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 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.
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! --
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
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.
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.
PZEV doesn't actually imply at times it gives off zero emissions, it implies that it gives off zero evaporative emissions. So, while it doesn't give off zero emissions, it does give off zero emissions of a specific kind. SULEV is an equivalent term (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZEV.
The PZEV actually means that for some of the many types of emissions normal combustion engines make, these cars have zero emissions. PZEV vehicles have zero evaporative emissions from the fuel system, but PZEV doesn't address things like CO2 emissions. Hence they are partially zero - zero in some areas, not zero in others.
A Prius is an AT-PZEV because it sometimes runs with a standard combustion engine and therefore faces all the normal emissions such an engine would produce. To further enhance its green credentials, Toyota made the combustion engine meet the Californian PZEV standards.
The article itself is a bit misleading. A PZEV vehicle can be sold outside the listed states, it just can't be marketed as such, as this would also mean it offers other things such as an enhanced emissions warranty for 150,000 miles. So my Focus would be a PZEV vehicle if I'd bought it in California. Having bought it elsewhere it has exactly the same engine but without the warranty advantages.
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.
No, it doesn't. PZEV is a California Air Resources Board designation that means that the vehicle has extra pollution control equipment that allows it to produce very low smog forming emissions and is counted as a partial vehicle toward meeting California's Zero emissions vehicle mandate.
The way that this odd name came about is that in the 1980's (If I remember correctly) California created a regulation that a certain percentage of all vehicles sold in the state would have no smog-forming emissions). Car makers responded by objecting, suing and by building electric vehicles (remember the EV1 of "Who Killed the Electric Car" fame). Unfortunately, because they couldn't come up with battery technology that was good enough to make a competitive car, automakers went to CARB (the Califoria Air Resources Board) and offered to produce conventional vehicles with MUCH better emissions control, which would reduce pollution more than the EV mandate would have at a drastically lower cost. CARB agreed and designated these vehicles PZEV's. Since California, alone among U.S. states has the authority to independantly set emissions standards, which then can be adopted by other states, California terminology spread to other states which follow California regulations, which led to PZEV's in other states.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
it is an important distinction because in california people sit in traffic, A LOT. A PZ vehicle that makes and average of X emissions while driving in "normal" conditions as compared to an ultra low emissions vehicle who makes X in normal driving conditions.
now take California's "normal" driving conditions of sitting on the freeway STOPPED for hours. An Ultra low is making it's small amount of emissions sitting there... A PZ is making NOTHING.
It makes perfect sense why california would be crazy about them. A prius makes as much pollution as a camry in Texas, but a prius makes much less than a camry(ulev) in california, because in california, pollution is a function of TIME, not MILES like most other places.
I hate to reply to myself, but I thought I'd also mention that the PZEV designation applies to smog forming emissions only and has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
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.
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?
It's called "locking the hubs". The old versions of this had to be locked manually from outside the vehicle. However, automatic hub locking is widely available now (where you just flip a switch). However, this is probably why realtime 4WD is not called "automatic 4WD" -- they aren't the same thing. Most realtime 4WD systems employ a 4-wheel differential (usually limited slip) that transfers power to other wheels when one or more wheels is slipping). Because it doesn't have locking hubs, the realtime 4WD system avoids the inherent stress placed on tires and transmission that is caused by running 4WD on dry pavement. In other words, the car decides when you need 4WD instead of letting you make the decision. While this is probably a good thing for the mentally challenged drivers who feel "safer" driving around at normal speeds on dry pavement with the 4WD engaged, it doesn't always work out so well for people who need true 4WD. Realtime 4WD is not very good for off-road driving, and systems that employ an open differential will not always engage the 4WD when you would expect them to. I had an experience last year where my realtime 4WD car had trouble getting up a steep snow-covered driveway, and it was really clear from outside the car that the 4WD wasn't engaging.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
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
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.
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.