On Thursday, I noted that the Friday before Christmas is usually when companies drop the most unflattering news. Oh boy have they. We’ve got a stocking full of diesel emissions cheats, failed ventures, and stop-sales. Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! Wait, that’s pirates.
Apologies for the lack of TMD yesterday, but it’s been quite the month at The Autopian, and the final straw was David getting a pretty terrible case of COVID on the days he was supposed to cover for other people traveling. He’s recovering, but we decided it was probably better to take it easy as a staff.
Thanks to everyone this month for pulling together to put out a lot of great stories and thank y’all for reading. We’re going to be back up to full speed in January and have a lot of big plans, plus some big stories the last week of the month (look at one from Jason on Christmas Day).
Anywhere, here are all the people getting coal in their stockings.
Cummins Hit With $1.675 Billion Fine Over Cheat Devices
Let’s start with the biggest one. Diesel engine maker Cummins, recently on this site for some cool oil, has agreed to pay an almost $1.7 billion Clean Air Act fine for installing emissions-cheating devices on engines used by Ram for its 2500 and 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks. That’s billion with a B.
This is the biggest Clean Air Act fine ever. Here’s what Attorney General Merrick Garland had to say about it:
“Today, the Justice Department reached an initial agreement with Cummins Inc. to settle claims that, over the past decade, the company unlawfully altered hundreds of thousands of engines to bypass emissions tests in violation of the Clean Air Act. As part of the agreement, the Justice Department will require Cummins to pay $1.675 billion, the largest civil penalty we have ever secured under the Clean Air Act, and the second largest environmental penalty ever secured.
“The types of devices we allege that Cummins installed in its engines to cheat federal environmental laws have a significant and harmful impact on people’s health and safety. For example, in this case, our preliminary estimates suggest that defeat devices on some Cummins engines have caused them to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides. The cascading effect of those pollutants can, over long-term exposure, lead to breathing issues like asthma and respiratory infections.
The largest environmental policy fine was the approximately $30 billion in fines and other costs related to Volkswagen’s Dieselgate, I believe.
Cummins, for their part, admitted to nothing:
Cummins Inc (NYSE: CMI) has reached an agreement in principle to resolve U.S. regulatory claims regarding its emissions certification and compliance process for certain engines primarily used in pick-up truck applications. The company has cooperated fully with the relevant regulators, already addressed many of the issues involved, and looks forward to obtaining certainty as it concludes this lengthy matter. Cummins conducted an extensive internal review and worked collaboratively with the regulators for more than four years. The company has seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and does not admit wrongdoing.
What’s interesting about both Dieselgate and this Cummins issue is that it’s not clear whether either would have been noticed without the work of non-federal entities. The world learned about Volkswagen’s shenanigans via the work of scientists at West Virginia University and this Cummins settlement is ultimately the result of a California Air Resources Board investigation.
All these companies bear responsibility for their actions, but it’s worth asking how everyone thought they could get away with it for so long (and did).
GM Issues A Stop Sale On Chevy Blazer EVs
I’m excited to drive the electric Chevy Blazer EV because it looks like a compelling product and it even won the MotorTrend SUV Of The Year. The rollout, though, has been consistent with other Ultium products, which is to say… not great.
Last week, our pal Kevin Williams got stranded in one at an Electrify America station in rural Virginia. Edmunds got one as a long-term tester and has had 23 problems in just 1,600 miles of driving.
Now the inevitable has happened, per Automotive News:
Chevrolet on Friday issued a stop-sale on the 2024 Blazer EV to fix a software quality problem.
The issue is not safety-related and affects “a limited number” of the electric midsize crossovers, Chevy said, without giving a specific quantity. The stop-sale covers vehicles in transit and on dealership lots.
Chevy said engineers are working on a fix for the software issues, which include sporadic problems with screens inside the vehicle and, rarely, during charging attempts at some public DC fast chargers.
It’s interesting that this isn’t an over-the-air update, but GM has also had issues with those on their EV platforms.
Hyperloop One Is Dead
Remember that brief period of time when people thought hyperloops would be the future of transportation? That’s probably over, as Hyperloop One (formerly Virgin Hyperloop) is dead and selling off assets according to Bloomberg.
I like this wrap-up from The Verge:
During the pandemic, nearly all of the top executives and founders left Hyperloop One, which also shed the Virgin from its name after the company decided to eschew passenger trips in favor of cargo.
Today, no full-scale hyperloops exist anywhere in the world. Musk’s test tunnel in California is gone.
Good times.
Tesla Recalls 120,000+ Cars For Doors That Might Unlock In Crashes
Tesla, which has already been getting hit pretty hard on safety-related claims, has just issued another recall, this time for doors that might unlatch in crashes.
Tesla said in its filing on Friday with NHTSA that earlier this month it saw a cabin door unlatch after impact on the non-struck side during a routine crash test.
The test vehicle was operating without the lockout functionality, which Tesla discovered was inadvertently excluded from the software updates it began issuing starting in late 2021.
The recall impacted Model S and Model X vehicles and was fixed using an over-the-air update.
What I Listened To While Writing This TMD
The kids running around the house playing.
The Big Question
What else did I miss? I might update this post.
“…the electric Chevy Blazer EV because it looks like a compelling product and it even
wonbought the MotorTrend SUV Of The Year.”FTFY
AND there’s a stop sale on the Blazer as well for undisclosed reasons
Most likely the Cummins cheats were clever software that set the engine tune to the cleanest settings under conditions where emissions tests were likely to be performed. (because the methods are published and often even performed by the companies themselves).
When in normal operating conditions, they let the soot fly. For me this is a regulatory failure on two levels. First, the initial test was inadequate because it didn’t anticipate the entire range of operating conditions and second because there was no spot checks of the industry compliance. But in reality, the regulators knew exactly what was happening and didn’t want to rock the boat.
Remember, lobbyists control Congress and the Executive Branch. Congress sets the regulatory budgets and the President appoints the agency heads. They don’t want to harm the industry and they want to keep the campaign donations flowing so they create just enough regulations to curb the worst offenses and convince the public that they are being protected. CAFE is a perfect example of this. It is regulatory performative theater.
Just want to point out that though this is somewhat harmless as an internet comment, this is a nice helping of misinformation masquerading as facts. Zero evidence, all opinion
Hence “Most Likely”. Yes entirely my opinion extrapolated from the few known facts of the VW cheating methodology and my limited knowledge of engine management technology. Conjecture is all we have since there was no real information available in the official announcement. As for the how our regulatory agencies work, I stand by that observation.
As someone who has actually worked for a regulatory agency, I am always amused by the odd notions some people have about how they operate.
“As someone who has actually worked for a regulatory agency, I am always amused by the odd notions some people have about how they operate.”
Well then as someone who worked at a regulatory agency, why don’t you explain how purveyors of on-road diesel-powered vehicles were able to build so many vehicles for so many years and nothing was done until outsiders at a university found the issue with some very basic testing?
How does a scandal get so big WITHOUT some regulatory collusion with lobbyists and the industries that pay them?
I am sure the regulatory agencies have many dedicated employees who work diligently at their jobs. But didn’t you always wonder why the rules you have to follow are often at odds with the intended goal of the agency?
Cummins didn’t do anything different than VW, Mercedes, or any other cheaters. This is likely why we didn’t get many Japanese diesels over here. They couldn’t compete if they followed the rules.
(My Mazda salesman complained about the US not getting a diesel Mazda5, so I know they were available elsewhere.)
The cheaters were just hoping that loophole would never be penalized.
Exactly. The other car companies and the regulatory agencies know what is possible. And they know that cheating on that scale doesn’t happen without willful ignorance by the compliance agencies – which of course can change on a whim.
If you want to compete you have to join the cheater party or go somewhere else and hope the winds change direction.
Fines are enforced donations
^—– This. Having owned a I5 gas MkV Golf at the time of Dieselgate I figured out how VW used their software to trick the e-testing machines from the way sensors in my car reacted under certain conditions on startup.
“Hyperloop shed the Virgin from its name” – Yeah, because it’s fucked.
It was no longer Virgin the moment someone ran a train through it! I mean, what a way to lose the name! There’s no going back now!
That’s like the old joke from when Virgin was just a record company. “How do you play the records if there’s no hole?”
Cummins:
Was that an aftermarket thing? Was RAM not aware of the deletes? If they were aware, why aren’t they getting to share the pain?
Wow! Happy Festivus!
As someone who’s currently recovering from Covid, I hope David’s back on his feet soon (if he isn’t already)
We get our covid 2-3 weeks after school opens in September. (Why are vaccines not available before school starts?) Unfortunately, there is one nasty cold with lingering cough, and now, 2 weeks later a flu-like bug. Damn these viruses!
I finally got my Covid at around that time. To be honest it wasn’t bad at all. I had my shots and Covid felt like at worst a mild allergy. If not for the contagiousness I would not have missed a day in the office.
Shortly before that I and my friend were musing about haven’t gotten it and being the last man (and woman) standing. We both got it two weeks later. Served us right.
Thanks modern science and to you all antivaxxers can go get bent.
I’m reading all of this all but taken out by that RSV bug flying around. It sits in your chest and it does not want to budge. If your area even has shots available, get it. This strain just isn’t hitting infants and the elderly hard. Merry (cough…hack!!!) Christmas!
Here’s an interesting story out of Canada regarding the cost to replace a 2022 Hyundai IONIQ battery. The driver hit some object on the road. The driver did not experience any problems, but took it to a dealer who found scratches and maybe a dent on the battery cover but found no functional concern’s. The dealer declared that the battery protector cover had physical damage [the scratches] the entire battery needed to be replaced, at C$60,000. Because the scratched /dented battery protection cover was caused by a road accident and not a manufacturing problem, the car’s warranty did not cover replacement. The car insurance company totaled it as the car, new, costs C$55,000.
A second case concerning the same model of car has now surfaced with the same circumstances- the IONIQ battery replacement costs more than the price of the car new.
These are documented in the following youtube videos
Case 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3mFzh0KSk
Case 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXieo06ta8
WTF
Zack and Andrea have done some great reporting on this. Definitely worth watching.
” but took it to a dealer ”
That’s at least half the problem right there. I’m sure the dealer slapped their own 100% markup on it. By comparison, Tesla sells higher capacity replacement batteries for the Model S for around CAD$20,000. And replacement packs for the 3 and Y are cheaper.
Plus, a lot of dealers seem to still get allergic reactions when it comes to servicing BEVs or hybrids. The dealer probably did no real diagnosis… which is something I’ve personally experienced (after charging me top dollar for a diagnosis) in my younger years when I stupidly took my car to a dealer for a repair.
And then there is the other half of the problem… Hyundai and their BS response.
Hence, when I buy an electric car, it will be Tesla or nothing. Legacy automakers may be selling BEVs now, however the legacy support infrastructure for those legacy automakers still is unwilling to service BEVs in any sort of a competitive way.
Our Kia Soul battery cost $14,000 to replace. I’m guessing the 8 year old EV is only worth that much. At least it was covered under warranty since it had degraded.
You didn’t actually watch the video, did you. The price for the battery was Hyundai’s official list price, verified at several dealer’s by using the part number. There was no markup by the dealer.Further the requirement to replace the battery was Hyundai’s, not the dealership’s… in either case.
“The price for the battery was Hyundai’s official list price, verified at several dealer’s by using the part number. There was no markup by the dealer”
And do you seriously believe that official list price doesn’t include a lot of markup for the dealer? Seriously???
Got news for you… Legacy OEMs AND dealers make fat margins on the parts they sell. How else do you explain the huge discrepancy between the cost of a higher capacity Tesla Model S battery and the replacement the Hyundai dealer is selling?
“No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly. Rather than abandoning the falsified universal generalization or providing evidence that would disqualify the falsifying counterexample, a slightly modified generalization is constructed ad-hoc to definitionally exclude the undesirable specific…”
Oh, and one more small thing regarding the relevancy of your comment: where else can you buy a replacement battery for a 2022 Ioniq besides the dealer?
No.
The “It’s just the list price… the dealer isn’t ripping anyone off” line is bullshit.
It being ‘the list price’ only means dealer and the manufacturer are merely working together to gouge the consumer.
I used to work for a major insurer. If there is any *tiny* chance of battery issues, total the car. If there is damage to the car and it’s an EV, it’s less liability to just total the car even without battery damage. This is the modern way for insurance companies. If you crash or damage your EV, expect your insurance to total it and give you a check.
If this is true (and I don’t doubt it is), how the heck does EV insurance not cost massively more than insurance for an ICE vehicle?
Are the rest of us paying jacked premiums to offset the EV write-off tax? The entire insurance industry feels like the biggest scam in the world and anecdotes like this do nothing to alter that opinion.
The light just came on now? I have had my M licence for 50 years. If I sell my motorcycle and cancel the insurance the clock starts ticking. If I don’t buy another bike within their arbitrary timeframe (6 mo. to a year – don’t remember off hand) my rates reset to that of a new rider with no experience. They want their protection money, and they want it every mo./year like clockwork. Don’t pay on time and regularly, you get taken out back and worked over.
The light has been on and flashing red for as long as I can remember, but I’m too scared by the prospect of being without insurance to not begrudgingly pay for it.
Remember that insurance companies NEVER like to lose a penny. So it’s not in premium hikes, it’s the salvage value of the “totaled” vehicle that goes to auction at Copart or IAA. The insurance co. might get $10,000-30,000 in salvage value since in most states, insurance has first right to retain salvage and sell it to recoup costs. If you wanted to keep your vehicle, you’d have that same huge salvage value subtracted from your payout.
I’m thinking a Hyperloop theme park! Or maybe turn the tunnel into the worlds largest potato gun. Spuds in space! Happy holidays Matt.
Tardy Cannon!
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gvnpk
Or perhaps less ambitious, chicken cannon!
So building the world’s largest paintball gun from Los Angles to San Francisco and then stuffing it full of people in cars that go inside other cars might have been a bad idea? It’s wild that 450 million dollars was invested in this absolute absurd idea solely because a dude you know the name of said it was cool. If only there was a functional example of maglev trains that don’t require a pressurized steel tube to reach high speeds! It could possibly even function along things like fault lines and gradual shifts over time.
Yeah, it’s so unbelievable what a waste this was on such a stupid idea…just imagine if it was public $ what could have been done if it was put into our infrastructure
It could’ve been used for high-speed rail using proven existing technology, which is exactly what the hyperloops existed to prevent investment into. They were nothing more than a ploy to keep people buying cars, and their creators have admitted as much, and it fricking worked. Those $450 million were used to screw the public out of affordable, safe, quick, truly environmentally friendly transportation.
Good riddance.
You obviously are not familiar with high speed rail. The glorious state of Kalifornia has spent or committed $35 Billion for what will be a medium speed choo choo train between Merced & Bakersfield. Ain’t nobody gonna ride that. And that is the easiest segment to build; across what is essentially flat farmland in the Central Valley.
Should the Cronyville express actually go from LA to SF, it’s currently projected to cost at least $128 Billion for the 500 mile ride. Retiring Republican representative Kevin McCarthy said “In no way, shape, or form should the federal government allocate another dollar to California’s inept high-speed rail,” McCarthy said in a statement to CalMatters.
Of course a republican politician would say that, they get money from the car industry. I try to follow both sides, for the record, both have biases and get some things right and some things wrong, but frankly I’m skeptical of all the fearmongering that goes around public transit around here. The point of trains is to link places that are too far to walk, densely populated or not. It’s no different than maintaining a highway that goes to a remote town, it’s public infrastructure that serves a valuable purpose. Highways don’t make money, not everything has to, it just has to be useful, and public transit is extremely beneficial.
Wait, you’re telling me that a decades-old, still growing, tested and tried public transit method that’s been implemented across several countries all over Europe in an integrated network that’s had to overcome incredibly difficult topography and needed international coordination would not work in the USA because… some republican said so?
It won’t work in the US because the entire societal fabric opposes it. If a new rail line actually starts becoming reality, then pork barreling, cronyism, governmental inefficiency, and plain corruption all set in, making it incredibly pricy.
The US can’t really do anything any longer. We are like a doddering octogenarian who can go through the motions of things we are familiar with but are unable to actually help ourselves; god forbid fixing something we have been doing wrong all these years or learning something new. The only thing that could fix this country is a brand new constitution, but constitutional fetishism is real, and the only groups who could make it happen both benefit from the existing system, precluding any such possibility.
I always try to be respectful of the USA (or any other country), but I do see what you mean. As someone who follows american politics closely – and has an unexplicable fondness for the USA – it does seem like the country is stuck in a loop sposored by the two-party system, and the unexplicable constitutional extremism professed by many – even if they only care about gatekeeping those bits of the constitution they like, and apparently no one even takes time to read and interpret the text (how many ammosexuals are actually part of a “well regulated militia”?)
I wonder what the USA would be like if the working class hadn’t – for the most part – been seemingly brainwashed into believing right wing ideology/policies will protect their interests.
See California “High Speed Rail”.
When completed most of the route will be around 170-220, which is a bit better then medium speed. And comparative to the Hyperloop at 28 million per mile/ not including right of way, that’s pretty good. Also Kevin McCarthy must be retiring due to continued federal dollars being spent he himself voted for.
Somehow I missed that $128Bn for 500mi of HSR. More than €250M per mile? That’s beyond insane. Spain averages €15M per km of HSR built. France spends about €25M per km. If you spend big like France, 500mi come out at around $22Bn. If the figures you floated are real, whoever’s pushing for that HSR to be built is also working to make sure it’s not viable.
That figure includes right-of-way cost in two extreme high priced metros and California as whole. Accessing land in America always adds a lot to our infrastructure projects due to how our process works. If I remember correctly, the cost of double track and assorted electronics for track was 17 million per mile.
I get that, but still, how that adds an extra $230M+ per mile to the global cost is kinda puzzling. I have a hard time believing this is as cheap as it can be to build a HSR in California.
Oh it’s not, it would be way cheaper if land speculators and corporations didn’t buy up all the land and then negotiated a very lucrative buyout by the Government. But this is America and we take every opportunity to put your tax dollars in the pockets of our wealthiest class.
Yeah, I can see how that would happen. From an outsider’s perspective it does seem like almost everything in the USA is designed to transfer wealth from the bottom to the top.
Why don’t we just eminent domain it instead, like we did in the 50’s to build the highway network?
Oh yeah I forgot that land belongs to powerful wealthy (white) people and the beneficiary of accessible public transit is the common man and not some bloated car company with way too many overpaid executives
Bakersfield to Meced (with their worldly possessions) I could see. Taking a train TO Bakersfield, not so much.
$450 million is nothing for highspeed rail, and I don’t buy this conspiracy theory in the least bit. The first highspeed rail in Japan was built in 1964, and the USA has been perfectly effective at avoiding investment in passenger rail for those last 60 years.
Yeah, we’ve got shit roads and bridges here.
That is way less than the billions they have spent on the high speed train fiasco already in California.
Yes but high speed rail is known to work.
In densely populated, well defined city to city routes. Where urban/suburban sprawl dominates (anywhere not w/in 50 miles of the East Coast), it won’t work.
A. California is not some barren wasteland expect that desert bit, it’s extremely dense in very large pockets that really are not far from each other. It’s the perfect place to let a train hit 220. The whole NEC is only place HSR will work thing is just talking points by non-train people. The NEC is extremely dense for a long time, it would be challenging to let a train run 220 though Maryland for example.
Japan is 85% the size of California and has the most advanced rail system in the world, despite Japan being extremely mountainous and with population centers divided by mountains. It’s fantastic. Silly to say it can’t work in CA.
The desert wasteland/agricultural area is where they are spending the $28Billion. That’s wide open spaces and “relatively” cheap land (and yes, the rail authority is using eminent domain to acquire the land). When they get to the densely populated areas where fixed rail transit might have an audience, they will spend more Billions on land and lawsuits. It probably wouldn’t even feasible to underground the lines, except in the median(s) of freeways (which won’t have the alignment desired by the politicos).
They have had 20 years and have built almost nothing. Rail may work in theory but you are going to have to change CA politically for it to work there.
Six commercial maglev systems are currently in operation around the world. One is located in Japan, two in South Korea, and three in China. In Aichi, Japan, near Nagoya, a system built for the 2005 World’s Fair, the Linimo, is still in operation. The Shanghai maglev is the world’s first commercial high-speed maglev and has a maximum cruising speed of 300 km/h (186 mph). Prior to May 2021 the cruising speed was 431 km/h (268 mph), at the time this made it the fastest train service in commercial operation. No tunnel required.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_maglev_train
GM’s decision to use Android Automotive was theoretically fine; Volvo was first to use it since 2020 and they’ve done fine. It’s really embarrassing for GM to not be able to ship a working version, especially since they didn’t have to spend resources on making Android Auto and Carplay work.
I agree. My Polestar 2 uses Android Auto and it’s fantastic and has been trouble free for me for the whole time I’ve had it (about a year). I love the fact that I don’t have to pair a phone with it at all. In fact I never have. The integration is seamless and everything just works, almost like an Apple product 😀
Even Stellantis’ UConnect 5 is built on Android Automotive. It’s not perfect yet (they update it several times a year) but it works well, and supports wireless CarPlay and Android Auto.
Wait, but I thought GM ditched Carplay and AndroidAuto because their software division is easily better than Apple and Google, and the new GM in-car interface is gonna blow those two out of the water! Now even the basic software that runs the car doesn’t work??
Must be some Apple/Google sabotage or bribing of auto journalists!! ..and EV Blazer random customers!! <puts tinfoil hat back on>
Android Automotive & Android AutoThe nomenclature can be confusing. Here’s how they differ:
I know the difference, which is why I said what I said. Did you not read my comment? It’s shorter than your ‘explanation’ 🙂
..or did you not understand it? I think it’s pretty clear despite the sarcasm
Hyperloop was very successful in what it was meant to do: discourage investment into realistic transit projects resulting in maintaining car dependency.
Widespread, usable public transit is a huge part of the solution for emissions reduction and climate change, since it:
1. Reduces the need to build as many passenger vehicles, lowering manufacturing and resource emissions and pollution
2. Energy usage per passenger per trip is lower, no matter the energy source, potentially reducing emissions
3. Lowers the total number of vehicles on roads, leading to less traffic and smaller, cheaper to build and maintain roads
4. Reduces the number of badly maintained vehicles on roads, which often exist because people have no alternative transportation
Point 1 has been very relevant lately, since the material supply for EV battery packs is so expensive due to the sheer amount needed. Good transit would lead to cheaper EVs for people who still need private vehicles, such as those in smaller towns and rural areas.
Some other bonuses of good transit:
1. Not needing a reliable daily driver means more money for an unreliable weekend car
2. Less traffic means a nicer driving experience
3. Better general health due to less emissions and raised casual exercise
4. Cars get designed to better suit people who live in more rural areas and are currently generally neglected by the industry
I got kinda off topic there. Coming back to the point, Elon’s dumb ‘solutions’ like hyperloop and the underground tesla loop were created to distract the public away from real, higher capacity, feasible options, causing them to lose political support, leading to them not being built, meaning that he can sell more Teslas, profit off of more superchargers due there being more EVs, and selling more solar panels and battery banks to charge them.
I don’t think anybody ever thought Hyperloop was in stead of more conventional train or bus routes. Hyperloop was meant to replace short commuter flights, like from LA to San Francisco. Which is a great idea.
If you read the Tesla Master Plan, and remember that Elon periodically tries to stop his board of directors from increasing his salary, and remember that he’s already the richest man in the world and can already do what he wants, it becomes quite clear that he has no motive to put down public transit in an effort to improve Tesla revenue.
There is nothing Elon Musk can’t afford that increased Tesla sales at the expense of public transit would let Elon Musk afford.
No, HyperLoop really was meant to reduce investment in rail projects, especially high speed rail.
It was never a real thing.
I’m all for good public transportation but I think it only makes sense in cities or from suburbs into the city. Otherwise it makes no sense. Anywhere else, you would have to find some way to get from the public transport terminal to your destination, which defeats the whole purpose. It really doesn’t work unless everything is in extremely close proximity. I would say to limit or get rid of cars in certain city areas. People who live in big cities are rich enough to move somewhere else anyway if they really want to keep using their car. Honestly though, whenever I’m in a big city, I usually end up walking, as I despise being in crowded buses or trains with a bunch or strangers. It would be a really cool idea if I could park my car somewhere outside of a city and have everything inside be way closer together so people can walk. If people stopped being lazy and walked more it would solve a lot of issues. My neighbors literally drive up to their mailbox. The mailboxes are all at the beginning of the neighborhood literally 0.3 mile walk away from their house.
People walking a third of a mile. That’s tough. I can only play my tiny violin for them for so long.
For many people walking 1/3 of a mile is either impossible or agony.
Walking 2/3 of a mile round trip will take me a good 15 minutes. Some folks are too busy to spend 15 minutes getting the mail.
Who spends 15 minutes getting the mail?
People who have to walk 1/3 of a mile each way to get the mail and take major moral objection to doing it an easier way.
Good public transportation can easily replace airline routes. That was the whole goal of the hyperloop idea.
It’s still not a bad idea, because operating costs would be so very low. The actual cost to move a pound, either passengers or freight, would be a small fraction of the cost of flying.
The problem is that it requires so much capital investment up front for the initial construction that there’s no way to get adequate return for investors as long as airfare prices are so low.
“That was the whole goal of the hyperloop idea. ”
No, the goal of the hyperloop idea was to reduce investment in trains by proposing an absurd unworkable idea that indeed was unworkable. Result: no reduction in car driving.
“The actual cost to move a pound, either passengers or freight, would be a small fraction of the cost of flying.”
Being able to cheaply move a pound of passengers or freight is useless if you can’t carry enough passengers or freight to cover the infrastructure and, er, vehicles at a price anyone would be willing or able to pay.
It’s like trying to sell Concorde as affordable rapid mass transit.
You really think the idea itself was Elon’s? No, he championed it to serve his selfish interests.
I’m 100% sure it was not his idea. The idea has been in Futurama‘s credits since March of 1999, and was also featured in science fiction films of the 1970s.
Elon just gave it a fancy name.
And regarding costs, if someone comes up with a way to create the infrastructure efficiently, it could be the most efficient means of point to point transport, just like vacuum tubes once were in banks and financial centers.
This isn’t contradicting you, but adding some nuance and grey area:
Both the economic feasibility and environmental sustainability of public transit depend on ridership. Basically, a bus needs somewhere around 10 passengers before reaching parity in fuel economy and raw materials with a single-occupant commuter car (this is true for both gas and electric). The US average bus ridership is 7.7.
Public transit is the future. But to make good on its potential, it needs ridership. To get ridership, it needs density. Suburbs do not have that density — they’re only compatible with cars, and that’s a feature, not a bug. Right now, 66% of Americans live in single family detatched homes. We’ve spent the last 70 years tearing up our walkable cities and transit lines to build the roads and parking lots that serve an interminable sprawl where most of our population now lives.
Fixing this problem is not simple if you care about collateral damage. For American homeowners, the house typically is 70% of the owner’s net worth, and they won’t vote for any policy that threatens that wealth. If you bulldoze the suburbs, you obliterate that net worth. If you bulldoze urban highways, you cut the suburban consumers and workers off from commerce centers. If you build medium-density transit-friendly housing, it renders the suburbs undesirable and once again obliterates wealth.
So to summarize:
Here’s a personal anecdote (so it’s not data). I was management at a new distribution center in an industrial park; we employed some 1,500 people. Now warehouse workers are not highest paid people in the world, and we decided that we would try to help them by getting bus service for our employees.
We thought it made sense: 1500 employees divided between two shifts located in a suburban industrial park with several other large employers. We contacted the city bus service and discovered that they were very reluctant to add a route for us.
As a new, large employer, we decided to bully them into it. We worked with the bus people to give the service the best possible chance. We advertised for two months before it started to our employees. We sold passes in the HR office and subsidized the cost.
At the end of the first week of service, we had sold exactly zero passes and the bus had exactly zero passengers. We ran it one more week with the same outcome…so we apologized to the bus service, and stopped the program…to complete silence and indifference from the employees.
I’ve thought a lot about why it failed, and decided it was a chicken and egg situation: if you didn’t have personal transportation you couldn’t have even applied to work for us. If you have personal transportation already, a bus is simply too inconvenient in comparison, and you really only save the cost of gas (minus the bus cost) in commuting since you are not going to sell your car. Thus, car payments, and insurance costs stay the same. Naturally we had free parking at work so that’s no savings either. Without substantial savings, why would you ever choose the bus? If you’ve ever commuted by train or bus, it’s a pain. You must live to the schedule of the bus and if it gets you to work 45 minute early, or makes you wait 45 minutes to leave after the end of your work day, that’s just too damn bad.
So, I can’t see mass transport working except in very dense and crowded urban areas where bus commute times can compete with driving times, and where you can entirely avoid car ownership – you can do basic shopping within walking distance of your apartment.
Sounds like data to me.
I mean, a data point. I do think this is usable information, but to say the situation would be identical for every ~1500-employee industrial park would be quite the ambitious extrapolation.
The college town where I live is not crowded, but when parking costs $65 per month, the bus looks a lot more interesting.
I paid $60 (of my boss’ money) to park near work for two-and-a-half hours a couple weeks ago. I think I was expected to tip as well. Everything is relative!
Is 10 passengers the minimum? With a bus that gets 5mpg, that’s 4 cars getting 20mpg or 6 getting 30mpg. The price of a bus(and I assume approximately the raw materials) is also about 4-6 cars.
Not sure how you want to pivot middle class generational wealth away from suburban sprawl; high rise condos? I for one sure don’t want to live in a high rise condos.
I was thinking the same thing, as a current suburbanite I would sacrafice alot to stay out of a condo. Destroying families finances is not worth it to increase bus ridership.
There are so many reasons I will never aspire to live in an apartment, condo, or even small suburban plot.
If I could get a ground-level, no-stairs, sound isolated apartment or condo, I would be happy to never have a house.
But the sound isolation is probably the biggest issue. No multi-unit apartments I’ve ever been in have put a single dollar into that, for understandable reasons. Some days I can hear my upstairs neighbor snoring, never mind that I hear all their footsteps.
I cannot understand why they don’t build condos to be livable. Two-three story blocks with proper sound insulation, located in green areas with garages on the property and ample storage. It’s not that hard.
We were actively trying to get a condo but ended up having to buy a house, because the down payment requirement and background checks for a condo were simply too onerous (receiving a cash gift to help with the down payment is a no-no with all Boards in the region; the money would have had to be matured for two years first). We couldn’t afford the $400K unit we were looking at and had to buy a $600K house instead. Go figure.
Right around there, yeah. The typical bus in the US gets 3.4 mpg on diesel. That is as much CO2 as ten cars each getting 29.7 mpg on gasoline (diesel is a little more carbon-intensive). For raw resources, a 60-foot bus is usually around 42,000 lbs or about 10x the steel, glass, aluminum, and plastic of an average car. So a bus needs to have on average at least 10 passengers on board at a time, or else it’s using more resources than individual cars.
As a reminder, the average US bus today has 7.7 passengers at a time, and the average US car has 1.5 passengers.
Different tech changes the calculus. The BYD electric busses they use in Denver need 11-12x as much electricity per mile as the average EV, but only 4-5x as much battery capacity. I don’t have a ton of info on light rail, so I can’t give a per-passenger breakdown, but so far I’ve learned that rail seems to be more efficient with electricity and less efficient with steel.
I have no plan, and I’m not even convinced it strictly needs to happen within our lifetimes. I’m just trying to express that any pivot to public transit must address this generational wealth in a meaningful way, or else be a complete flop. I don’t see a lot of advocacy on this front, so I don’t have a ton of optimism for most public transit movements.
It’s funny that you bring that up — it’s a running joke for modern urbanists that Americans think their only choices are high-rises or McMansions. Somewhere between those extremes are medium-density options including “streetcar suburbs” like Somerville Massachusetts, where they have houses that are taller than they are wide, and straight streets appropriate for rails. They don’t have huge lawns, which is a bummer for the goats-and-four-wheelers crowd, but I’d reckon they’d be happier in the countryside anyway.
So we can still make detached housing work with public transit, but only if those houses and streets are built with public transit in mind… and almost all our existing sprawl wasn’t.
Really 3.7mpg and 42k lbs?
There’s a reason I picked 5mpg; that’s about as bad as any somewhat newer semi will get, even around town. I would expect a lower horsepower bus that’s significantly lighter than the semi to do better than 5. Anything less than 5mpg is remarkably awful. Some tractor trailers average 8-10mpg highway.
42k lbs also seems high, even fullsize dump trucks are typically under 30k lbs. I know seats and glass are heavy, but I don’t think they’re quite that heavy.
Maybe the real problem with public transit in America is that our buses suck.
As a definite goats-and-four-wheelers kind of person, you’re right, I would be happier in the countryside anyways.
The 3.4 mpg number comes straight from the AFDC, so I’m very confident on that one. For the weight, I chose the weight of a New Flyer Low Floor 60-foot articulated bus because those match the typical diesel mpg. The shorter non-articulated versions are all 25,000-30,000lbs.
Cheers. I grew up between two cornfields; I get the appeal.
Okay 42k for a humongous 60ft bus sounds right. Buses with only one rear axle will not be more than 26k because that’s the weight limit for two axle trucks.
The 40-foot New Flyer is just under 30,000 lbs curb weight. [wikipedia] The BYD K10MR is 30,000 lbs curb weight. [wikipedia] Both of these have a single rear axle.
I actually see several papers acknowledging that busses (in several contexts) do not technically conform to weight limits. So it seems you’re not the first to point this out. [California][Alabama][APTA]
Buses generally drive in stop-and-go traffic, while making frequent additional stops; I am sure that a bus that didn’t have to pick up and drop off passengers would get much better mileage.
There’s also the point not everyone wants to live in a city or at least I don’t. City life might not be so bad if apartments were easily affordable modern, large, luxurious 2000+ sqft palaces with lots of natural light, panoramic views, rooftop gardens, skyways connecting buildings and subway stations on every other block and whatever else we see on TV. But that’s not the case. Apartments are tiny, dark and old with no place to put your stuff, rents are stupid expensive, there’s noise, crowding and pollution.
No thanks.
dude don’t kid yourself, there’s noise and pollution in rural areas. I hope you like listening to guns and smelling cow shit. City living sucks but it’s not like the burbs or the farms are some paradise.
If the climate continues to change to our detriment we won’t have a choice, the few remaining humans will cram into the sparse habitable bands of Earth. We are all destined for high density housing.
“I hope you like listening to guns.”
Funny, I was once offered a job to do just that. All in cities:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-shotspotter-works-microphones-detecting-gunshots-2017-6?op=1
As for cow shit I will GLADLY take that over the reek of stale human urine and feces that is parts of San Francisco.
Which brings up another big city issue, how’s the homeless population out there in the sticks? Got a lot of tent cities out in the corn fields?
Panhandlers? How many junkies do you trip over each day?
“the few remaining humans”
Why would cities be the answer to a population crash? Without a huge swath of populated countryside to support a city that city is a deathtrap.
You say this with the confidence of somebody who has never spent much time in rural areas. I really have loved my experiences in rural(I mean really really rural) Idaho. I don’t mind listening to guns and I won’t move next to a dairy.
We are absolutely not all destined for high density housing. I think some people really have no concept of how large the earth is. The United States alone has 330 million people and we have space for another billion…… Just in Alaska.
It’s a supertanker, so it will require decades to turn around. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t swing the tiller now!
I don’t think we should start bulldozing the suburbs right away, but we have to stop promoting more of them – there are soooo many ways that we subvent the building of individual homes that can be removed, preferably without squeezing existing homeowners. Change the tax breaks so that building on greenfield becomes very expensive, while promoting brownfield and greyfield development. Some places ought to be rewilded, obviously with adequate compensation for inhabitants.
“What else did I miss? I might update this post.”
We need to know when and where the auction for hyperloop’s assets will be. I think it might be fun to bid on some obscure dead end tech.
I’m gonna make an Elon Musk themed Airbnb out an old Hyperloop car.
Buy a trailer home and a lot of Bondo and make it look like a Hyperloop car. Nobody will know it’s not real and it’d probably be cheaper.
“What’s interesting about both Dieselgate and this Cummins issue is that it’s not clear whether either would have been noticed without the work of non-federal entities.”
Industry “Self-Regulation” doesn’t work due to a fundamental conflict of interest the moment the regulation would result in an increase in costs or a perceived reduction in desirablitly of their product.
Not saying you can’t have industry do a lot of stuff themselves. But you need to have non-industry people confirming on a regular basis that they’re doing what they need to do… and of course have stiff fines/criminal consequences (or the threat of either) if they don’t.
“but it’s worth asking how everyone thought they could get away with it for so long (and did).”
I’m very sure it’s tied to legal tax-deductable bribes in the form of government ‘lobbying’.
“The rollout, though, has been consistent with other Ultium products, which is to say… not great.”
Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a completely all-new platform with an all-new powertrain architecture. And it’s clear that BEVs, while sounding simple in theory, are not as simple to produce in volume in reality.
Only the dumbest auto industry people are laughing at Tesla these days. And the smart ones at the very least have great respect for what they’ve acheived so far.
And I suspect there are still a lot of execs at GM, Ford and Stellantis who STILL have this stupid idea that beating Tesla will be ‘easy’ once they get their own product ramped up.
“Not saying you can’t have industry do a lot of stuff themselves. But you need to have non-industry people confirming on a regular basis that they’re doing what they need to do… and of course have stiff fines/criminal consequences (or the threat of either) if they don’t.”
Correct. One of the mantras of good management is “inspect what you expect”.
“And I suspect there are still a lot of execs at GM, Ford and Stellantis who STILL have this stupid idea that beating Tesla will be ‘easy’ once they get their own product ramped up.”
How many recalls is Tesla on for the month? No way GM, Ford, and Stellantis can catch up.
And of those ‘recalls’, how many of them is just an OTA software update?
I guess it would be unwise to go out for Chinese food and a movie so soon, so he has to do something.
Hopefully he doesn’t fall in the trendy trap of watching Die Hard.
“$30 billion in fines and other costs related to Volkswagen’s Dieselgate, I believe.” Dieselgate ended up being almost entirely a settlement agreement to a lawsuit. Which actually was nice in some ways as (though VW aggressively gamed it as best they could) a lot of it flowed directly back to NOx emissions reducing projects..
Thank you Matt for some REAL REPORTING with added context. Too many lazy cowards out there just reprinting bad-faith press releases with headlines like “LiarCorp raises brave questions about color of sky and wetness of water”.
Stellantis is making so much money selling Alfa Tonales that this fine will mean nothing to them 🙂
The Hyperloop was always a scam to kill High Speed Rail in California. (Not that it needs his help.)
— From Ashlee Vance’s biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future via the linked article
“We need to stop falling for their grand deceptions, and tell our media to stop echoing them too.”
*cough* Hydrogen *cough*
“The rollout, though, has been consistent with other Ultium products, which is to say… not great.”
Honda is probably starting to sweat the decision to pair up with GM on the Prologue
(look at one from Jason on Christmas Day) WHAaaT !?!
Don’t Torch the tree!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
What are you doing working on a Saturday?! Thanks for these stories, even if they’re not great, it’s good to be up on what’s happening. Enjoy the holiday break! I’m excited to see what the new year brings on the Autopian (such as the new member t-shirts!).
I’m looking forward to getting a diesel bro coworker’s reaction to the Cummins fine, but I suspect it will be indignation and even stronger embrace of the big C. Mildly surprised that they didn’t take the hint from VW’s plight and avoid this, but corporations gonna corporate. Certainly no shocked face that they didn’t find evidence of bad faith or admit wrongdoing: they know their customers.
Curious about the specifics of the cheating, I searched, but couldn’t find anything about actual mechanics. Made the mistake of dipping into the Cummins forum. Think I’ll head up into the mountains for a bit to, uh, clear the air now.
Maybe we can talk Rootwyrm into delving into this a bit more after the first of the year
Didn’t Matt link to the carb investigation where they found that the catalyst element was not working properly thus making the engine not compliant with the regulations?
He did
(sound of self-administered Dope-Slap)
thanks because I somehow missed that line—was sort of expecting some sort of brilliantly nefarious bit of kit like Toyota’s WRC inlet restrictor cheat.
So I jumped the gun—and I know better. Anything that confirms one’s own biases needs to checked at the source, and then checked again.
Anything on the Toyota airbag recall? (I know, we’re all getting airbag recall fatigue by now, thanks Takata).
YEESH.
So If CARB caught this diesel cheating, who is getting the money?
Lawyers mostly.
Nope – The Justice Department is staffed with attorneys who are paid fixed government salaries. They do not get lavish bonuses for winning cases – they typically get minimal to no bonus at all.
Federal Regulatory fines sometimes will include compensatory assets to be divvied up amongst the consumers who were wronged – some may stay with the agency which enforced the regulations to compensate for the resources used to pursue the action – but the vast majority will typically go to the general fund of the US Treasury.
But who was “wronged” here? To diesel bros the only wrong is not being allowed to pollute MORE to unleash the full power of their engine.
I’m guessing this all goes to the treasury and from there to help fund the next massive corporate bailout.
Since it’s a violation of the Clean Air Act: all of us.
I look forward to my settlement check worth a down payment on a lunch at Taco Bell.
Do we blame Hardibird for the Taco-Bellification of the Tacopian?
Who here is ready to talk about some chalupas?!
Your offspring (should the rest of us be so unfortunate) get cleaner air.
As someone who experienced the first degree smog alerts of 1970s LA I can assure you the air is already pretty darn clean. Except when the fires burn, then the air is a whole lot like 1970s LA. That’s a different matter though.
As to my offspring I’m a firm believer that the absolute best thing anyone can do for the environment, ESPECIALLY those living in fossil fuel intensive societies is to procreate as little as possible. That goes for you too.
The air in LA is clean because of the Clean Air Act.
Until the fires burn. Then its the 1970s all over again.
So, none of us.
How long have you been holding your breath?
3 years.
If you believe the Clean Air Act, like all other legislation, was created and is maintained exclusively because it solves a problem that the citizens of the United States of America suffer, and for no other reasons.
Yes, and the Clean Water Act is a Communist Plot covering for their scheme to taint our precious bodily fluids with Marxist fluoride. You got it.
Well I’m not sure exactly why the EPA does what it does, but when cars put cleaner air out the tailpipe than they suck doen the intake and the EPA STILL pushes for cleaner emissions, it’s clear that air quality is not the motive.
Where exactly within the EPA’s jurisdiction do you think cars are cleaning the air?
I can’t prove this, but I have heard many times that in especially polluted cities, it is not uncommon for the ambient air to have higher levels of ozone, NOx, and particulates than come out of the tailpipe of the car. Many stories of emissions testing guys noticing that the sniffer reads dirtier when it’s NOT in a car.
Sure, Bejing, Mumbai, Tehran, Lahore etc. Those are all well outside the EPA’s purview.
LA has the worst air quality in the US and as I stated earlier “As someone who experienced the first degree smog alerts of 1970s LA I can assure you the air is already pretty darn clean.” Exceptions for when the fires burn.
I’m sure LAs smog is nothing like what it was, but it’s honestly not very difficult to have lower levels of ozone, NOx, and particulates than the ambient air on a particularly bad day in most large American cities. The air is not in fact “pretty darn clean” when they issue ground level ozone warnings, which they still do occasionally.
“Pretty darn clean” is different from “cleanroom” clean. Even on the best days there’s still plenty of junk floating around and not all of it is the result of human activity. Pollen, dust and smoke are what I notice most. Yes smog is still a thing but again much less so than in decades past. Its typically a gross haze seen in the distance, less so a choking hazard.
The worst-polluted air in the U.S. is found in Bakersfield, California. Looking at the list below, from Earth.org, it’s a good thing that California has tight emissions laws. Things would be much, much worse if they did not. And cars and trucks are not the only polluters – industry and agriculture (especially on permitted burn days) add tremendously to the problem. Given the geography of a huge valley down the middle of the state and that around 20% of the country’s population live in California, it would be extremely unhealthy if the binders weren’t put on a bit. A very long dry season with no rain to clean things up a bit also contributes.
1. Bakersfield, California (annual PM2.5 of 17.6 μg/m3)
2. Visalia, California (annual PM2.5 of 16.6 μg/m3)
3. Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California (annual PM2.5 of 16.6 μg/m3)
4. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, California (annual PM2.5 of 14.5 μg/m3)
5. Los Angeles-Long Beach, California (annual PM2.5 of 14.2 μg/m3)
6. Medford-Grants Pass, Oregon (annual PM2.5 of 13.9 μg/m3)
7. Fairbanks, Alaska (annual PM2.5 of 13 μg/m3)
8. Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona (annual PM2.5 of 12.8 μg/m3)
9. Chico, California (annual PM2.5 of 12.2 μg/m3)
10. El Centro, California (annual PM2.5 of 12.1 μg/m3)
11. Sacramento-Roseville, California (annual PM2.5 of 11.9 μg/m3)
12. Cincinnati-Wilmington-Maysville, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana (annual PM2.5 of 11.6 μg/m3)
13. Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, Indiana (annual PM2.5 of 11.5 μg/m3)
14. Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, Pennsylvania-Ohio-Wyoming (annual PM2.5 of 11.1 μg/m3)
15. Bend-Prineville, Oregon (annual PM2.5 of 11 μg/m3)
Well I live in #4 of your list and I can assure you it, like LA is in general a LOT cleaner today than it was 30-40 years ago. Its amazing anyone survived the 20th century at all.
“Many stories of emissions testing guys noticing that the sniffer reads dirtier when it’s NOT in a car.”
It’s a testing station right? Lots of cars come into testing stations all day, every day including gross polluters. The air quality at a testing station is not a very good benchmark for overall air quality.
For example at my last smog check an early 80’s pickup in dire need of a tune pulled up. The stench was so bad I had to GTFO. The driver had inherited it and I’m guessing was hoping to find a corrupt testing station. He didn’t. He wasted his money to be told the obvious. I’m pretty sure that sniffer would have found the ambient air dirtier than the exhaust of my PZEV (which BTW passed with flying colors) but only in the immediate wake of that POS truck.
Devil’s advocate here in every sense of the word, but I see ALOT of deleted diesels. I mean ALOT of them, and the biggest reason for the deletes are not for power, but reliability. I met a guy with a company that deletes every one of his company trucks and tunes them for fuel mileage, to save his company’s bottom line.
Is it right, or some more noble reason to shitcan emissions equipment? ABSOLUTELY NOT. But there isn’t a county around us for 100 miles that does any kind of inspections, even on gas cars.
If we REALLY cared, we’d be making sure even gas cars were running around with properly functioning emissions equipment, but we’re not. There’s a LOT of old gas v8 pickups running around here that have been running around catless for decades.
But nah, if we can have a few dedicated people bust a big company and score a MASSIVE fine, everything looks great in the news, people get promoted, budgets get padded.
“If we REALLY cared, we’d be making sure even gas cars were running around with properly functioning emissions equipment, but we’re not.”
We in California are. I have to take my cars in for inspection every other year and they pass emissions each and every time.
Which reminds me, I gotta find a cheap smog station.
“Cheap smog station” is an oxymoron. Gotta take the BMW in for it’s biannual smog check so I can pay Commiefornia’s outrageous tax/license fees.
Well you could dump the BMW and replace it with an EV. No more emissions testing ever.
Or best of all move out of “Commiefornia” to freedom loving Mexico. From what I’ve seen during my trips to Baja ANYTHING goes there.
In PA, in the counties surrounding and including the big cities, gasoline cars all have annual safety and emission inspections. Emissions is a tailpipe test. My vehicles (oldest was 1992 Ford Explorer) all have tested significantly under the failure criteria.
I don’t believe there is an annual tailpipe test for diesel vehicles (pickups).
This is sore point with me. Being a bicyclist, I get a good whiff of diesel exhaust all too frequently (always from pickups, never from 18 wheelers). Let’s not talk about the ‘coal rolling’ B.S.
“Pennsylvania requires heavy-duty highway diesel engines sold in the Commonwealth to have California Certification. This is applicable to model year 2005 and subsequent model years.”
source: https://www.dep.pa.gov/Business/Air/BAQ/Automobiles/Pages/DieselEmissions.aspx
And the reason for that is the Clean Air Act.
Populated areas tend to become non-attainment areas for air quality standards. The state is required to implement an improvement plan. Emissions inspections is part of that.
Yup, PA has emissions testing…..But diesel pickups are exempt.
Please study this
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
I also see a huge number of deleted trucks (pickup trucks and tractor trailers – just looking at the color of the exhaust pipes/stacks will tell you). It baffles me that no one is cracking down on this stuff.
I happen to work with and hang around a lot of men (they’re all men) who delete their trucks. A surprising number have never had an issue, but they read or hear that they fail or hurt engine longevity, so they preemptively delete. There is another group that tunes their trucks with $200 tuners which generate huge soot loads to the emissions equipment and consequently causes that stuff to fail. And finally there is a group of people that think a diesel truck needs to idle all the time and warm up for as long as it takes to get to operating temperature, which also kills emissions equipment. I understand that some vehicles need to idle a lot (ambulances, trucks that run PTOs) and they experience premature DPF failures. But there are also people like my neighbor who has a 3.0L Duramax which he warms up for a full 30 minutes before his 8-mile drive into work. It is his first diesel and will likely be his last once he destroys the DPF.
I have five diesel vehicles, the newest of which is an F-150 with 88,000 miles and the rest of the fleet with 140,000 to 205,000 miles. I live in a harsh climate, 200 miles from the Arctic Circle. I have experienced just one emissions related issue (cracked DPF) on a 6.6L Duramax at 190,000 miles. I suspect it was my fault, as I added a reputable tuner, but bought it on eBay and found it was coded for a truck with intake and exhaust work that my truck does not have. Lesson learned on my part. My stock cars and trucks with no excessive idling have been flawless.
Long story longer, I would be 100% in favor of roadside emissions sensors that flag non-compliant vehicles as they drive by.
Roadside emission sensors is such a good idea, why are we forcing people to pay money for a yearly smog check when we can do this for free.
I assume this is satire. I hope anyways
I don’t know about you, but I consider having to buy DEF a problem worth fixing even if nothing has broken.
Generally large fines go into the Treasury where they are then just apportioned as part of the federal budget. What I would like to see is these fines be earmarked for environmental cleanup or other kind of remediation, but a cursory search didn’t show me where these go.