Slashdot Mirror
US Asks VW For Electric Cars (news.com.au)
US authorities have asked the German carmaker Volkswagen to produce electric vehicles in the United States as a way of making up for its rigging of emission tests. German newspaper Welt am Sonntag claims the US Environmental Protection Agency is currently in talks with Volkswagen with the aim of agreeing on a fix for nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles that emit up to 40 times legal pollution limits. The paper, which gave no source for its report on Sunday, said the EPA was asking VW to produce electric vehicles at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and to help build a network of charging stations for electric vehicles in the United States.
Kinda have to agree.
Who ever thought of this was pretty astute in gauging the environmental impact of the VW fiasco, and working towards ameliorating it in a way that not only gets buy in from VW and improves the air quality in a way better than the original regs.
The only hiccup is if this turns into a gimme to VW as a way to ensure compliance.
This is a very good solution.
This is a very bad solution. The US government should not be telling companies, domestic or foreign, what products they must make or what services they must provide. Telling VW they must provide charging stations for cars they don't want to make in the first place is just wrong.
When you break the law and get caught, the gov't gets to tell you a lot of things you can & can't do.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I am not sure what planet you live on, governments tell companies what they can and can not do all the time, and should. DO you have seat belts, air bags, catalytic convectors? Does your refrigerator not have a locking dock, does your new house have lead based paint, do you kids toys have lead based paint, do you drink clean water? I could go on for hours, but you would simply say they should do any of that stuff, people should take care of painting their own homes and processing their own water...
But, whatever works for you.
The best solution would be to make VW to fix the mess and to put VW managment to jail. Hefty fine would probably hurt only VW employees anyway. Jail term would hopefully learn big fat cats that rules are to be obeyed.
No sig today.
The EPA of corrupt settlements in legal cases. If crimes were committed, why should VW (or anyone) get away with them by funding leftist feel-good projects?
Here's hoping that the next administration starts "settling" these cases for an apology and a big donation to the NRA. Then maybe people will start paying attention to how corrupt this process is.
I'm good with VW paying the fine, just as I had to do when I broke the speeding & stop light laws.
I think the government should either have them pay the fine or build infrastructure in the USA. Anything else sounds like a double fine. Of course VW could turn this to their advantage and into a win - making me think of how the record companies instance on DRM helped make iTunes a dominant player in the downloadable music market (maybe this is not the right analogy, but this is the thought that pops into my mind).
A correct remedy for violating the emission standards would be a fine. But this is more than violating emissions. People purchased these vehicles because of the supposedly clean nature of the vehicle along with the high mpg. Of course bringing the cars in line with the emissions will kill the mpg. VW new this was the case and as such this is fraud. They should be required to refund the purchase price of the vehicles to those who purchased them for breach of contract and intent to defraud. That would be in addition to the fine charged by the government for violating emission standards.
Put differently, VW intentionally misrepresented the product they were selling to the public. This, by definition, was a scam and they should be held accountable and make whole the people they scammed.
You'd rather someone give the government money? That shit would be squirrled away in to some crony's pockets before you could count it.
This is a clever solution that is befitting the crime.
Fuck people the government actually figured something out one fucking time? And you're gonna bitch? Thats like smacking the dog on the nose when he finally does do it outside.
That may be true but I suspect the motor uses plenty of rare earth metals. While the GPP may have where those metals end up in the car wrong they do end up in the car somewhere.
Your suspicions are most likely incorrect, unless you count copper as a rare earth metal. Most serious EV vehicles use AC motors. This is explicitly true for Tesla. No rare earths are required for it's motor.
FTA: Unlike the DC brushless rotor, the induction rotor has no magnets – just stacked steel laminations with buried peripheral conductors that form a “shorted structure.”
It's the hybrids that are using DC motors that need magnets, preferably rare earth ones.
An electric motor can certainly be made without rare earth metals but it will be heavier and less efficient.
Not when you want performance, or go over a certain performance level:
Thus, the induction machine when operated with a smart inverter has an advantage over a DC brushless machine – magnetic and conduction losses can be traded such that efficiency is optimized. This advantage becomes increasingly important as performance is increased. With DC brushless, as machine size grows, the magnetic losses increase proportionately and part load efficiency drops. With induction, as machine size grows, losses do not necessarily grow. Thus, induction drives may be the favored approach where high-performance is desired; peak efficiency will be a little less than with DC brushless, but average efficiency may actually be better.
Diesel engines rule the road, rail, and sea.
Speaking of rails... Have you heard of the "Diesel-electric transmission"? They've been in nearly all locomotives for many decades. We've had diesel electric ships since 1903, and their use is becoming more popular.
The concept is simple enough. Rather than having a mechanical gearbox, you hook your diesel engines up to a generator, then run power lines to electric motors that power the wheels. The diesel provides the energy, the motors provide the power for movement.
Well, let me know when electric tractor/trailers are on the market.
Consider yourself informed.
Until we get batteries that can compete with fuel oil and diesel fuel on weight, volume, and cost we will continue to see electric vehicles as novelties and penis size compensators.
Not really, the weight and energy density of diesel is not necessary for all applications, and batteries have (recently) become cheap enough that electric is finally cheaper than diesel - at least in the applications most suited for them. Tesla is looking to cut costs in half again for their batteries, allowing them to break into the market a step down from the luxury section.
Saying that electric won't be suitable for semi-tractor trailers anytime soon is like saying that jet engines aren't suited for use because they can't reach the moon. Long haul tractor trailers are the most demanding common application I can think of, the most suited for diesel. Long before they go electric, it will be highly practical and economical for 99% of consumer automobiles to be electric. Including trucks such as UPS delivery vehicles.
I don't read AC A human right