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Comment by MisterTea | Hacker News Reader

Are you referring to a modern clean diesel with DPF/SCR or the old mechanical smoke belching rattlers? My friends Passat was a 2009 model I believe.

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Diesels from 2009 produce 5-10x higher emissions than the regulatory limits when used in real world conditions. Even diesels built this year vastly exceed the required emissions. They actually had to include a fudge factor which they’re slowly decreasing because diesels were so much worse than they were supposed to be.

The 2009 model year is when VW started to program their diesels to cheat on emissions tests.

Are you referring to a modern clean diesel...

"...or my friend's 2009 VW?" When speaking of emissions output, I find it amusing that your anecdata involves a Volkswagen diesel.

I don't know how true this is but I've heard the older diesels (2000 era) actually had lower NOx emissions than the newer models due to them running at lower temperatures as they weren't trying to hit newer regulations on particulate emissions.

This also then led to newer models emitting finer particulate which was more easily picked up by the wind and could travel into the lungs more easily instead of denser particulate which fell to the roadside.

This is definitely my experience - breathing diesel exhaust now makes my lungs immediately tighten up in a way that didn't used to happen. Perhaps I'm just getting old though.

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