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Comment by frollogaston | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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