Slashdot Mirror
VW Engineers Have Admitted Manipulating CO2 Emissions Data (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: According to a report in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag several Volkswagen engineers have come forward and admitted manipulating carbon dioxide emissions data, blaming the overly ambitious goals set by former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn. Reuters reports: "The paper said VW engineers tampered with tyre pressure and mixed diesel with their motor oil to make them use less fuel, a deception that began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year. 'Employees have indicated in an internal investigation that there were irregularities in ascertaining fuel consumption data. How this happened is subject to ongoing proceedings,' a Volkswagen spokesman said, declining to comment on the Bild report."
"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing. The executives, as usual, will get off scot-free and even if fired, will come out smelling like roses.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I own a 2015 Passat tdi. Frankly I am not worried about the nox or co2 output I make in my vehicle.
So you are saying you don't give a crap about the environment. Fair enough. I appreciate your honesty.
Diesel trucks dump far more crap and haul less people.
So the reason you don't care is because other sources of pollution are worse? That's like saying it's ok for me to dump toxins in the stream because the factory down the street pollutes more. If we accept that logic then there would be no point in any rules prohibiting pollution. Just because we haven't solved some other problem doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with the pollution coming out of your car if we can.
My carbon footprint per person is far lower than other diesel vehicles
And yet it isn't as low as it could or should be.
The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing.
If the engineers did something that they knew was wrong then they deserve to be blamed and punished for what they did. If someone asks you to commit a crime the answer should be an unequivocal "NO". This was not a complicated ethical situation. This is kindergarten stuff. Just because someone told you to commit a crime doesn't make it acceptable for you to go ahead and actually do it.
Nobody at VW involved in this fiasco was under any illusions that what they were doing was legal or even in a gray area. Any engineers who were involved in this fraud should be taken to court and punished in a manner commensurate with their crime. Same with any management that was in charge. They knew or should have known what was going on and deserve to be punished for this crime.
And let's not pretend that the executives didn't know what was happening. This is a company that is renowned for their centralized control and micro-managing. Any pretense that the management was not aware of this fraud is almost certainly untrue. It might not go all the way to the top but I can't imaging how some folks pretty high up the food chain didn't authorize this.
It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls.
I would very much agree with that and we should work to fix that problem. What I think stinks more is that companies will fight fixing the problem every step of the way.
I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.
Nice sentiment but it almost certainly won't happen in the lifetime of anyone reading this. Only way I can see a big dent being made is if there is are huge breakthroughs in fusion and battery technologies. Right now that is sort of wishful thinking...
F=ma so a=F/m
"Anything is possible"? No, basic physics can't be worked around. More mass means more fuel to achieve an equivalent acceleration. You can make things more efficient, up to a point, but you can't make a heavy vehicle use less fuel than a lighter vehicle. Moving mass requires work proportional to the mass.
Are you comparing specific vehicles? What SUV weighs 2500kg!? Even a loaded landcruiser is only 1,500kg. But just to humour you, a Jetta has a reported output (per-scandal number) of 144kg, whereas a CX-5 has a CO2 output of 119kg.
I'll give you that greater weight makes efficiency more difficult but I'll point out that just chip tuning for power will blast the CO2 footprint up dramatically. VW is basically selling cars that are chip tuned for performance out of the gate and making it look like they are not.
Have you seen the people that ride public transport? Maybe it is just around here where I live, but damn. It is like it is a bus heading off to a prison or something. The subway / elevated track system? Yes, I have ridden it from the airport a few times. Holy crap, I'd get off a long, sleepless flight and pray that I wouldn't fall asleep or I could just see that I would have no phone, no laptop, and likely no luggage when I woke up. I do not want to ride public transportation. Muggings, stabbings, theft, vomit seats, yep - not my cup of tea. I'll go in my own car, thanks.
Even modern engines are massively inefficient things - not even coming close to approaching limits of physical efficiency. And that's just the engine. Power is lost in the drive train, through the wheels, through various vectoring mechanisms and further stolen away by stability control and traction systems. Your argument is invalid.
People won't want to spend an extra hour per day commuting.
Even if you mean with the same engine model you're wrong. Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine. A simple example of this would be pistons - precision engineered pistons like those in F1 cars result in significantly smaller energy loss per fuel burned than a consumer grade piston. A heavier vehicle with a precision engineered piston could easily be as efficient as a lighter vehicle with a consumer grade piston.
The problem with public transport is that it's full of the Public.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
Not to mention some of the newer technologies that are used these days such as shutting down unneeded cylinders while at cruising speed.
Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget; you can increase the cost of driving substantially and people will still drive just as much and instead cut down on something else. To substantially change automobile usage in the US, you'd have to tax people so much that everybody becomes a lot poorer. That would work, but it probably wouldn't be popular. And what would be the point?
In many comparisons with Europe, people are also comparing apples and oranges. For example, the US has much less passenger rail usage, but much bigger freight rail usage, than Europe. Overall, that makes our use of our (vast) rail system more efficient than Europe's.
In addition, "multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
Commuting by bus or train is slow and fraught with delays. Believe me on that one, I commuted like that for years.
When you tax people to subsidize public transportation, people end up with less overall disposable income, not more, even if fares for public transportation nominally are lower. So, even that argument doesn't work.
So just one week or so after the CO2 emissions scandal came to light we already have rank-and-file employees admitting fault. Contrast that with their NOx emissions scandal that has dragged on for over a month with no hints from VW about the perpetrators - that should tell you the blame there lies with executives.
At least read the summary. They also cheated on the mpg ratings.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Yes, fine, as long as you have an engine whose life is rated in hours. Go away with your dumbass hype like "dramatically". That's not a number, it's just emotion.
The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.
The emissions targets are demonstrably possible. There are cars driving on the road today which substantially exceed the CO2 emissions requirements under CAFE and similar legislation. Car companies might have to stop selling the ones that don't but that is a Good Thing.
After expending a large effort and resources on improving the technology, it was still impossible.
WRONG. The technology required for VW to meet emissions standards already exists and was available to them. They made a purely economic decision to not implement that technology in order to save money while fraudulently claiming that they had solved the problem. This was fraud in pursuit of money. Nothing more.
By that logic, a Harley Electra-Glide weighing in at 882 pounds should have better gas mileage than a Prius with a curb weight of 3042 pounds. It doesn't. The Harley gets about 42 mpg combined and the Prius gets around 50.
Physics says it takes more energy to accelerate 3000 pounds by a given amount in a vacuum than it does 882 pounds. It doesn't say that a gas burning vehicle that weighs over 3000 pounds will necessarily burn more gas (and thus emit more CO2) than a vehicle that weighs less than 900 pounds. Design and technology matter too. Of course it's easier to make a lighter vehicle that is more energy efficient if that's what's important to the designers. Some electric motorcycles have a carbon footprint equivalent to getting over 200 MPG.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
why not just beef up and extend public transport infrastructure, make it more affordable, while at the same time reduce the multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry
Without the ability to enforce minimum standards of dress and cleanliness, public transportation will almost never be attractive to anyone who can afford an alternative. Many private businesses have signs which say, "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and "no shirt, no shoes, no service". As long as smelly homeless people can ride the bus in their condition, I won't be riding with them and neither will 90% of other Americans. So if you want public transportation to be a viable alternative to private car, you have to admit that public buses in American have a problem and that problem is low end people. That's reality.
Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget; you can increase the cost of driving substantially and people will still drive just as much and instead cut down on something else.
In the short run people will still have to drive. In the long run they would find alternative transportation options. You can reduce car usage by slowly ramping up the cost of fuel. Eventually people will either drive more efficient cars or alternative transportation means become economically viable like passenger rail.
To substantially change automobile usage in the US, you'd have to tax people so much that everybody becomes a lot poorer. That would work, but it probably wouldn't be popular. And what would be the point?
FALSE. You are correct that to reduce auto use you would have to tax fuel more and that it wouldn't be popular. But you are wrong that everybody becomes poorer. Europe taxes gasoline much much more than the US does and yet their standard of living is pretty similar. In response they utilize rail more and tend to drive smaller more fuel efficient cars. The point would be that the single best thing you could possibly do for the environment in the short to medium term would be to tax gasoline. Higher fuel costs force people to be more frugal with their use of it. That is a Good Thing. Now I don't think it is going to happen in the US in my lifetime but there is a point to it and the point is a good one.
Long term we have to find a way to hugely reduce our use of fossil fuels. We are literally and figuratively playing with fire by burning them for power.
In addition, "multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
I call bullshit on that one. 20 Seconds on Google would provide you the evidence that your statement is wrong. Fossil fuel subsidies roughly equal or even exceed renewables subsidies despite there being little economic justification for subsidizing fossil fuels.
Excellent point - my post only took into consideration instantaneous efficiency but as you point out it's really about sum efficiency. Capacitive breaking / energy reclamation and assisted acceleration, variable throughput, tires, etc. etc. etc. Just looking at the progress that's been made in the last 10 years and seeing the kinds of things being released now (EG: Toyota Mirai, BMW i3) and glimpses of what could be released in the future (Mazda RX-9 hybrid rotary) and considering that even these are things that will be revised and improved upon I have immense trouble with the idea we've hit some sort of physical efficiency limit.
Please don't! You know how this works in this economy. VW gets docked with fines, we get to bail them out and their managers get golden parachutes for saving the company.
Not that I'm against golden parachutes. Provided they have to use them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sounds like, if one wants a fairly nice car as far as its interior and amenities are concerned, but doesn't care about performance, it might not be a bad time to pick up someone's VW diesel for a song.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Just to add to your point, most internal combustion engines are only 15-20% efficient, most of the energy in the fuel gets turned into heat or lost (either through friction of through other loads like the alternator, power steering etc). Even a super-duper-efficient ICE engine is only yielding 25% efficiency tops (number pulled out of thin air, but a reasonable number, nonetheless).
What this means is that engines with less controls, like a motorcycle's engine, are at the bottom end of efficiency. A Harley, for example, has that horrible 60 degree V engine which is just plain inefficient, but gives it the signature Harley sound. A car, on the other hand, can have all sorts of controls such as VVT, exhaust recirculation, etc.
Obviously it takes less energy to move less weight, but there are so many factors that need to also be considered that the argument is almost always invalid when applied to a vehicle. Aerodynamics have a much more significant impact.
What SUV weighs 2500kg!?
Just make a google search for "Toyota Sequoia weight", for example. 6000 lbs is actually about 2700 kg.
That's insane! What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!? They don't have this where I live. I mean I own a Vellfire and that thing is practically a moving living room - and it's still only 2190kg.
The subsidies the oil industry gets amount to about 1 cent per gallon of gas. It's far, far outweighed by the fuel taxes imposed by the Federal and state governments (about 15 cents/gal each). Those fuel taxes pay for maintenance and construction of roads. If you shift road use from private vehicles to public transportation, that drop in fuel tax revenue would have to be made up by the remaining vehicles. And public transportation would in fact become more expensive.
In other words, public transportation is already "made more affordable" - by taxes paid by private vehicles.
There is no single solution to transportation. Public transportation works better in certain circumstances, private transportation works better in others. If you try to design your transportation system around the mantra that one is always better than the other (what happened in Los Angeles in the 1940s when public transportation was dismantled in favor of freeways for private cars), you will seriously screw up the transportation system for a long, long time.
You can make things more efficient, up to a point, but you can't make a heavy vehicle use less fuel than a lighter vehicle.
Firstly you're being contradictory. If you make things more efficient you ARE making it use less fuel.
Secondly with a typical Otto cycle engine being around 20-30% efficient currently we have a LONG way to go. We also have come a long way too with engines being significantly more efficient now than in the past.
To build on this, sedans always get a free pass but the large or high end ones like BMW Series 5 and 7, Mercedes, Peugeot 607 etc. and whatever the american equivalent are really do pollute as much or more than SUVs.
If you go looking for oversized SUV just to make a point don't forget about the useless engines with 8, 10 or even 12 cylinders on the higher end versions of sedans.
To be logically consistent, we should shame the owners/drivers/users of sedans not just those of SUVs.
Pretty funny troll comment. CO2 in the atmosphere as used for enviornmental studies is not estimated from diesel vehicle emissions. It is measured directly using CO2 sensor data from thousands of points around the world and from satellite data. It has been this way for many decades - you can simply take air samples from ice around the world to go back farther using the same direct measurement.
Actually the regulation to 'fix' this is pretty simple.
Just have the regulator drive the car in mixed conditions like a normal person (highway, city...) and have it as a second number called 'real-world test'.
You can relatively easily prosecute the engineers because well... they were the ones to implement it and would know what impact things would have.
They cannot easily prosecute the engineers if they never commit the crime in the first place. All the engineers had to do was refuse to commit fraud and both the company and the engineers would be better off for it. If the engineers knew what they were doing was a crime (and they almost certainly did) then they could easily have refused to do it. These are not people without options. The worst the company could do to them is fire them and then they find a job elsewhere. Much better than being hauled into court.
Look at it this way. Is it better to A) lose your job refusing to do something illegal or B) face prosecution for facilitating a fraud? Speaking for myself I'll take A every day of the week.
My current 1200kg car absolutely emits less CO2 than my previous 750kg car.
But if you make a fair comparison of two modern similar cars, one 1200 kg and another 750 kg, the heavier one of course needs more energy (fuel) to move. It is Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion: "Force equals mass times acceleration."
If you live in California, it doesn't matter what you think. If the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the state have their way, nobody who currently owns one of these vehicles will be able to re-register them with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which means that these vehicles are (or will be) no longer legal to drive in California on public roads.
I guess business opportunity would be to start a company in a neighboring state, "buy and register" them in the other state and then let the original owner rent them for a nominal fee. (Not sure if there's a law stopping something like that but if there isn't by the time there was a law the company could have made a bit of money.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
I'm sorry to hear that you paid the price - and that's the reality that the VW engineers may have been facing, with the added problem that they might well struggle to get a new job in the industry if 'whispers' went round. We like to think that whistle blowers are protected - but it usually takes a long time to gain recompense if you are kicked by the big boys.
Pussy! I've an F-350 with a 6.7L engine. (It's my plow truck and sometimes hauls stuff. I don't drive it on a regular basis.) The efficiency isn't bad considering the work that it does.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'm actually proof of what you're saying. I own two cars: a hybrid Vellfire with eco tires and a manual 86 with sports suspension and inch-upped wheels with ZII tires. The Vellfire we take on long trips (lots of highway) and I drive it very carefully (eco-starts, very gradual breaking) and the 86 use for short drives for work and motorsports and I don't drive it so eco-consiouscly. Despite the 86 being in the exceptional range of gas milage for sports cars, the massive battery-filled rolling living room full of kids and baggage Vellfire puts it to shame getting +9km/l over the 86 last I checked. Granted driving style is of course part of the equation here... but if you're buying a V8 sedan it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to be a pedal heavy bastard on the road. Still, if I drove them both the same I'm certain the Vellfire would still run cleaner than the 86 - the margin is just too great.
"Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi’s chief engineer, and Wolfgang Hatz .. were put in charge of research and development at the Volkswagen group shortly after Martin Winterkorn became chief executive in January 2007."
Fellow down the block has a Hummer H2 6.2L - this thing is HUGE, the rear brake lights are above my shoulders.
I don't think these have been sold since 2010 but he keeps his looking like its brand-new. Must be close to 3000 kg curb weight.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Tuning and precision engineering alone can dramatically increase the efficiency of an engine.
Yes, and that efficiency increase benefits both heavy and light vehicles, and the heavier vehicle still needs more power to move it than the lighter one.
In fact, as you get more efficient, the ratio changes even more in favor of the lighter vehicle. As you approach 100% efficiency, you approach a situation where a twice as heavy vehicle must consume twice as much fuel.
Any system that relies on the super-morality of people is bound to fail. History can attest to that.
And any system that doesn't have separation of duties and other internal controls is also bound to fail. As a group it doesn't shock me that some of them behaved badly but then they should expect no sympathy after the fact. If there weren't adequate internal controls then that is the fault of management but it doesn't excuse the engineers from what they did.
If these engineers were complicit in committing this fraud then they deserve whatever punishment awaits them. I have little sympathy for people who could easily have chosen to do the right thing and chose to do the easy thing instead.
Of course not. You should be worried about the VW in front of you.
For this idiot we protest against smoking.
That depends on society, not on technology. No such problems here. At all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Some electric motorcycles have a carbon footprint equivalent to getting over 200 MPG.
It's hard to get a good measure for efficiency, as the minor inconsistencies in refills make it less accurate, but my gasoline burner motorbike (stock) is about 100 mpg. I could tun it for better efficiency, but I don't think there's too much more efficiency to get out of it.
Learn to love Alaska
Most of the energy in gasoline goes out the tailpipe, or into the radiator.
Yes, all things equal, the larger vehicle will use more fuel. But all things are *never* equal.
Learn to love Alaska
The problem isn't the emissions levels. The problem is engineers actively cheating on these regulatory requirements. Are they also cheating on safety tests? Or reliability tests? It would suck if your wheels came off when you were on the freeway then your airbags didn't work.
That's a misread of the physics. Acceleration isn't the important energy sink, since the car starts at rest and when you park it, it's once again at rest. Regenerative braking is not unheard of, and it would be possible to get all of your forward-acceleration energy back.
What doesn't come back, are atmospheric drag, friction and tire-flex heating, and exhaust temperature (you paid for the fuel to heat that exhaust gas). None of those losses are proportional to the mass of the vehicle, or at least not directly, except for friction heating in brakes. Many hours of driving can pass before you use the brakes.
Look it it up. "... about 70-75% is rejected as heat without being turned into useful work, i.e. turning the crankshaft..."
It is not a very efficient way to convert a liquid fuel into motion. Combustion chambers must be kept cool to prevent lubrication failure. The heated combustion gas is entering the atmosphere and forever lost. Liquid spray of hydrocarbon fuel into, or near, combustion chamber has insufficient time to convert liquid into a gas and mix with air for a complete combustion. Hence the catalytic converter, where heat is not recovered. This would have been the external combustion engine.
Gasoline engines are cheap and convenient, at least until global warming robs us of a place of existence.
Check out how much electricity is generated by hydrocarbon fuel. It should be much more efficient. Electric motors have high efficiency and regenerative braking will recover some energy.
Electrical storage is the main obstacle, and is mostly a question of manufacturing and economics. The technologies of batteries are fairly well developed, good enough to be useful, like the LiFePO4 batteries. An all hands on deck approach to solve manufacturing issues could solve this, with a political impetus, but the entrenched interests in the status quo are very powerful, and in fact the only real obstacle.
In addition, "multi-billion dollar subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
Nope. The oil industry gets more than green does. Depending on how you count. Note all the oil pumped out of the ground in Alaska is gifted by the government to the oil company. But nearly all green haters don't count things like that, because it doesn't work well for their story of hate.
Learn to love Alaska
What you're ignoring is that fuel is used both for acceleration and for overcoming friction and air resistance at constant speed. A heavier car is at a disadvantage in the first case, but may be at an advantage in the second.
A perfect example is the Prius C vs. the regular Prius. The Prius C is a lighter car, and gets 53/46 mpg (city/highway) and the regular Prius gets 51/48. A heaver car may be more aerodynamic, and benefits from having more inertia when cruising.
Cars like the Mazda2 or Honda Fit used to get slighly worse mileage than heavier cars like the Mazda3 and Civic (although they may have improved a bit).
Weight has an impact when you are talking about large differences, but you sound like you think a car that weighs 20% more is going use 20% more fuel, which is an error.
I wonder.
If you purchased the vehicle in good faith and the state says you can't use it anymore, is that an illegal taking, requiring compensation? What if a fridge or AC manufacturer did something similar? Can the State force you to purchase a new fridge or new AC for your home? What if the manufacturer is no longer in business or is bankrupted so you can't get compensated from them?
Is it tough shit for you? Is that how you treat people who probably paid, on average, to get cleaner burning car? Does CA get to say "Fuck you, go spend another $60?"
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I didn't say that that "green gets more than the oil industry"; read again what you were responding to. I'm not going to bother debunking a straw man.
Yes, you deliberately say things that give a false impression. That makes you a liar. You said:
subsidies to the oil industry" are a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous subsidies "green" energy and public transportation already receive in the US.
That is putting oil vs green. In that battle, you are wrong. So now, you are going to change it. If you want to include "public transport" in the "green" side to prove your point, then we should count all government purchase of oil and oil products against "subsidies to the oil industry" which count for trillions.
And your false dichotomy of oil subsidy vs mass transit is silly. Most mass transit burns oil, so mass transit money is mostly spent on oil anyway.
Oil drilling rights are auctioned off, not gifted.
The access may be auctioned off. The oil is gifted. Before you try to educate others, perhaps you should try to learn something yourself.
Learn to love Alaska
But you can have inefficient small things and efficient big things. A wood fired small auto spewing out a huge amount of carbon compared to a hybrid large truck that has regenerative breaking and computer controlled ignition timing.
VW engineers say they were only following orders. Where have I heard that before.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It's a classic?
Thumbing your nose at burdensome regulations is all very nice until your car is impounded for not being registered, something you may not be able to do in the future if you don't get your car fixed.
Those emissions regulatory requirements are safety tests - for everyone with asthma, COPD, CV problems, etc.
Does CA get to say "Fuck you, go spend another $60?"
I assume that was rhetorical. They government can always change their mind and generally you get the short end of the stick.
They have made it so it illegal to resell things from drop side crib to semi-automatic weapons. Generally you cannot legally sell recalled products even if the original manufacturer goes out of business. As for things that you don't intend to sell, but need a license for, they can do that too. There are examples of governments changing zoning on real property so current tenant cannot continue renting. They can change zoning so that existing businesses are no longer legal. Forced product recalls have triggered bankruptcy filings for companies throughout history.
However even bankrupt automobile companies have had the resources to pay for a recall. Just last year, Suzuki was forced to recall their Kisashi model for safety fixes even though they were bankrupt and weren't selling cars in the US anymore. When Kia went bankrupt, Hyundai assumed liability for all recalls as part of asset purchases. Of course, VW isn't about to go bankrupt any time soon so they would have to do this, but even if they did go bankrupt, they would be liable for at least some amount (to be determined by the bankruptcy judge relative to the other creditors and judgments that it faced).
But at the end of the day, the government isn't responsible for a dime. This is clearly illustrated by the FTS/Hangzhou tire recall case. Although FTS was not ultimately bankrupted by the recall (far fewer tires, about 5%, were returned than were estimated to be eligible), the NHTSA made it perfectly clear that it wasn't going to pitch in.
What is wrong with the American market that they need things like this!?
If you think Americans buy what we need, you've not been paying attention to our obesity problem.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
I don't haul often, maybe a half dozen times a year. I've a two-car trailer that I haul around to take cars to shows during the summer if I'm being less than lazy. I prefer to just drive them because that's why I bought them and I don't actually own any trailer queens. If I can't or won't drive it then I don't want it.
Because of this, I just suck it up and insure my license. Anything I drive is fully insured. It's costly. Anyhow, for me to tow two cars (both of which probably aren't all that efficient, to be honest, depending on which two they are) is much more efficient with my truck. I also plow with it. I've also done some work with it. Meh... I like it. It's not like I don't have more efficient things to drive that I do drive, when the situation warrants. I do live in the mountains of Maine.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Cars and gasoline are not a big part of an American household's budget
maybe not for you Richy McRicherson.
to substantially change automobile usage wouldn't require heavy taxation (most people drive in spite of high costs, not because its a minor bill), but rather a complete cultural transformation, the opposite of what happened in the 50s as people spread out and began leaving the cities for the 'burbs.
there are many factors as to why people drive so far to work.
cars and gas being a "minor cost" is not one of them.
and they are not a "minor cost", even if large sections of the public are able to afford them.
prior to the 50's substantial numbers of people DID rely of mass transit in the cities, people who were well off, compared to today where the ridership is mostly lower income people who cant afford cars or commuting (larger cities with actual efficient mass trans being the exception). American culture changed though. people left the cities for the suburbs ("white flight" being one of the reasons). the American dream expanded to include a car for everyone, commuting to the city, but living out of it. you're not going to change that with just taxation; when gas spiked up to over 5$ a gallon, people still drove, partly because they had to, and not many folks could really afford to uproot and reverse their entire living condition over a short term price spike, or would want to.
they like their lives in suburbs.
and overall it's been good for the economy that people spread from the cities, as it expanded economic activity to places that were marginalized as people concentrated in the cities (we still see that marginalization even farther out, but as people expand farther, and can commute farther, easier, we'll see the same spreading of economic activity again, as dollars earned in cities flow to the region around them)
efficient mass transit expanding from the city however does have the potential to again change that culture slightly. people don't like rush hour. and it is more efficient fuel wise. and cities have shown how it can be more affordable than owning a vehicle (or at least, operating one for commuting).
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Engineers don't make economic decisions in a large company.
Engineers make economic decisions on a daily basis. Costing is a fundamental part of engineering. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never been an engineer in the real world. Engineers determine what is possible and specify the parts. Those parts have a cost attached so the engineers very much make economic decisions in companies of any size.
its your straw man
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Actually, for the average American household; that's just a fact about US household spending.
You're merely playing word games ("high costs", "minor bill"), while effectively agreeing with me: expenses for driving a car are a small fraction of American household spending.
People left the cities for the 'burbs precisely because they wanted to get away from the kind of "cultural transformation" you want to create. Believe it or not, many people do not want to live in the kind of progressive or socialist urban utopia you imagine, least of all the architects and politicians that try to stick people into these little boxes.
You don't need large capital investments to have mass transits outside cities; buses are the most effective form of public transportation in most areas. Yet, when we talk about public transportation, people always talk about massive investments in rail systems.
Which is why people move to small and mid-size towns and suburbs; you know, the kind of places that have neither mass transit nor rush hours.
Fuel savings from existing public transportation options are modest to non-existent, because a functioning public transportation system operates most vehicles far below capacity, even empty.
The only way public transportation is cheaper than a car is if you don't own a car at all. Once you pay the fixed costs for a car, it makes sense to use it for most trips. But most public transportation systems cannot cover all the needs that people have.
While Americans and their girths may be one part of the problem, the entire industry of fooling, tricking, or persuading people into buying things that they don't need doe need some blame too.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
the entire industry of fooling, tricking, or persuading people into buying things that they don't need
Also known as "Marketing". There is a reason marketers are loathed almost as much as lawyers.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.