This isn’t going to change unless we set the right incentives. For the people in this thread worried about violence against the reporter, I think it much more likely that drivers will simply get the message and turn off their damn engines.
You obviously haven't tried to ask a delivery driver in NYC why their truck is running... I have done it several times in the east village, and got nasty looks and angry responses every time. I wasn't even recording or anything, just walked out of my door and said "hey man, any reason you have to run your truck right now?" And I'm also a 6 foot, not-skinny, guy.
Until then, we need people to do what they can. We’re talking about commercial vehicles - either the owner will bear the cost, and make it clear to employees not to do it, or they won’t, and people will learn quick smart to turn off their engine anyway.
In 95% of cases, people aren’t doing it with the intention of being anti-social - they’re just not aware of it. This sort of enforcement scheme is the kind of thing that changes cultures, starting with polluting corporates.
I need to stop commenting late at night.
However:
- most cities, witch means most densely populated areas of the planet and where most peoples live, can't do that, simply there is no physical space.
- we probably can't produce enough batteries, in natural resources terms, to substitute all ICE cars, and keep producing them when after just 5-8 years initial batteries are dead (we still do not have viable way to recycle).
If you follow the press you've might have read things like:
- https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/uk-eliminating...
- https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vny5/glorified-electric-go...
etc witch clearly depict a future of a divided society: a small minority living in modern homes, with p.v. et al. to meet their energy needs, e.v., perhaps flying ones (witch might be cheaper than keep up a big road network in the actual climate change state) and the rest confined in modern smart cities, closely similar to factories or prisons, oh something like:
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s...
- https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-w...
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-ex...
- https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html
etc. I honestly do not know what can be our (humans) options so far, BUT certainly I do not like decisions made by those who are actually responsible of our tragic evolution. Personally I quit a large modern city toward a served-enough mountains area, building a new modern home, with insulation, anything electrical, p.v. with lithium storage to power and backup, with various backups (nearby water source, water recuperation at home, emergency/for pleasure airtight wood stove enough for heating the house etc) and the above depicted future society might be even good for me: as long as I can get services (food, tools, meds etc) my own personal life is already, still remain if nothing of that happen and can remain if such evolution happen, better than before, but such new society can't last longer. No society where too large part of population are pushed toward India's caste-alike isolation between cohort of people can really last much, especially in modern times where we need enough smart people to keep out tech up.
If you live in a city and thus don't have a private parking space, then you should be using mass transport. Cars don't work in high density areas.
I live in the country in the UK, I do have a bus, it runs 6 times a day and doesn't go in the right direction or right times for most purposes, but the total mileage we do is easily charged from an extension lead, and solar on the roof would provide more 15,000 miles of power over a year - far more than we use.
However the cost of both an electric car and the solar installation isn't worth it, because we don't pay externalities for the carbon production.
And do have also the ability to produce electricity with a usage pattern that permit self-charging the car? Electricity grid are a bit complex to be kept up, to be more precise generators need time to step up produced power and time to step down, that's why we make large enough grid to average the load on generators counting on a big enough user base to have a nearly constant load on the grid, small variations of loads can be sustained. Slowly charging a car, test on few friends cars, means around 15-20A witch yes is not exceptional BUT if many people charge their car during the night that means a spike load, a significant one, on the grid, something no actual grid can sustain. Remember: we do not have "big hyper-condenser batteries" to absorb a spike while generator step up and we do not have "energy sponge" to dump excess of energy once a load drop and the generator need a bit to lower it's produced power. That's the very same problem of domestic p.v.: if they are connected to the grid it's the grid that sustain initial spike while the solar inverter step up, and it's the grid sustain final spike receiving the excess of energy while the inverter step down. If your load surpass injection limits your inverter will disconnect loosing power completely to do it's best to keep a constant frequency on the grid.
We have invented the CONCEPT, since so far exist only on paper and small scale experiments, of smart-grids, to mitigate that big problem: in a smart grid nodes talks each others to say "hey, get ready to produce more energy, I'm about to soft-start from x to y", generators can potentially answer back "don't, we are overloaded" or "ok, we get ready for you". E.v. in the game can provide batteries + inverters to quickly intervene backing up the grid segment per segment. Similarly in case of disruption they can keep a house powered connected to it's micro-grid + anti-islandic system to avoid injecting to the grid. So far we haven't such networks, we have only ideas and experiments. It will take decades (one it's not enough, for all not so small countries) to implement them at a certain scale.
> If you live in a city [...] then you should be using mass transport.
Witch is an enormous issue alone: mass transport are very costly and very inefficient, they are efficient only when fully loaded, exactly when people do not like them for the crowd. But we need to move 24/7/365 not just in peak time, so public transports are complicated and bad in terms of energy saving and outcome service. They are pushed just because there is a hyper-push against personal ownership and autonomy at any cost. But the truth is that public transports are needed in dense cities, but are absolutely unsustainable and dense cities are. Some want them, just because dense cities means mass surveillance where very few can rule many easily, also making them dependent for anything. Even accepting that big liability in cities you still need cars: you have sometimes to go outside, you have to transport heavy/bulky stuff, witch can't be done on public transport. People who work in the city need vehicles just because a plumber, an electrician etc always need a not so small set of tools with him/her etc.
> However the cost of both an electric car and the solar installation isn't worth it
True, and that's why to push the Green New Deal they artificially hyper push up energy prices, both to finance massive private investments in energy production and transmission and to force people who can to buy the Green New Deal stuff and the others to starve sliding toward State subsides at State (of course, not Democratic state but one run by private neoliberal interests) rules. That's already happen. When I've made my new home I know it was not economically interesting BUT I've smell rodent and decide to accept the capex, now in just few years it start to be economically interested. E.v. are still too expensive for their MTBF but I'm pretty sure in few years with energy prices that keep skyrocketing they'll became interesting. As a result I'll spend far more than without the neoliberal economy but still far less then embracing it. Most who live in classic homes and cities will simply have no choices: they'll sell their own homes to some private giant that will rebuild them in new homes for who can afford to buy or rent, or to the State in exchange of provided social housing at provided condition reaching the (in)famous "In 2030 you'll own nothing" from the World Economic Forum agenda. If you are in the UK I suggest Mark Carney (ex head of UK national bank) book "Value(s): Building a Better World for All" it's essentially written black on white, of course, with different tones, but equal picture for the future.
Probably doesn’t apply to most vehicles though.
We've always given a pass to cars for the unpleasantness they bring into a city because we figure there's no alternative, that's just how the city runs. But there are alternatives now, and people are getting fed up with the noise, smells and pollution.
Even without the very well document health affects, cars are just shitty to be around when you're not inside one yourself, I think it's fair that we'd rather not deal with them when on foot or in your own home when possible.
(Manufacturing a new car releases lots of CO2.)
If it's really just 20,000 miles then frankly it might even be one of the most effective ways to turn your dollars into reduced CO2 expenditure.
I did not claim climate-friendliness, but environmental friendliness though.
Also, it was my understanding that most of a (ICE) car can be melted and reused, so maybe the mining impact is lower but I don't know what the real world consequences are.
Not to mention all the other inequalities in society. They mentioned volunteering, If it’s good they should probably be compensated more than some worthless crypto tech bro for example, and should have a good van. But we have to work in the current system.
This heavily depends on the temp range you are discussing.
Lubrication is the least of your worries at certain temperatures. The engine block and pistons being too cold cause problematic expansion and contraction which can lead to block cracks or permanent engine knock issues from what I've seen. This will eventually lead to needing an engine replacement.
It's a trade-off, and nobody seems to have done the science properly - it's just mechanics and engineers guessing which effect is worse.
Is this sarcasm? I can't tell because it is literally the opposite of the truth.
Interesting to me, is that when idling down a hill it does not drop, but if left in gear going down a hill it does drop in temp. It can actually get itself below operating temperature in gear going down a hill. I presume because the heat being pulled out via pumping air through the combustion chamber is greater than the thermostat would allow to be pulled out via the radiator.
Pretty typical of engines of that vintage with hydraulic lifters.
> Interesting to me, is that when idling down a hill it does not drop, but if left in gear going down a hill it does drop in temp. It can actually get itself below operating temperature in gear going down a hill. I presume because the heat being pulled out via pumping air through the combustion chamber is greater than the thermostat would allow to be pulled out via the radiator.
I didn't think that would significant but I could be wrong. Is it a diesel or gasoline engine? My guess would be the thermostat is leaking or wrong temperature.
If you're in a particularly cold winter you might benefit from it but really that's a judgement call. If you live somewhere mostly above freezing and drive a modern car, you're probably good to drive from the moment you start the car. Unless you're about to go full throttle on a racetrack, should be fine.
I warm up my 96 Nissan before driving, but I just go easy for the first 5 minutes in the 2010 Nissan.
Many late 00's engines were also designed to turn off cylinders to improve engine efficiency, but that turned out not to be implemented very well and engines died from carbon fouling. Big problem with Honda in particular iirc, and people would routinely bypass it to save their engines.
Automakers have to comply with CAFE standards and other mandates, but at the end of the day there's no mandate that an engine made with gen-1 technologies will make it to 300k miles either. Automakers don't really care if your engine dies in 10 years or not, they've put out lemons before and they will do it again.
Early CVTs failed at extremely high rates/short lifetimes, for example, and early OAT coolants like Dexcool were notorious for eating up every seal inside an engine. Early high-compression diesels had about a decade of their fuel injectors being eaten away by the abrasive sulfur before the ultra-low-sulfur highway diesel changeover. These technologies are of course completely normalized and trustworthy today, but that's not much consolation if you're the one paying the repair bills on a gen-1 lemon.
For some reason "don't upgrade to a v0.0 release of a new major version of iOS" is common knowledge here but nobody wants to apply that same logic to cars. The general public gets it though.
Now that cars have got 10 years of stop-n-start under their belt it's probably more reliable but still, it's a challenging design criteria for an engine.
Not saying diesel fumes aren't a problem either, mind... we probably need to go electric in the long run. But at the same time, on the level of personal self-interest... it's probably better for your engine to not start and stop constantly. It's just bad when everyone is idling because they don't want to start and stop. Tragedy of the commons.
Currently only ~2% percent of vehicles sold are electric. Going to take 10 years just to get to 50% of sales. That's not even including commercial vehicles.
TLDR - it's going to take somewhat longer than that.
If the truck is 'idling' with the electricity flowing from its batteries, the pollution and climate impact is just dislocated in space and time to the power plant when the truck is charging.
If the truck is off, then there is no problem, but now ICE motors also can automatically turn off and on.
Trash collection just dislocates rotting food scraps and garbage from city streets to a landfill. I think it's an acceptable arrangement!
I assume the vehicles are idling to keep the heater on, or the engine warm. Also, it seems like diesel is different from unleaded gasoline in terms of what engines can do or not.
Isn't that the major point (aside from get the heck out of the way) of these anti-idling laws? Reduce the localized noise and air pollution.
Also NYS gets a ton of electricity from carbon-free sources.
An EV engine just stands still. If people use power, they draw that from the battieres, however this energy is not wasted but employed for something useful.
True, if it's idling, but many (most? all new?) ICEs now automatically stop when the car stops.
When I was in Adelaide circa ten to fifteen years ago I recall the local food and beverage manufacturers all had signs to the effect 'strictly engines off inside'.
Nothing worse than a workshop full of diesel soot, though the exhaust urea fluid (AdBlue) in the newer trucks does give it a distinctively more breathable aroma, so there's that.
Very annoying.
It’s like dude… this isn’t some secret loophole to getting to park somewhere that’s not allowed because another place is inconvenient.
You realize some people have to warm up vehicles on extremely cold days by letting them idle for 5-15 minutes. How are they supposed to accomplish this now?
Article has a js paywall so I'm unable to read if there is an exception.
The main part of the engine that needs to be heated up when cold is the oil, so that the viscosity is low enough to allow it to flow to all the parts of the engine it needs to reach. Modern oils do not have any issues being viscous even when cold, just make sure you use the right oil for your vehicle & climate, and change it on schedule.
Diesel engines are usually physically bigger and the combustion temperature is lower than petrol, so it takes longer to heat up. The biggest issue with a diesel is actually starting it though, that's why in colder climates diesel vehicles usually have a Webasto or similar device to preheat the coolant for you which will make it easier to crank.
Of course there are exceptions to this advice if you live in extreme climates, but NYC is usually not that extreme.
It sounds a lot like you have a problem with your vehicle and should deal with it.
This ignores every laborer that requires heavy tools to complete their daily task. The people that keep your buildings and homes comfortable, for example, can easily have hundreds of pounds of tools.
Steve the Office Manager doesn't need a 2.5 ton pickup truck with a 6-foot-tall frontend that needs a forward-facing camera because the visibility is so shit that there's no way to avoid splattering all of the children on the 2 mile trip through populated neighborhoods between his house and office.
And yes, Steve is a representative buyer of big trucks these days. Actual working professionals want to be able to actually see where they're going, so they buy vehicles with short frontends and high capacity, like the Ford Transit.
A Edwards poll of Pickup owners in 2018 showed that 75% have never hauled anything, and 70% use the bed less than once a year (ie, never). The sales numbers bear this out as well, pickups with actual usable bed space are very unpopular, almost all the units that are sold have crew cabs, with about as much room in the back for hauling as a minivan with the bench down.
Another case of complete disconnect from reality. Many tradesmen use their own personal vehicles. If you want to call it a 'company car' because the commute involves transport of professional tools, then go ahead and play that semantic game.
>And yes, Steve is a representative buyer of big trucks these days. Actual working professionals want to be able to actually see where they're going, so they buy vehicles with short frontends and high capacity, like the Ford Transit.
Something you're so intimately familiar with, that you totally overlooked that there actually are reasons 'anyone should need to use a personal car for commuting inside urban areas.'
>Steve the Office Manager doesn't need a 2.5 ton pickup truck with a 6-foot-tall frontend that needs a forward-facing camera because the visibility is so shit that there's no way to avoid splattering all of the children on the 2 mile trip through populated neighborhoods between his house and office.
And you probably don't need to have your heat set past 50 degrees in winter or 90 degrees in summer, but I bet you use more energy than you need, helping destroy the environment and kill off animals. You don't need to buy lots of things, but won't someone THINK of the splattered CHILDREN!!!
>A Edwards poll of Pickup owners in 2018 showed that 75% have never hauled anything, and 70% use the bed less than once a year (ie, never). The sales numbers bear this out as well, pickups with actual usable bed space are very unpopular, almost all the units that are sold have crew cabs, with about as much room in the back for hauling as a minivan with the bench down.
The change in pick-up trucks to be massive oversized behemoths including those with large cabs is the result of mental illness of those passing CAFE standards which made it effectively illegal to produce a small efficient truck.
A personally owned vehicle used to commute your tools to work could semantically call a 'professional vehicle' if you want to play games, but it's still commuting with your personal vehicle.
So who, really, is the common man?
It takes a serious disconnect from reality to make the statement 'There's no reason that anyone should need to use a personal car for commuting inside urban areas.' Either someone remarkably rich or naive.
And at the end of the day, are you really willing to strip people of the freedom to drive through an urban area?
People who "just want to feel in control" are, essentially, externalising the cost of their choices while having better options available to them. There's not an upside for anyone.
Whereas people who need to drive, where work couldn't be done at all if they didn't, would actually be more efficient if they had clearer roads to get around on. It would save them fuel costs and time.
Really though, I sense that your argument isn't in good faith. A nuanced look at this can easily see that some activities in a city require a vehicle to add value, and others don't. Lumping the two together and citing freedom (to externalise the cost of your choices on to others) is a little like using tradespeople as human shields.
Yes, for exactly the same reason as I'm willing to strip people of the freedom to practice shooting at elementary schools.
The winter temperature extreme in NYC is around -16F, not idling until the engine block warms would be a problem for most vehicles.
So, GTFO with your need to warm up your engine for half an hour.
https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/NY/New-Yor...
That is generally implied by the word 'extreme'.
>GTFO with your need to warm up your engine for half an hour.
Nobody said 30 minutes anywhere in this thread.
Today they aren’t as popular as they used to be, modern cars usually have no problem starting anyway. And most people are lazy to plug a cable so instead use the cars built in pre-conditioner, which sadly also burns diesel and smells even worse than when combusted through the engine.
More modern cars can also utilize the EV charger for this purpose. Another reason why hybrid or EVs are superior to diesel in the city.
The rest was nice stories we told ourselves to not feel our butts freeze.
I learned a long time ago not to put the burden of this specific comfort (warm car in freezing winter) onto my neighborhood. But maybe that is just me being raised with values towards being a good citizen and a potential good ancestor for the next generations to come.
You argue (if one could call you polemic that) to be free of the (negative) consequences of your actions. Free to dump your externalities onto society and burden others with the fallout of you (unnecessary) actions.
That is not freedom my dear fellow.
"Externalities" is a useful economic concept but it's been hijacked by people who use it as "stop doing things I don't like".
If my comment woke you up last night, then I apologize for making it.
we're all entitled to freedom under the law, and some people depend on cars to make a living.
I say this is a car-less NYC resident, bounty hunting culture is dumb.
People are entitled to freedom under the law, but society is free to enact laws that make idling illegal, even if it means some people's vehicles won't start in winter, or restrict vehicle traffic on certain urban streets, whether this pertains to 18-wheelers or a regular handymans truck. Though I'm sure some people will claim there is a constitutional right to getting everywhere by car, and so society is actually not free to do that.
Either way, I doubt there will be significant change. Car culture has a vice-like grip on society, there is no path whatsoever out of this particular local maximum. There may be gestures towards coexistence with other modes of transportation, but never at a significant cost to cars. And that just isn't enough.
state sponsored snitching is dumb
What you are talking about is not freedom. It is the opposite. It is egoism. You want to do as you please without (negativ) consequences for your actions.
Your freedom ends when it impairs the freedom of others. In this case the freedom not to be poisoned by your car's unnecessary (that is the important distinction here) exhaust fumes.
But yeah. Go on denigrating others by calling them entitled.
15 min, full film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8
I mean, it's just constant non-sense. For example:
1. The guy is apparently completely unaware of the laws of his home-country, comically confused about everything.
2. Apparently he entered the country without exchanging his money for the local-system, then is constantly confused that his money doesn't work.
3. Apparently it's highly illegal to pay other peoples' fines (why?), but instead of just declining such illegal payments, it accepts them (why?), then sets off all sorts of dramatic alarms.
4. Unpaid fines stop peoples' cars instantly, even while driving down the road.
5. The last scene shows prisoners relaxing, sipping wine from wine-glasses. Even though they're prisoners, in a country where alcohol's illegal.
1. he's a visitor, who left the country years, seems like decades ago.
2. he's been away for decades? and now the country is no longer what it used to be?
3. artistic license to demonstrate a point? do you expect films to be some pedantic, step by step, black and white, logic device? It's art, and like life itself, it's not always logical. Fraudulent payments go through as well in real life, but clearly they shouldn't, because they are illegal? Perhaps some citizens are exempt from this rule, and so they allow payments, but punish those not allowed to pay? Perhaps there are many other reasons for it, say, why decline it, instead of taking that money, and fining the other person, that way the "criminal" has less money to begin with, and perhaps that was found to be the more effective punishment?
4. tesla can park itself, why can't it park itself automatically once you are found no longer fit to drive in transit?
5. they are "free". in a "prison". are they free in their "home? is there a difference? It really is the point of the entire short.
what it supposed to be? it's an award winning short.
a little more from director himself, on what this is: https://greekcitytimes.com/2021/03/13/utopia-youtube/
But that video's too much like, "If they pass this law I don't like, aliens will invade, earthquakes will shake, and volcanos will erupt!".
If you want to make a real point that people care about, it has to make sense. You can't just make up non-sense, cite "artistic license", and expect people to believe it.
(Besides: it's a strange thing to appeal to when one side is physically assaulting the other.)
>(Besides: it's a strange thing to appeal to when one side is physically assaulting the other.)
To many people there is not much difference between physical and economic damage. Add in the perceived personal disrespect and that's why you get fights.
If they really want to make a difference, they should enforce this against individuals too, not just companies. Lots of people leave cars idling when waiting in the heat/cold/rain. That adds up too.
As for legitimate reasons to leave it idle, I have no idea.
Air conditioning/heating
If you're talking about the cargo, the insulation will easily keep up over an hour or two plus of being stopped.
In the winter, it’s more common than putting gas in your car. It’s kinda odd explaining this though
We use ice scrapers. :) As a matter of self-reliance and/or common courtesy.
Defrosting the windows with the engine is really not nice, especially not when it’s a diesel with the fumes hanging in the winter air and going inside people’s windows and into baby carriages and kindergarteners’ noses.
Thanks, that should be all we really need to see here.
> The externalities should be charged where they occur
You can walk to the farm and negotiate with the farmer to buy from him rather than allowing it to be transported back by diesel, are you doing this or is this just more hypocrisy?
I've never said that I shouldn't be allowed to buy food. I simply believe that when I do, I should pay the true cost of it.
> You can walk to the farm and negotiate with the farmer to buy from him rather than allowing it to be transported back by diesel, are you doing this or is this just more hypocrisy?
You have an oddly black and white view of the world. There are plenty of things that I think we should change that currently benefit me. I can participate in the system while still recognizing its flaws and arguing that they should be fixed. I can't reasonably opt out of everything where I disagree with some aspect of it. Do you believe that politicians should vote against all bills that they disagree with any part of?
I think the wealthy in my country should pay more taxes than they currently do. I make more than the median income so this would probably result in me paying more taxes too. I can hold this view without donating part of my salary to the government. I'm against capital punishment. If I see someone committing a crime they could receive the death penalty for I'll still call the police. Do you believe that these views also make me a hypocrite?
A distinction without a practical difference. It's effectively impossible to buy food at the true cost. Therefore you don't think you should be allowed to buy food.
>If I see someone committing a crime they could receive the death penalty for I'll still call the police. Do you believe that these views also make me a hypocrite?
Yes. If you narc someone out to a system that metes out the death penalty and you disagree with it, then you're no better than the executors.
>I think the wealthy in my country should pay more taxes than they currently do. I make more than the median income so this would probably result in me paying more taxes too. I can hold this view without donating part of my salary to the government
Yes this is highly hypocritical. You want to demand others do something at gun-point that you won't even do voluntarily.