine don't tend to work well, and in my region snow gets under the hood then melts (can't get it all out) which causes problems.
Compared to a gas engine a diesel engine will run underwater if it has air you see 4x4 trucks with snorkels on the A-pillar (and some other sealing) in Africa countries, Australia and military use too.
* I get about 1.25x the mpg in the diesel to her in the petrol. 1.5x compared to myself in the petrol (no mpg quotes because it depends on the type of driving)
* The torque is useful. I drive a 30 minute commute, mainly motorway. If I drive hers it is a noticably worse drive.
* For in town driving hers feels better every time. Easier to handle with no load (hauling something? Use the diesel), the diesel tricks me into speeding.
* Wet weather? Never had weather problems in either car.
So whilst I am definitely a less efficient driver than her I save a significant amount on fuel by having a diesel, and my calculation shows its several hundred a year better than if I had bought the petrol when I had the chance - more than covering the increased cost of the initial purchase.
Better in wet weather how? I've to assume that you must mean something related to torque and traction, as the only problem one might have with a gasoline engine in the wet might be ignition parts. Though never much of a problem on maintained vehicles, what little problem there was went away when distributor caps and wires went away twenty years ago.
There has been little/no discussion about pollution other than greenhouse effect, and even among those pollutants, basically only CO2 is ever discussed in relation to cars (Methane sometimes when discussing meat).
I don't see the EU5/EU6/... pollutions norms as being complete failures. They haven't only switched europe to diesels, they have brought all combustion engines down to very good consumption, even better when you factor in that the power has actually kept on increasing. Petrol enginess too have become very lean too, and people do buy them still. The latest VW Tiguan SUV is available with a 1.4L 150hp gasoline engine (In Europe that is, in the US it's only available with the 2.0Litre. Basically the US had the option to get 2 trims of Tiguan -- the lean one and the performance one, while still avoiding the diesels. But the lean one wasn't even an option apparently).
As for Europe, this year will probably see 10% hybrids (for larger cars in the nordic/western market at least, I only know those markets), and within 3-5 years the hybrids will be competitive enough to replace diesels completely, especially if the subsidies are moved from diesels to hybrids.
Then, of course, they became status symbols.
The US has bigger families, the UK has currently the biggest family size at slightly over 2.4 and more 3/4 kid families than all of mainland Europe combined due to immigration.
Most households in the EU do not have children, only 21% of the households in the EU with 2 adults have children (31% of all total households have children, in the US even tho the number have dropped in half in some sectors since the 70's it's still 47% of all households), and that number drops to single digits for households with 1 or 3 or more adults.
The US driving distances are also quite larger, while you can drive from France to Germany most people do not, in the US driving 100's and even 1000's of miles isn't unheard off, and it's not unheard off having to drive 50 miles or more to get to work in each direction these days.
And while it's true that the SUV isn't that popular, the station wagon is pretty much the SUV of Europe, I've never seen Audi S3 SWG's and i didn't thought any one would even make those until I spent some time in the Netherlands and then seen pretty much every car model in SWG form including sporterized models like the S3/S5 which i never though anyone would ever want to make yet alone buy.
But in general if Europe would fuck a bit more, and actually have kids and not sustain it's population growth entirely through immigration (because "native" EU population has been shrinking rapidly since the 80's with 1.2-1.9 population growth factors which are below sustainability) SUV's and minivan's would've been much more popular here too.
> The US has bigger families
I'm not making fun of big SUV cars in the US, but about the big normal cars. For example, taxis in NY are huge, but they carry exactly as many people as a smaller European car.
Many places that historically had town cars and carriages seem to kept large cabin taxis because it was more attractive to people to ride in comfort (not having to crouch to get in for example) as well as allow you to easily pick 3 passengers with enough room that they don't have to be touching.
You also forget that more than 50% of NYC's taxi's are hybrid these days, with the Prius being one of the most popular models to be converted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_taxi
It's hard to have a second kid when you live in an apartment and drive a Fiesta, and it's really hard to justify a third. A fourth? Forget it.
But considering that even countries like Iceland that do culturally were having big families, and living in big houses including split houses where the parents and grand-parents live in connected houses also is suffering from a similar fate I might not be as simple as that.
I would say it's a "natural" development of of current life styles, the US managed to delay it maybe because for a long long time and especially after the war the concept of the American dream, a big house, a hot housewife, and 3 kids was in full gear.
Now with the American Dream being less relevant, and much less attainable to many Americans we see a switch to less children, less marriages, and more adults living alone.
Compare to 1.4 in Italy (and I thought they were Catholics!) or 1.38 in Germany.
Actually now I look it up the US is only 1.88 in the last stats that come up, so Iceland is out-breeding the US.
Edit: and while I don't know why I bother researching and typing these things since I inevitably wind up with negative karma the moment I suggest something not directly in line with HN herd opinion, I wish to add that the top-selling car in Iceland is the respectably mid sized Skoda Octavia.
And it's also quite a sharp decline since the 80's and 70's for Iceland, just like for any other Western country.
Then articles like this come along, and it's hard for me not to think there is a coordinated smear campaign against diesel.
I have to imagine big money is involved, though I don't know. Does anyone else feel the same way or have any input?
Diesel has been linked to producing more byproducts that are responsible for smog than gasoline. If anything this has all been a long well funded war by european car manufactures to push locally produced diesel vehicles which appear to have better efficiency than gasoline. France was swept by the trend and now is regretting the fact that >60% of their cars are diesel powered.
Simply put this was all a tragedy of choosing wrong metrics. Europe chose CO2 levels as the important metric to try to reduce. By optimizing for CO2 they allowed vehicles that produced 4 times more NO2 and up to 22 times more other fine particulates which are significantly worse for human health. Gasoline or Diesel, we still are damaging our environment. It's just with Diesel we see more of that damage done on ourselves.
Edit:
And just as a final point, the US alone has spent $51 million for "green diesel" VW cars. Now we know.
It is a one time event where the worst air quality passed over Beijing's when it was at its best.
Diesel tends to be better at providing a satisfying driving experience with really high mileage. Better mileage means less CO2.
Diesel also tends to emit particulates and trace elements in the oil that it combusts. That means more smog, "acid rain," etc..
If you have to pick one axis, "acid rain" is out of vogue and CO2 isn't and diesel looks like a clear winner and you wonder why every car isn't one. If you pay attention to both axis then diesel starts to dramatically lose its advantage and you really have to use some exotic cleanup technologies just to keep it in the same league as gas engines.
I really don't know if there is big money involved, so much as just too simple a view of the problems. It's not like "clean coal" they both use effectively the same fuel that's just refined differently.
Take fuel mileage out of the equation, though, and IMO diesels suck to drive. You drive one strictly for the mileage benefit (or arguably torque if you're towing something).
Have you driven a new one in the last 5ish years?
Driving anything coming out of Germany that is less than 5 years old is a massive improvement over a gasoline car. Sit on 70mph, uphill, still in top gear doing low rpm and you can easily accelerate past all the gas cars that are dropping down gears, revving through the roof and slowing down.
Off the line, you are pushed back in your seat right off idle, rather than waiting until you're up above 3k rpm in a gasoline car.
Their first road trip to a destination we visit regularly surprised us all.
While with a gasoline car we would need at least one refueling stop each way, the diesel managed both direction, and a bit of back and forth while there, on a single tank.
That, in combo with the lower fuel consumption, was presented as a way to ween the world off oil.
Then came the whole NOx issue...
People were too poor to have cars but they needed a pickup to work the farm. So if you had a car...
With compact cities and an acceptance of small cars, going electric seems natural for Europe.
It also pays short shrift to SCR, which when implemented properly can virtually eliminate oxides of nitrogen in emissions.
Lots of mention of soot and particulates, no mention of the standard particulate filters required on all vehicles now.
I think the commenters who are proclaiming the death of diesel are at risk of simply confirming their own pre-existing preferences for another technology, not so much doing objective analysis of the landscape.
Having said the above, I would agree that the regulatory environment in Europe has failed to ensure that "clean diesel" is not an oxymoron.