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Comment by CGMthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Don't rule out another Cash for Clunkers. The 2009 program destroyed 1 in 300 cars on the road. The next one could be bigger. Also, 3 in 4 cars on the road today are now in states requiring emissions tests for your annual registration, which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.

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> which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.

At least for my state, the emissions test a car has to pass is whatever it was supposed to have passed when it was fresh off the assembly line. So older cars do not have to pass stricter newer standards that newer cars have to pass.

Now, granted, wear and tear will eventually result in an older car not passing its original standard, but at least the standard it has to pass is fixed, rather than a moving target.

BC stopped emission testing 10ish years ago because new cars almost never fail so there wasn't much value continuing the program.

Dunno why these programs never took a sampling approach and data-mined which makes/models/years to target the next year/cycle.

The only way to have affordable, ubiquitous testing stations is to make it universal. At least, in states that do not also require safety inspections. If only 10,000 cars were tested each year, nobody would buy the equipment.

I don't see what the issue is. Pay the people running the test station more per test but less overall.

Extremely rough example numbers: Instead of testing a million cars for $20 each, 10k cars are tested for $200 each. 85% of testing stations shut down, and the rest downsize if they can, but there's still plenty of them around. The total cost of testing drops 90%. The state taxes every car $2 to pay for the randomized testing; being selected means you lose an hour driving to the station, not that you lose $200 of your own money.

Mass (low-value) testing is only more affordable if you value people’s time at $0/hr

It's not going to keep old cars on the road if you mandate expensive tests to do so, when new cars don't need the tests.

Which is precisely what government bureaucrats value your time in complying with their arbitrary bullshit at.

The article is about the EU, but since you brought up US emissions testing... I live in California, only drive mid 2000s cars, and haven't noticed any of the restrictions getting tighter. It's the usual check every 2 years at the same place. Seems my cars are grandfathered into old emissions standards too.

And yeah I enjoy having my car shut the hell up and let me drive.

There are some German cities (Munich) where you can’t enter the city center with a diesel car that doesn’t meet the EURO 4 standards. EURO 4 is a low bar but there’s really nothing stopping them from eventually implementing it more widely and upping the requirement to EURO 5, 6, etc.

I've been driving a 1996 VW diesel van in Germany including Munich, and nowhere anyone ever actually cared about the lack of the sticker. And now, at 30 years of age, it turned "oldtimer", so it is officially exempted.

Same in Lisbon, nobody cares.

For mid 2000s, the car is self monitoring so an emissions check is just a visual once over to ensure no physical tampering and a computer readout of emission readiness monitors + firmware checksum for digital tampering.

Right, and even the monitors can differ. If a car wasn't made with a certain monitor, that's one less check it has to pass. One of my cars had issues with passing SAI, the other has N/A for that.

I live in California, only drive mid 2000s cars, and haven't noticed any of the restrictions getting tighter.

Last year, or the year before, Texas dropped emissions testing, except in its most populous counties.

I’m imagine that’s coming soon. Most new large cars are getting turbos now to meet federal and state standards, the turbos wear faster and I’m sure there will be a desire to validate them.

Now that my vehicle is approaching 20 years old, I’m so so so happy it has more interior comfort upgrades rather than mechanical ones like 4wd or a turbo.

The emissions tests only test to the level that the car was first registered (or produced) doesn't it?

Yup, a bigger issue for old cars trying to pass emissions is that with prices of precious metals, a worn out catalytic converter (diagnostic code P0420 ) means that most of them are mechanically totaled in California, New York, Colorado since they require either OEM or CARB approved replacements.

Must be close to actually worthless if they’re not shipping them out-of-state, no?

Yeah, if it's worth more than 4k registered, it'll either be fixed or shipped. California gives you $1200 to junk it, people will come pick it up for $1500 and a lot of times you'll see it pop back up in state because they illegally resuscitated it with a defouler, a used/EPA cat and put it back into circulation.

>because they illegally resuscitated it with a defouler, a used/EPA cat and put it back into circulation.

If it passes the sniffer it passes the sniffer, other than the parties who are whiny because they stood to make a buck who cares?

That’s a good thing, yes?

It does promote some catalytic converter theft.

It's good thing if you like not having cancer.

Cash for Clunkers was not mandatory

Not being mandatory and not having an effect are different claims.

Wasn't mandatory to sell your car. Was mandatory to pay taxes that were partially used on those buyouts. You also couldn't opt out of used car prices being higher because of it.

If you keep a population poor enough, almost anything can be functionally mandatory.

Nah you pay a guy and you get your inspection sticker. This has always been the way.

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