Slashdot Mirror
Green Cars You Can't Buy
Geoffrey.landis writes "Auto industry blogger Lawrence Ulrich notes that Honda is now making a "Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle" (or PZEV for short) version of the 2008 Accord, an all-new vehicle that is redesigned to meet California emission standards. He notes "So, just how green is a PZEV machine? Well, if you just cut your lawn with a gas mower, congratulations, you just put out more pollution in one hour than these cars do in 2,000 miles of driving."
But the irony is that it's actually illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states they were designed for! Apparently, anybody selling one of these ultra-green vehicles out of the correctly-designated venue — which means either California, or seven northeast-states with similar pollution laws — "could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.""
What the fuck does that even mean?
I'm totally screwed. I live in a red state.
I RTFA and the author fails to tell why it's illegal in most states. Just dangles the fact that it is in front of us.
Need more information. Maybe I just dont understand why you can't sell a "green" vehicle anywhere?
Ah, the smell of technology innovation being stifled by stupid legal action in the morning.
"Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." Danny Vinyard -American History X
One thing to remember is that much of Europe has various cars that have diesel (and bio-diesel) engines that are not licensed for sale in the US.
And even the so-called plug-in hybrids (which I love) that will be sold by GM and Ford etc will be in such short supply that production until 2012 will be so minimal it's unlikely you'll be able to get one.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The article seems to contradict itself ...
Not only can't you buy one, but the government says it's currently illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states. Under terms of the Clean Air Act--in the kind of delicious irony only our government can pull off--anyone (dealer, consumer, automaker) involved in an out-of-bounds PZEV sale could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500.
...
then
It's not all the fault of the car companies. The crazy quilt of environmental regulations is forcing carmakers to design and build two versions of the same cars. And it costs real money to make a car this green. So in states where there are no regulations to force their hand,automakers don't want to have to boost their prices for the green versions--or to simply eat the extra cost and make less profit.
It DOES sound like the fault of the automaker. If they don't have to sell a cleaner car in other states why should they?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So my 2004 Prius has a big sticker on the rear, driver's side window that says "PZEV," indicating that it is a Partial-Zero Emission Vehicle per the standards. Does this article imply that Toyota has been breaking the law selling the Prius around the nation, or are there different versions of the Prius that are "clean" and "cleaner"? It mentions Toyota and the Prius, but doesn't make the connection that the Prius is also a PZEV.
Just like the beef packer down in Kansas who wanted to test all of their cows for mad-cow disease, so they could be certified to ship beef to Japan. The USDA rightfully shut them down, because it would have been unfair competition, giving these guys a competitive edge over everybody else in the market.
:-)
If they let Honda sell near zero emissions automobiles in states where it's not mandated, that might put pressure on everybody else to also make near zero emissions cars, and that's just not fair!
So we should all thank our friends in the Government, for helping ot insure that competition in the marketplace does not create unfair competition.
Sometimes you can't tell spoof from reality.
Partial zero emission vehicle means that during some portion of time while the vehicle is operating, it does not produce any emissions. Example: The Toyota Prius is a PZEV because when the engine is off and it is operating on its electric motors, it is operating and not producing any emissions. Note that not all hybrids are PZEVs because with some the engine runs constantly.
PZEV is becoming one of those buzzwords that journalists like to latch onto. It's meant to simplify what is being talked about, but taking a literal interpretation without knowing the background makes it rather confusing and a little misleading, in my opinion.
Speaking of buzzwords, I still giggle a little every time I am behind one of those Honda CRV's with the little decal that says "Real-time 4WD". As if someone wants a 4WD vehicle in which they would have to wait 30 minutes for the front axle to start pulling. "Automatic" would be a more appropriate word, but it doesn't have the buzzword effect that "real-time" does.
For some reason, I don't think we're getting the full story here. Usually, there's at least some sort of somewhat-logical reasoning behind something like this. Anyone know the full story? Or is this an example of the rampant corruption that plaguing the US government?
Apart from a little snippet about how it's because of the Clean Air Act, why can't auto makers sell those cars outside of special regions? I'm having a rough time coming up with concrete specifics about the assertion.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Just stop talking about this fucking article. There's a reason nobody can figure out what is going on here, and the reason is shitty reporting. If the idiot writer can't make any more sense than this, ignore him and wait for somebody with a clue to cover the story.
Right, "Green Cars Automakers Won't Sell You". Possibly the most misleading headline you'll see all week.
These vehicles are heavily subsidized by the states where you may sell them, and they're interested in getting their investment back. California lays out wads of cash for some cleaner vehicles, so California wants them driven in California (for example; there are several other states involved). The automakers are not allowed to sell them anywhere else. It's that simple.
If these vehicles were produced without subsidies, they'd be so expensive that no one would buy them. Lawrence Ulrich seems to think that automakers should make a highly expensive clean-burning vehicles on their own and sell them at a loss, perhaps so they can go out of business in two or three years.
At least Slashdot used a non-misleading headline instead. Kudos for that.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
... you cant buy one :)
Vincent Price's Orphan Powered Death Machine has zero emissions too; it does not exist.
Or does it..?
Don't forget that diesel is denser, so you can't compare MPG with petrol really. A 50MPG diesel emits more CO2 than a 50MPG petrol car.
Laws that inhibit good and desirable behaviour, are bad laws. No other way to say it.
Dominant Meme
You cannot have something that is partially zero. Zero is an absolute. This is like saying that something is "partially complete". Partially complete is management speak for incomplete, partially zero is management speak for not zero. More advertising bollocks.
California gives automakers huge grants for making CA only cars. The cars are subsidized by the state, so if you sell it in another state you are basically taking tax dollars away from California residents (both in the Car's sale, and in the state's funding of the car manufacturing/R&D).
I am not saying it's right, but it is not 100% rediculious.
This is slightly misleading, in that the law only says the vehicles manufactured for special markets must be limited to those special markets (for what byzantine reason I have no idea).
There is nothing preventing the car makers from releasing the same vehicles into all the other markets; they don't because the cars cost a little bit more ($150-$400 according to the article), but still get the same MPG even if the tailpipe emissions are almost nil. They don't believe consumers will pay the premium so they don't bother.
In other words, the manufacturers are free to produce the same exact car but instead of stamping "CALIFORNIA ONLY" on it and being unable to sell it outside that designated market, they can just sell it everywhere with no problem.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I'm just guessing here, but: The manufacturers made a deal to produce a limited supply of these vehicles with the several states mentioned. It is in the interest of these states to keep these vehicles within their borders so they reap the benefits of their operation. In order to ensure that they do remain where sold, they enacted legislation (or terms in the sales contracts) imposing this requirement.
Have gnu, will travel.
You're right, lets not discuss the assinine laws that prevent green vehicles from being sold in all locales. Let's, instead, get picky over a term. That's more important, isn't it?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This article makes no sense. The writer describes these amazing new super-efficient cars but doesn't say anything about what makes them clean, other than saying that they don't get good gas mileage. Huh? Then he talks about the Toyota Camry Hybrid's 32 mpg as though that was amazing. Then he talks about how these cars can't be sold elsewhere, but doesn't cite the law that says so or give any reason why. There may be a story behind all this, but it isn't in this article.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
But also:
The PZEV cars don't get any better mileage than conventional versions.
This is quite telling. If the PZEV cars get the same fuel efficiency as conventional vehicles, then they are consuming the same amount of carbon and putting the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.
So how can they be less polluting than a lawn mower? The article must NOT be including CO2 as a pollutant (the same view the Bush administration took of the Clean Air Act). So these vehicles probably emit less sulfur and nitrogen compounds and particulates, but the same amount of CO2.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
>> Don't forget that diesel is denser, so you can't compare MPG with petrol really. A 50MPG diesel emits more CO2 than a 50MPG petrol car.
:-)
Could be true, but there are many more 50mpg diesels than 50mpg petrol cars. And a 125g/km diesel emits less CO2 than a 150g/km petrol car. And at the same time, the Diesel engine gives you much more power at lower speed (that is, everything up to the speed limit
Look, if Californians want to state-subsidize cleaner automobiles, that's fine.
/still/ get to buy cleaner cars. And in fact, if other people could buy them, too, maybe the price would go down and California would not have to subsidize them so heavily.
But how does letting other people buy the same kind of car in other states hurt their investment? The people of California would
Now I could see California saying they will only pay a subsidy for cars sold IN California, which would mean they would cost more in other states that don't subsidize. But I don't see why they would care.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This article names the states - Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - and gives a bit more detail. Note that the adopters include some northwestern states as well.
i l.cfm/news_id=10492/state=PA
http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/state_news_deta
This article completely ignores the fact that these are gas-burning cars that create just as much CO2 (it mentions they get the same gas/petrol mileage as non-PZEV cars). Localised pollution is in some ways a good thing to reduce global warming, although bad in more general sense, simply because this pollution reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the Earth (aka global dimming, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming, but note that there are some interactions between global warming and dimming).
Anyway - pretty pointless concentrating on the less important pollutants rather than on those that may irreversibly change the earth's climate through global warming...
You may now waste lots of time trying to convince me that global warming doesn't exist or is not caused by human activity. (FX: rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.)
I rented a Zipcar the other day, which just happened to by a Subaru Outback PZEV. Didn't even notice it until I was loading some stuff in the trunk and thought, "How can it be partially zero? Sounds like a marketing term for low ". Anyways, the car was fine, but I didn't know how rare they are. Zipcar is good service, and they always seem to be trying to get greener cars. They've got a few dozen Prius's in Boston and a few Hybrid Escapes too. Only thing I noticed (I haven't driven an outback before this) is that the car had little 'omph'. Not that any car needs it, but when I tried to push it down the Jamaica Way, it didn't kick like a Mini Cooper even would have (nor did it hold the corners) but it's a station wagon so I didn't expect it to.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
That last quote's the big bell-ringer. OK, a car that puts out less emissions by turning off the engine part of the time. And you expect me to believe that it gets the same gas mileage? How, by dribbling fuel out on the road through a hose?
The US has one of the nastiest diesel supplies in the world- regulations on diesel here haven't kept pace with those on regular gasoline. As a result, our diesel supply has a much higher rates of contamination with sulfur and other impurities than diesel in the rest of the developed world. The poor quality of diesel fuel here results in higher emissions, and can play hell with some of the components of those nifty Eurodiesel engines. This, combined with the low quality of some of the consumer diesel autos sold in the 60-70's in the states have resulted in diesel's bad rap- you can't even buy new diesel autos legally in CA anymore. When some non-third world regulations on the diesel supply go into effect here in the states (which I think is in the works- a modest improvement, at least), then diesel may start to have a chance again.
Yes, but a 50Mpg diesel is a Volkswagon Jetta, wheras a 50MPG gas car is a old Geo Metro. The diesel has a hell of a lot more power. A better comparison would be to compare the same car... Ie, a 17MPG Jeep liberty with its 3.9L engine, or a 30MPG Jeep liberty 2.4L Diesel (that they only produced for 2 years in limited quantity, when will they bring them back???) There is more CO2 in a gallon of diesel, but in the same car, the diesel will get you almost 2 times as far, so unless it has 2 times the CO2 per gallon (it doesn't) diesel is the better choice. Then you get into the fact that diesel uses much less "refining", so less energy and chemicals to create it. Or the fact that the engines last much longer, and are simpler, so less waste from the cars "wearing out" and getting replaced, etc...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Or, that might just be a result of our incestuous news cycle. The fact that all stories (taking what you're saying at face value) have no more information than this one, I'm leaning towards "incestuous news cycle".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Also bear in mind that UK gallons are much larger than US gallons!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
California receives back $0.79 for every $1.00 it sends to Washington, making one of the ten biggest net contributors to the federal budget.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
You forgot yet another one: Diesel engines are easier to run off of non-petroleum derived fuels. In fact, they were designed to! The 1900 World's Fair featured a diesel engine running on Peanut Oil! The sturdy construction and glow plugs of diesel engines even today are artifacts of the diesel engine being designed to run on virtually any properly filtered oil of the correct viscosity.
State governments don't want fuel efficient cars. Even some cities and counties are having conniption fits over it. Alternative fuel vehicles and alcohol burners don't pay as much, if any, fuel tax. Governments want that money!! If you start buying less gas, governments get less money. So, while the politicians speak out one side of their face that they're for a greener environment through more fuel efficient cars, better look at those crossed fingers behind their backs. Governments have even gone after people who build their own 100% ethanol vehicles to pay gasoline taxes. In Oregon, for example, they want to start taxing by the mile because of dropping fuel tax revenues. Ah, what a game these pols play with our money.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
The reason why car companies can't sell diesels in the US is because our emissions regulations are a lot more strict. This is why your Jeep Wrangler diesel is no longer produced. I deal mostly with industrial diesel engines, which have a seperate emissions guideline, but diesels will soon be FAR cleaner than gas. In 2011 the air coming out of a diesel engine exhaust pipe will be cleaner than the air outside. This is done with many systems (at serious cost increases to the OEM/customer). There are particulate traps, urea systems, charged air coolers, and more efficient fuel injection that help clean up the exhaust. Currently only one or two of these systems are used to meet emissions standards, but by 2011 (2008 for on-highway?) all of these systems will probably be used. Add low emissions on top of good fuel economy and bio-diesel, and "clean diesels" will be on American roads far sooner than your electric car. -TC
> But the article is lame because it doesn't give any of the reasons why..
No, the article is lame because of WHY they didn't give any details. After admitting the fault is the government's the author uses most of the article to IMPLY that it is all some sort of conspiracy of the automakers. Had the author gave a clear explanation of what sort of government stupidity was preventing 'out of area sales' on these green cars he would have looked pretty daft trying to lay the blame on the auto industry. But because he did actually mention there being a law being against it and didn't outright put on his tinfoil hat he won't be called to account for his yellow journalism. J school students should study this one as a canonical example of how to do agenda journalism. (And since modern journalism is overtly agenda journalism, out to 'make the world a better place' instead of old fashioned 'just the facts'......)
Democrat delenda est
http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/title2.html Clean Air Act provides the mentioned penalties for vehicles sold without "a certificate of conformity". So I assume that these vehicles are only legal under California's experimental "pilot test program" and have not been certified. Seeing the actual Volvo memo might answer this, of course.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
If healthcare was purely capitalist, the doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies and so on would be acting for the benefit of the consumer.
But that means curing people. There's more money to be made in treating symptoms. And don't you dare try to change that! You'll be called anti-business for trying to cut into their profits.
If those sites are what you've been reading then it's no wonder you're worried about the U.S. declining. If find the anti-Bush site particularly interesting. There's a lot of good sound bites in there and there's a grain of truth in every one of them but the author is insinuating a number of cause-effect relationships where there is only correlation. Please, let's not forget about reason. Correlation does not prove causation. It's not just something you use when doing science, it's a foundation of any sound reasoning.
I'm not going to go through everything you posted and rebut each one but I can at least cherry pick a few as examples. For instance, "I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period." Or how about, "I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market. " The government does not control the stock market last I checked although they do regulate it. Let's also not forget that when Bush took office we had a highly inflated stock market due to several investors speculating on companies with no serious business plan. But I'm not going to turn around and blame Clinton for that even though that occurred on his watch. Anyone who puts his money into a company with no sound plan is taking a huge risk. Sometimes it pays off. I find it odd that anyone would hold the government responsible for this at all.
Sayers discussed this quite a bit in her excellent book The Mind of the Maker. Why is it that people look to politicians to solve their problems? That is simply not their job. Their job is to keep the government running as in protect the country from invasion and to allow the people in the country to live their lives with as little interference as possible. That's it. If you haven't read The Mind of the Maker you should. It unfortunately gets shoehorned into the theology category so you may find it over in that section of your local bookstore. You can also find various copies of it online since the copyright has long expired. The online copies all have varied levels of transcription errors.
Anyway, getting back to the point, some of the criticisms of Bush are valid. For instance, "I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States, called the "Bureau of Homeland Security " Yeah, he did do that, and I'm not particularly happy about it although I'm not sure that what existed before with various government agencies fulfilling overlapping niches was necessarily better.
Then there's the Olbermann piece. Frankly, I find Olbermann to be as much of a journalist as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. He's an opinion maker and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that except for that he tries to pass off his opinion pieces as hard news which in my book makes him a hack.
NBC regularly puts Olbermann on the Nightly News identifying him as a reporter. Every segment he does is absolutely loaded with opinion. Again, there's nothing wrong with being an opinionated journalist but please don't pass it off as hard news reporting. It would be like FNC putting O'Reilly or Hannity on the Fox Report. Not that the Fox Report is unbiased but it is intended to be a hard news pure reporting program, not an opinion/entertainment program. I'm very wary of anyone claiming to do a hard news program. It's impossible for any normal human not to have some level of bias. Better to disclose your bias than to try to keep it in the closet. Sooner or later anyone with half a brain can clearly see what's going on.
You sir, are wrong. As of October 15, 2006, most on-highway diesel fuel sold at retail locations in the United States is ultra low sulfur diesel. In fact, ULSD isn't required in Europe until 2009. Currently they are required to sell 50 ppm diesel (and merely have ULSD available, nor required). The US went from a 500 ppm requirement to 15 ppm in 2006 (for most applications). You simply can't compare old diesel engines to their modern counterparts. You are talking about a mechanically driven, and poorly engineered engine to the far more advanced (electronic, high pressure common rail, effecient injection, variable geometry turbocharger, cooled EGR subsystem) diesel engine of today. The argument that current clean diesels can't propel a heavier American car is complete nonsense. Let me repeat myself, the MAIN reason that diesel engines aren't in the US is simply because they don't meet the EPA's on-highway fuel emission specs. It is that simple. You think it is coincidence that all diesel engines (aside from light duty trucks) are no longer sold in 2007 car models? The same year that the EPA requires on-highway vehicles to reduce particulate matter by 90%(.10 PM (g/hp-hr) to 1.0 PM)? I don't think so.
From driveclean.ca.gov:
ZEV
Zero Emission Vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions and are 98% cleaner than the average new model year vehicle.
AT PZEV
Advanced Technology PZEVs meet SULEV tailpipe emission standards, have a 15 year / 150,000 mile warranty, have zero evaporative emissions and include advanced technology components. For example, a plug-in hybrid or a compressed natural gas vehicle would qualify in this category.
PZEV
Partial Zero Emission Vehicles meet SULEV tailpipe emission standards, have a 15 year / 150,000 mile warranty and have zero evaporative emissions.
SULEV
Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles are 90% cleaner than the average new model year vehicle.
ULEV
Ultra Low Emission Vehicles are 50% cleaner than the average new model year vehicle.
LEV
Low Emission Vehicles are the least stringent emission standard for all new cars sold in California in 2004 and beyond.
Mmm, what is that smell? Smells like a dumb reactionary that believes everything he reads on the internet, even when it doesn't even begin to cite a source. If you believe uncited unexplained claims, then you are just acting like a dumb sucker. I am pretty sure nowhere in any states law does it say, "You can't sell low emission cars 'cause the corporations, big oil, Iraq, Haliburton, and George Bush 666 Ahahaha!".
This discussion has over 300 posts and yet no one has found a single law to explain that stupid and statement in the article that is made without even a shred of citation. When a few thousand Slashdotters can't FTFL (find the fucking law), it probably doesn't exist and this is just a case of shitty/sensational/biased journalism.
Far more likely? California provides some sort of subsidy or mandate for selling the cars and other states don't. The brain dead journalist in question probably couldn't wrap his small mind around the difference between a subsidy in California, and a law BANNING ALL GREEN CARS IN THE US EXCEPT CALIFORNIA!!1!!!!111!
Please, read the crap you dredge off the internet with a critical eye instead of gobbling up every piece of sensationalist crap you run across.
Alternatively, a vehicle run from a completely clean burning fuel would be ZEV (Zero emissions vehicle) and your average gasoline powered car falls in the LEV (low), ULEV (ultra low), SULEV (super ultra low) categories.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
(I wish I'd never started this conversation, but thanks for your thoughtful remarks)
You're absolutely right that the President does not control every minutiae of the economy, but it is worrying that the US economy seems to be struggling. I read recently that the Chinese have so many US treasury bonds now that if they cash them in it would devalue the dollar. I know these things are always true to some extent, but it's still not something you would have said in the 50s. Your foreign commitments are, in many ways laudable but they're very expensive and the new Asian economies are threatening in all areas.
As for Olbermann, you're quite right that he's biased but I find that worrying too. The US media seems to be so partisan now - either one way or the other - that almost all debates descend into a slanging match. Olbermann's rants are well put together (and I think they carry more of a factual basis than those others you mention), but it's frighteningly agenda driven. How are people supposed to make up their own minds when they're being brain-washed like this?
I'm sure the dangers have been exaggerated, I just think that the planet will suffer without strong leadership from an exemplary democratic nation.
Peter