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Thanks for sharing that, ORB. An excellent read.
The thing is, the decision to install defeat devices / cheats to pass emissions testing would never be made by someone actually designing or developing the car. It can only be made at executive level. Someone on the board of directors will have known about the cheating, and will have explicitly endorsed it.
So when the C-level execs of the manufacturers deny knowledge of these things, it comes down to one of only two possible outcomes: they're either lying, or they're incompetent.
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Very interesting.
I'd be interested to learn who the "few honourable exceptions" who weren't cheating are?
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“VW isn’t even in the worst half of the manufacturers.”
That's a very telling comment - a sad indictment of the whole industry
Edited by RT on 22/03/2019 at 09:10
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Very interesting.
I'd be interested to learn who the "few honourable exceptions" who weren't cheating are?
I would guess Honda?? A very interesting article ORB thanks for posting
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< Tony Blair’s scientific adviser told me he gave his support to the tax changes that would put so many diesel cars on to British roads because he believed they would meet emissions limits. >
Well, he would say that, wouldn't he ? ....
< Musk sees his mission as loftier than making beautiful gadgets – he wants to put technology to work solving humanity’s most pressing problems. >
And like any respectable project, it will create two new problems for each one it solves.
Edited by Andrew-T on 22/03/2019 at 10:01
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The thing is, the decision to install defeat devices / cheats to pass emissions testing would never be made by someone actually designing or developing the car. It can only be made at executive level. Someone on the board of directors will have known about the cheating, and will have explicitly endorsed it.
I think "explicitly endorsed it" ignores the power of the nudge, and the wink.
There's "known about the cheating", there's "plausible deniability", and there's "if it isn't in writing, it never happened"
I've got no experience of executives in German companies, but in my limited experience of US multinationals, they like to stay in the gray areas.
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www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/22/dirty-...s
'Nuff said!
I think (as many journalists are) naive about the benefits of EVs - yes, they remove a lot of pollutants in large towns and cities, but then redistribute them to the countryside, and especially coastal areas, where the majority of power stations reside.
Wind power won't provide anywhere near enough electricity to cover our needs without covering the entire UK and our coastal waters with them (what a blight); solar PVs are better, but again, the infrastructure and cost of the installation then falls on the individual, and we certainly don't have the manpower to do this in a short space of time.
Even if we'd started back in the late 90s, the (including rolling out charging stations everywhere) would take DECADES and cost untold £Bns, more than HS2. Many homes and businesses don't have the land and/or money to install such facilities; even now, the best EVs have an average range of about half that of an equivalent petrol engined car, never mind in the depths of winter when battery life is significantly lower. And we STILL don't have the battery tech and resources available (e.g. lithium) even today (let alone 20 years ago) to cope with a sudden and significant uplift globally in EVs.
NO, what we need is a gradual changeover, but combined with people buying vehicles with the correct engine for their needs - and that includes a reasonable number of diesels for use carrying heavy loads and for people doing 20-25k+ miles pa mainly out-of-town. We also need to ensure that people only use vehicles when absolutely necessary, which means sorting out public transport, housing, planning policies, immigration etc which makes a huge difference to how and where people live and work.
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<< NO, what we need is ... >>
What we really need is to travel less, which would at least mitigate the problem. Can't see that happening, somehow. Humans carry on believing that there is a magic solution to our problems which will not limit what we enjoy doing (or have to do, for some). And that includes watching world population grow. While that continues, all the fixes are just sticking plaster.
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<< NO, what we need is ... >>
What we really need is to travel less, which would at least mitigate the problem. Can't see that happening, somehow. Humans carry on believing that there is a magic solution to our problems which will not limit what we enjoy doing (or have to do, for some). And that includes watching world population grow. While that continues, all the fixes are just sticking plaster.
The joke is that the very thing that was supposed to be enjoyable is now a curse, with congested roads, pollution e.t.c. I wouldn't mind betting that the human race might find their lives more enjoyable if they weren't sat on their behinds in a car 24/7 and use their limbs for what they were designed to do. Unfortunately, due to the way our systems work now that is impossible for many people. Modern life has it's attributes and downsides.
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<< The joke is that the very thing that was supposed to be enjoyable is now a curse, with congested roads, pollution etc. >>
As with many other human activities, the side effects do not usually become detrimental until it ceases to be a minority activity. That has usually meant that the 'rich' take it up first, and affordability gradually trickles down the social scale as the moneyed class builds factories to make profit from everyone else.
No, I am not by nature a socialist. I am starting to wonder what life will be like when half the population flies a drone .....
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<< NO, what we need is ... >>
What we really need is to travel less, which would at least mitigate the problem. Can't see that happening, somehow. Humans carry on believing that there is a magic solution to our problems which will not limit what we enjoy doing (or have to do, for some). And that includes watching world population grow. While that continues, all the fixes are just sticking plaster.
If the cost of housing was less and the cost of moving house (SDLT) was reduced, the amount of commuting would reduce significantly.
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< If the cost of housing was less and the cost of moving house (SDLT) was reduced, the amount of commuting would reduce significantly. >
Hmm, not sure. For a long time Brits have preferred to live outside town centres, ever since the Victorian railways and trams gave them the means. The French have remained happy to 'live over the shop'. One result is our empty town centres - nearly everything is now peripheral, housing and shopping areas.
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Suburbs, yes, but not 50, 100+ miles away. That's really only a feature that started in the mid-late 90s. My last job had a colleague working from home and occasionally commuting all the way from the south coast up to North Hertfordshire, because he originally moved from the firm (and home), hated working in that area (bad firms) but couldn't afford to move back again when he rejoined the firm.
What doesn't help is that more and more firms are moving away from smaller and mid-sized town and cities into the big ones, especially London, where the vast majority of government spending goes on. We need to make the regions more attractive to business, and that won't be helped by just enforcing ULEZs but having rubbish public transport, amongst other things.
Sadly, too many people in charge of policy and implementation who don't know what it's like to live in the real world. They're the same idiots who made diesel cars attractive to buy (against scientific advice, available before 1997) and are now demonising them without thinking of the consequences or proper implementation of value alternatives. It's all short term politics for headlines and pandering/virtue-signalling to special interest groups who shout the loudest and rich lobbyists on behalf of corporates.
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... that won't be helped by just enforcing ULEZs but having rubbish public transport, amongst other things.
It's no good moaning about rubbish public transport - that is just a vicious circle. Public transport is often 'rubbish' because people don't use it. And as has been often said, if you don't use it you lose it. A lot of public money would have to be spent to persuade commuters back onto public transport if that is to satisfy all their different requirements, and run often enough for them not to wait long. They just wouldn't pay for it. And like the railways it would be heavily congested at rush hour and uneconomical in between.
Back to the bike ?
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... that won't be helped by just enforcing ULEZs but having rubbish public transport, amongst other things.
It's no good moaning about rubbish public transport - that is just a vicious circle. Public transport is often 'rubbish' because people don't use it. And as has been often said, if you don't use it you lose it. A lot of public money would have to be spent to persuade commuters back onto public transport if that is to satisfy all their different requirements, and run often enough for them not to wait long. They just wouldn't pay for it. And like the railways it would be heavily congested at rush hour and uneconomical in between.
Back to the bike ?
Yes and no. Public transport can and is naff - e.g. the stupid timetable changes of late in (at least) my nekc of the woods that lead to many, many more cancellations and delays - essentially chaos for months, leading to the TOC's cief leaving and the firm getting a £5m fine.
Buses with seats that are either too small or with not enough leg room (even for a normal sized person), new trains with terrible 'ironing board' upright, very uncomfortable seats that are too close to eachother with less leg room than before, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Train services that aren't integrated with local bus services so that all the workers who could use public transport can't because their place of work is located in business parks on the edge of town, too far (or too dangerous) to walk - the only bus services are hourly, limited to rush hours only and have no tracking so you don't know if it'll turn up.
Train car park pricing that makes it cheaper for villagers to drive to the next station or two (like mine) and park all over town (in residential roads) to save money.
The problem is that there's no joined-up thinking across all public services, as they each affect the others. Town planning has a lot to answer for as well. But back to the original story - all too often, governments come in with the heavy handed apporach or virtue signalling, often ignoring advice or getting it from dodgy sources. I think we need to proverbially wipe the slate clean and start from scratch on many fronts.
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A review of the BMW electric car took in a trip to Amsterdam, the reviewer had trouble getting charging points to fit his charging lead over here and on the continent, also difficulty using his card to pay. He had the one with the range extender which is a petrol 650 cc job if I recall which improved matters. Apparently the range of this car is adversely affected by winter weather. For me range anxiety and the cost of the car initially makes an EV unattractive at the moment.
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The two most honest companies in the Homologation world were Ford and Toyota-this was the opinion of both the British and German homologation engineers when I did the job which was many years ago!
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www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/22/dirty-...s .
A test is a test and a pass is a pass. That's what my near 40 year technical testing career was about. The tests may need to be appropriately revised ,to realistically achievable levels, by technical comittees.
Blame the legislators and not the manufacturers.
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Anyone who believes that the UK can solve its electricity production 100% by using solar and wind power is totally ignorant of the real world issues these both have.Basically both are unreliable and produce most power when it is not needed (solar) and least power when it is desperately needed (cold still cloudy days in winter..Then you get zero power..
A fundamental issue only soluble by large scale energy storage which is not currently feasible either technically or economically.
Period..
Those politicians claiming we can 100% green in electricity production are relaying of HUGE progress in battery technology and cost reductions - which on current development look at least 15 years away.. SO when you hear a politician saying carbon free by 2030 or 2035 they are either ignorant or lying or both.. Just ignore them..
Then once the battery technology works, you need the space to put it in.. Put it simply you would need to store at least 5 days energy consumption in winter to allow for outages. And in prolonged snowy conditions maybe double that..
And talk of using EV batteries to do it when we have no network planned for EV charging at present - which means a 10 year lag from pressing the GO button on the plan to it fully working results in 2040 by the earliest..
See gridwatch.co.uk/ for live figures.. In mid winter there were days when solar and wind bot produced 0 power - together.
The Guardian's writers are not fools and must know that.. in which case they should tell us. If they don't they are not worth reading.
Edited by madf on 23/03/2019 at 15:17
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Those politicians claiming we can 100% green in electricity production are relaying of HUGE progress in battery technology and cost reductions -
The Guardian's writers are not fools and must know that.. in which case they should tell us. If they don't they are not worth reading.
Well, there's talk of converting essentially ALL the HEP facilities in Norway and elsewhere to pump storage. Sums are supposed to look OK.
And then there's Chinese nukes. I'm not very keen on Chinese nukes, but HMG seems to be.
Re "green" Chernobyl has never been greener.
Re Guardian's writers, whence the plural?
AFAICT this was one journalist writing about failure to adequately enforce automotive pollution regulations. Can't really expect ALL the peripheral issues to be covered in one article.
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