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Diesel Cars Produce More Toxic Emissions Than Trucks and Buses, EU Study Says (theverge.com)
Modern diesel cars produce more toxic emissions than trucks and buses, according to European researchers. That's because heavy duty vehicles in the EU have much stricter regulations than cars, and so even if they meet lab tests, cars end up producing much more nitrogen oxides (NOx) when driven on actual roads. From a report: The new report, released by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), shows that trucks and buses tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometer driven, less than half the 500mg/km produced by diesel cars that meet the highest "Euro 6" emission standards.
Merkel will "repair" this study very soon...
Instead of driving them on actual roads, drive them on theoretical roads, like the rest of us.
Euro 6 requires 80 mg/km NOx for diesel cars. 500 mg/km CO though, a typo/misreading that lead to an incorrect conclusion?
Second sentence of summary:
I Know commenting on the headline is fashionable, but not even getting to the second sentence is a bit extreme even for /.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yes, but they aren't cars. Both use diesel engines, but the trucks and buses produce about half the toxic output as the cars do, due to regulations on them. That is the point, that a giant truck produces less toxic pollution than a little Volkswagen car.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I'm ruining your recursive joke but :
- Nope, there are also lots of city bus which are electric. These are quite popular in densely populated European city centers. (And as electricity production in Europe relies a lot less on burning fossils, these are definitely emitting a lot less).
- Also, as explained even in the summary : big vehicles like buses have much more stringent limitations in most European jurisdictions.
So if you take a diesel-powered car, that perfectly following regulation,
and a diesel-powered bus, that also perfectly follows regulation,
the bus' diesel motor has a good chance of producing a lot less emissions
(and also costing more and being more complexe on one hand, but on the other hand benefiting of being larger, and thus under less physical space constraints and less needs for compromises).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Don't get me wrong. Cheating, as VW (and as we now know most other Diesel manufacturers here in EU) has been caught doing has no excuse. IMHO those companies have escaped too easily from that: too much complicity between politics and capital/industry.
That said, the problem is that of a tradeoff: power/performance vs. emissions. Reduce the first and the second will go down automatically. Just giving up a couple of ten kW on your motor will do *much more* for the environment that some funky urea contraption in your exhaust system.
But customers *want* those kW... fuck the customers. They're just too immature for those powerful toys. They should just be allowed to a... tricycle (powered by just their own muscle, of course).
European countries should just do themselves a favor and begin killing off excess humans. Humans emit carbon dioxide and the march towards completely green fascism must never stop! /sarc
you think that's bad.... http://www.standard.co.uk/news...
Something is fishy about this, I mean just my own very sensitive nose can barely tell a diesel car in front vs trucks/buses I must pass(or stop) or have breathing trouble... Didn't read the referenced post but if it's true at all it must be pound for pound? Cause diesel cars dont' even come close to being as offensive.
All of this drawn-out study and deliberation and the protracted uncertainty and wasted manufacturing and expense for users makes very little sense, when it's abundantly clear that all road transport is set to become electric in a very short space of time.
Just go there now and save everyone a lot of time and effort, and improve air quality at the same time.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The exhaust from diesel power can stink and it can condense on surfaces leaving a sticky film that attracts dirt. But it's not "toxic". No one has ever murdered anyone with diesel fumes, no one has killed himself in his closed garage by sitting in the diesel-powered car with the engine running.
The article talks about "toxic": NOx and other nasties. Not about CO2. You seem to be one of those post-factual idiots babbling about stuff without having any idea what it's about. Perhaps you can't even think.
Shut up.
All of this drawn-out study and deliberation and the protracted uncertainty and wasted manufacturing and expense for users makes very little sense, when it's abundantly clear that all road transport is set to become electric in a very short space of time.
I'm as big a fan of electric cars as anyone here but even I'm not naive enough to believe that gasoline/diesel powered vehicles are going to go away any time soon. Even if electric cars eventually do take over the market it's going to take decades to happen. The average age of a car on the road today is 11.5 years. That number isn't going to drop dramatically any time soon. And right now EVs are more expensive than their equivalent gas/diesel powered cars in most cases. That's going to keep the dino-juice powered cars on the road for quite some time to come.
European countries should just do themselves a favor and begin killing off excess humans.
They tried that in the 1910s and again in the 1940s. Didn't work either time. Just depressed the population growth for a while and generated a lot of rubble in the process.
Doesn't pretty much everything produce less toxic pollution than a little Volkswagen car, though?
just my own very sensitive nose can barely tell a diesel car in front vs trucks/buses I must pass(or stop) or have breathing trouble... Didn't read the referenced post but if it's true at all it must be pound for pound? Cause diesel cars dont' even come close to being as offensive.
Nitric Oxide (NO) is colorless and odorless. Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) has a reddish brown color and a pungent smell. So if the majority of the NOx emmissions are Nitric Oxide you couldn't smell it even if you wanted to.
They were also so smug about how Americans had their cars and fuel "unreasonably cheap," when what really happened is that Europeans just taxed their stuff by ridiculous amount making it unaffordable.
I wonder if this over-taxation was responsible for the diesel obsession.
Humans don't just magically create carbon. They are carbon neutral.
Humans by ourselves are not carbon neutral even if you ignore our activities. However humans as a component of an ecosystem can be carbon neutral. In simple terms we breathe in oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. Plants do the reverse. Together the system is carbon neutral even though parts of it are not. Problem is that humans also do activities that are decidedly not carbon neutral and we do them to a degree the earth's ecosystem cannot easily absorb.
The problem arises when you take carbon out of the ground and release it into the atmosphere.
Correct. Which is something we do with almost every modern day activity it seems. What mystifies me is how people actually can believe that digging up fossilized carbon reserves (essentially sequestered carbon) and releasing it into the air and water somehow we can magically be done on a vast scale with no adverse effects.
As i understand it you get more nox if you optimize your combustion for co2. And the other way around. In europe you pay a high tax on co2 so the carmakers try to reduce that heaviley and as a result we get worse nox.
A few places in the UK have already started having tolls for vehicles that emit pollution at the point of use.
Which is fine but let's not pretend they are enough to force a mass transition to electric cars. The fees would have to be absurdly high to really force people to accelerate the switch to electric cars and unfortunately the options in EVs and hybrids are still rather lacking unless you want a really crappy eco-cred vehicle like a Prius or an impractical city car like a Leaf. Some like the Chevy Volt aren't bad but the options are rather thin if you don't want a sedan or hatchback.
It's not much of a stretch to imagine congestion fees for non-electric motor vehicles in urban areas.
Maybe in the UK it's not a stretch. Tolls like that will likely never happen in the US during my lifetime as long as the republican party maintains its hard on against anything that smells like a tax. Maybe some of the states in the US (California?) could manage such a system but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.
It's a flawed statement. Cars do, yes because of short term driving in towns. Where buses/trucks are long periods of driving and highway (which is what diesel is meant for). Not, drive to store, pick up Playboy, drive home.
Yeah man you Rulez!
Mod parent up! Becos first post!
That is the point, that a giant truck produces less toxic pollution than a little Volkswagen car.
Than an average diesel car. Emissions from Volkswagens are far below the average (see e.g here or here).
If diesel cars are worse than busses per km driven, imagine how much worse they must be per km per passenger (or per km per kg).
I would assume too that the smaller displacement diesels in cars are in a higher state of tune and run hotter.
love is just extroverted narcissism
It's not racist if you mock white cultures, only brown cultures, amirite?
We're all proud of you.
Now, next question. How come small, light cars somehow manage to have worse emissions than buses or trucks? Surely there is no grand conspiracy whereby vehicle manufacturers sit in a smoky room complete with a floating hologram of the planet held under an outstretched hand, and think to themselves "hahaha, those fuckers, we can quite easily sell them clean technology that we already developed for buses and trucks, but what we are really after is ruining the planet (and our own future market, oh, and the place where we and our children live) with the dirtiest technology possible, so we'll stick that in every car"? Surely there are no piles of old engines lying around that must be sold before they can switch to cleaner engines? What's really going on here?
The purpose of these regulations is to prohibit poor people from driving. They're driving up the costs deliberately. If electric vehicles become affordable to the masses, then they too will be regulated and taxed out of reach. A mobile proletariat is a risk to the entrenched rulers.
That's a whole lot of words to say a thing that was already said. Humans don't just create carbon. It already existed.
The only thing that creates carbon is stars when they go boom. Neither humans nor plants nor any other form of life creates carbon. The carbon that is on earth has been here for billions of years. The only question is how much of it is in the ground versus the atmosphere and humans absolutely can affect that balance.
(for you pedantic souls out there, yes I'm aware humans can technically create carbon from other atoms but doing so takes huge amounts of energy and isn't done on any meaningful scale)
wait - your defense is you've seen it MULTIPLE times and have read it nowhere - instead of just you've seen it once and read it nowhere ?
How does that make it better. It's YOUR.FUCKING.RESPONSIBILITY. to focus and read shit, or just not worry about it. It took you longer to fucking comment than it would've to scan ONE of the fucking articles.
Buses hardly ever drive on highways. The difference is very simple: buses and lorries have AdBlue systems, whereas passenger cars and vans usually do not, or only use them to the minimum extent possible. Unlike passenger cars, lorries and buses have to pass an emissions test that is representative of real-world use, so their NOx control strategy has to work in a much wider regime.
Youre considered alt-right because you are an alt-right troll, spouting the entire ridculous philosophy.
I dont for a minute believe the media is as bad as the sackcloth and ashes Nazis are trying to convince us. Its not perfect, however we have got to the point where the RWNJ are calling facts fake news, so frankly, fuck off and die.
Nope, pretty much every other car brand produces more.
Electric vehicles just aren't viable though. Half the population have nowhere to charge one at home, let alone when anywhere else.
Eyeroll. Electric cars can be charged anywhere there is an electric outlet which is pretty much everywhere. And even if we ignore that piece of reality it still is the case that well over half the population DOES have a place to charge them at their house. Furthermore we can build the infrastructure if we want to and there are hybrid cars as a bridge option until we get there. Frankly electric and hybrid cars appear to be the future whether you care to admit it or not. Won't happen overnight but it is likely to happen because it makes economic sense in the long run. They are more fuel efficient, can be better performing, and are already approaching price parity in many cases.
Economy, torque, reliability (well, not so much any more with all the extra complexity) and ease of maintenance (no HT system for starters).
Yes, for NOx they're bloody awful and the politicians knew this but in the 90s CO2 emissions were seen as more important. Which of NOx or CO2 is more important now probably even the greens would have trouble answering.
great defense really, totally lets you get off the hook for commenting on the article's title but not the actual article information itself. book cover judging FTW. derp
They are mostly right, though. Diesel cars may produce a little more NOx, they produce far less of all the really nasty stuff (particulates, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, etc.). One of the worst consequences of "dieselgate" is that everybody is now suddenly obsessed with nitrogen oxide which, while bad, is one of the lesser harmful things that come out of the back of a car.
it's not the engines, it's the emission systems attached to the engines, so you are completely off base with your comment. trucks and buses have better emission systems to meet the stricter demand, they save $ on the cars systems by engineering them to the lower standard using the cheapest systems possible. they likely could meet the stricter standards set for trucks and buses but it will likely make the cars heavier and more expensive.
In fact outlaw all vehicles that are not Pluggable Hybrids or fully Electric. Start with an annual carbon tax and a soot tax on the vehicles. Tax is based on how much pollution the vehicle produces. Then give them a 20 year phase out. You can't build new ones after 10 years and you can't drive one after 20 years.
Part of the reason is that diesel trucks are required to have a DEF[*] tank and a corresponding catalyst in the exhaust. This greatly reduces the NOx output.
For cars with a similar system (commonly "BlueTec"), it tends to be underpowered, with far too little DEF being used. Consumers can't be relied on to refill it regularly, and would B&M if they had to buy and top up DEF every time they filled the tank.
For trucks, there are fuel logs and inspections, and you can't just ignore filling DEF without getting fined.
[*]: "Diesel Exhaust Fluid", a mix of urea and deionized water.
1-Volkswaggon makes diesel cars. 2-Cars get less maintenance than trucks. 3-larger vehicles have more room and weight for pollution control stuff, so they do a better job. 4-Diesel engines for cars are often derived from gasoline engines. They have lower compression and a less efficient design so they produce more emissions.
I own a house, and I can't. I'd have to run an electric cable across a public throughway.
Oh well then you can generalize your situation to apply to everybody in the world then... Sorry my friend but your situation does not describe everyone else.
Only 66% of homes in the UK have off-street parking, including those with a garage
That's still a HUGE number of homes. You are making the mistake of thinking that somehow the options are either gasoline or electric with no other options. Gasoline and diesel powered cars aren't going away any time soon. But electric WILL become a serious player in the near future I think. It has too many advantages both economic and performance to be discounted.
Mine is one of them; the garage is 80 yards from the house, has no power and is too small to fit a car into.
If you can't fit a car in it then it isn't a garage, it's a shed. The fact that it currently has no power is a choice you can remedy if you want to. I don't have a car charger in my garage (which does fit 3 cars) right now but I could change that easily enough.
Hybrid cars are an option but you can eyeroll all you fucking want, electric cars are not fucking viable in this country.
They are perfectly viable. They don't have to completely displace petrol vehicles to be viable. Yes there will be some infrastructure changes required. Those changes will take a long time to happen. The transition to electric cars isn't going to happen for at least another 15+ years in any sort of substantial way. Once it does though the power lines will be laid and the infrastructure will be built. We didn't used to have petrol stations on every street corner either not so many years ago.
As long as they don't emit CO_2, it doesn't matter if they kill you on sight. Repeat after me: "I am the lord thy god. There is no other god but CO_2". Commandment #1.
There's too much news these days to read more than first sentences (unless it's very interesting), and this is worse when you see the same news over and over across your sources of choice.
Translation : "I'm too fucking lazy to become educated, but I'm perfectly willing to spout off about shit I am cluelss on."
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
"far less"? All the diesels seen on the road today still (even after the low-sulfur directive) still stink to high heaven. Particulates are still visible, even if we ignore the Rolling Coal asswipes.
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
As well as all the smug people on Slashdot over the years extolling the environmental virtues of diesel and how anyone using a gasoline car was an idiot and hated the environment. The smug people that are always lecturing on science and calling people stupid and ignorant.
I happen to live in a populated city that brags about having a ton of electric/hydrogen fueled vehicles (Porto, Portugal),
CH here.
Long range public transportation:
We have an extensive train network (all electric, thus mostly hydro-electric and nuke powered, with a little bit of solar and wind sprinkled in) (Thank the *Alps* for nearly perfectly clean hydroelectric - unlike tropical hydroelectric which tends to be giant glorified swamps)
It covers most of the territory except for remote less populated area (and as they are less populated, the long-range public transportation using busses hardly makes a dent in the total energy tally)
Short range:
Most big cities have a dense network of tramway and trolley buses (aerial electric power delivery makes much more sense in a densely packed area) also sometime metro/subs for some cities.
They are also joined by (diesel) bus. But the electric propotion of short-range transportation is quite significant and hardly just for the show.
Private companies in public transportation / ride sharing:
Most taxi fleets in big cities tend to rely on hybrid vehicle (lower gaz consumption makes operations cheaper)
the rise of Uber (mostly privately owned car with classical ICE drives) is actually a step backward environmentally. (But as taking transportation instead of driving a car around is better anyway, the end tally might not be bad).
Private companies car sharing:
The main car sharing operator in Switzerland (mobility) operates a mixed fleet featuring ICE (mostly), hybrid (fewer) and electric vehicle (only a few, usually available at sharing stations where high electrical power is available : eg.: parking near trainstation usually feature 1 or 2 Renault Zoé. But other places feature them too. Random example : EPFL institute).
From that point of view we are less ecologically advanced than france, where the dominating car sharing companies tend to have all-electric fleets (e.g.: Autolib in Paris).
Though there are smaller CH player with electric fleets (e.g.: ElectrEasy)
So globally, in Switzerland, the role played by electricity in public transportation (specially by public company like national trains and city public transportation) is really significant.
Also, regarding merchandise :
Switzerland is peculiar in that transport of merchandise *across* the country is *forbidden in trucks*.
Trucks can be used to deliver merchandise to/from and within cities.
But if you want to transport merchandise long distance or across the country, it's mandatory to load it on trains.
When driving on the highway, you're going to see way much less trucks compared to other European countries (e.g.: Italy, France, Spain...)
Last but not least a few interesting corner case :
I few touristic cities (mostly in the mountains like Zermatt and Saas Fee) have completely banned ICE engines within the city (with a few exceptions like firefighters, ambulances)
Thus nearly the whole fleet is small electric glof-cart-like cars and taxis.
Fun to see (even if completely insignificant statistically to the rest of the country).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
While their NoX output might be lower, it is relatively common to watch a diesel truck pull away from a stoplight, and flood the entire intersection with so much exhaust and soot that you can't even see through it. :|
Rare to see a car or non-commercial vehicle do the same.
Unless it's a *Red-Neck Truck.
( *Requires: Diesel engine, largest pickup truck, gigantic tires, custom exhaust and a ridiculous lift kit. Flag pole and 100,000 watts of lights installed optional )
Then it has the same specs and problems as their commercial brethren.
you're still a dipshit.
In my diesel Jeep I get a warning if the DEF is low and it's reported that the car won't start after the tank runs out (after X warnings), Since you can get DEF at almost all truck stops it's not as bad as it sounds.
The upside is that I get 26+ MPG in a large SUV which is pretty impressive. Driving 120 miles (round trip) a day adds up.
Most trucks and buses are diesel aren't they?
In Seattle and nearby areas like SF, a lot of them are electric or hybrid electric, actually. Even fuel cells. It depends on which trucks and buses you refer to. A large number of the Seattle buses are fully electric, I can see about 20 out of my window on the streets right now.
Adapt.
We're changing the world today. You'll be left behind.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
trolls, trolls, all the way down. all fucking off while saying 'fuck off.'
You are about as wrong as someone can possibly be. Who the heck would up-vote this?
Higher compression produces more not less NOx
But we only recently were able to measure them, and PM5s (also more common from petrol engines) and the smaller particles are more hazardous to breathe. But the only common sensors we can use limit detection to PM10s and higher, because it can't detect the smaller stuff. And it's PM10s and bigger that diesels produce more of than petrol.
Part of the "problem" is that higher fuel efficiency cuts tax revenue, part of it is that there are viable alternatives for biodiesel that aren't going to be able to be taxed (reclaimed chip pan oil, for example), which cuts the revenues much more than that, AND remove the big oil companies from monopoly status.
Look for example at London, UK. The congestion charge was supposed to cut car use into London, and it did. But that meant more people on the trains (and a cut for the charge to enter London), so they added a surcharge for "peak times" use of trains. Remember, these people still have to get into work SOMEHOW, and rolling up at half ten isn't going to let them stay employed for long. And now that people are moving to 99g/km diesel cars, the surcharge for London is cut by all the people who bought Diesel cars with that emission limit.
Your comment is incomprehensible. I cannot make out much of what you are trying to say. What happened to your savings account? And because something happened to your savings account the media all lies? I dont get it. Explain yourself better and connect the dots here a bit.
Or don't and continue to shake your fist at the cloud like the angry old man you sound like.
In other news: OPEC cuts oil output for first time in 8 years and oil prices rise.
Don't forget that the reason people use diesel cars is that they are significantly more fuel efficient that petrol cars.
Diesel cars have been getting a real bashing over the last year or so. (e.g. VW emissions scandal)
I have question; why, now, has diesel become the fuel of the devil for the ordinary man?
This article effectively says "Diesel good only for commercial vehicles, bad for consumer vehicles".
Bull. Shit.
It's like the other BS propaganda campaign currently being waged against sugar.
Sugar is the source of all 1st world poor health according to the media.
Sugar is "bad" for 2 reasons.
1) It's natural, tastes better and costs more than artificial sweeteners.
2) It can only be grown in certain climates/countries. e.g. Brazil.
The "BRIC" countries are currently under economic attack unless you haven't noticed.
Brazil was doing really well up until recently. It's economy is helped significantly by sugar.
"He's gone off topic, this isn't about diesel", your probably thinking about now.
No, Brazil uses sugar to make alcohol which you can buy and pump into your car at it's gas stations.
It's a fossil fuel replacement...
The current standard for diesel passenger vehicles in CARB states (California Air Resources Board, which sets the limit for California and 16 other states) is 0.05 grams/mi, which is 80 mg/km.
And if you're curious, here's how much the cheating 2.0L VW diesels were emitting. If the Euro 6 standard is 500 mg/km (0.310 g/mi), it looks like the 2015 VWs were already in compliance, and the 2013-2014 VWs were just barely out of compliance.
What do you mean consumers can't be relied upon to fill the DEF tank. Have you ever had one?
On my Truck, it will start nagging near empty and stop running when the DEF is out. If I neglected filling it the truck would not go anywhere.
You have a truck.
Cars are different - people can drive 20-50,000 miles on a single small tank of DEF, because most diesel cars hardly use anything at all - just enough that the manufacturers can get away with it.
With the pitiful DEF tank size in many cars, if it used as much DEF as trucks do to really bring the NOx emissions down, they'd have to refill it every second or third time they filled fuel. In reality, most diesel car drivers never fill it - it gets topped off when they take the car in for service.
If the Euro 6 standard is 500 mg/km
It isn't. The limit is 80 mg/km for diesel-powered cars and 60 mg/km for petrol-powered cars (see here). 500 mg/km is a typical real-world emission level for Euro 6 cars.
it looks like the 2015 VWs were already in compliance, and the 2013-2014 VWs were just barely out of compliance.
The issue is not the actual emission levels in the real world. Almost every diesel car and many petrol cars emit much more NOx in real-world conditions than they do in the not very representative emissions test. The issue is whether this difference is due to engine control unit policies that are specifically designed to game the test ("defeat devices"). VW was stupid enough to admit that part of this difference was due to a deliberate choice by the group that designed the EA189 engine, whereas other manufacturers chose to hide behind the legal loophole that allows defeat devices if they serve to protect the engine, but does not specifiy under which conditions, by what means and to what extent. Basically, everything goes as long as the car passes the official, well-defined test in the lab.
Not in Europe. If you can smell a car here, it is most likely an older petrol car with a cold engine. Diesels here tend to be modern common-rail injected engines with particulate filters. A car emitting a visible amount of particulates would fail the mandatory annual safety and environmental inspection.
They may be smug, but they are right. Petrol is much worse than diesel.
Part of the reason is that diesel trucks are required to have a DEF[*] tank and a corresponding catalyst in the exhaust. This greatly reduces the NOx output.
No, I'm sorry, but that's not correct.
Legal requirements do not dictate the technology. The regulations are about the emissions properties (NOx, particulate matter, etc). How to achieve the mandated emissions properties is left up to the engine/aftertreatment manufacturer. DEF (and BlueTec which is a marketing name for DEF) is required for Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems used by a lot of the industry. However, DEF is not required to meet emissions per sae. Some manufacturers (especially on lower HP) are able to meet emissions without SCR (and DEF) by using Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) or Particulate Matter Catalysts (PMCAT), neither of which require DEF.
With regards to cars (and light duty trucks), many of them are built with DEF-consuming SCR systems. Consumers have to fill them with DEF or else the vehicle goes into "limp mode". You cannot just simply leave the tank empty and drive around. The interval is typically longer (10,000 miles) because the engine power is less and the DEF tank relative to fuel tank is pretty close. DEF is consumed at a ratio to fuel (for example 1/20). If a car has a 20 gallon fuel tank and a 20 gallon DEF tank, they will be able to fill their fuel 20x before they need to refill DEF. Large trucks typically have 100+ gallon fuel tanks and DEF tanks are sized such that they need to be refilled every 2 or 3 times. This is less of a complaint for truck customers since it's relatively easy to re-fill DEF at the same time as fuel at most large "truck stops."
would B&M if they had to buy and top up DEF every time they filled the tank.
Agree with your understanding of consumers, but manufacturers have answered this by relative sizing of DEF tanks. They cannot legally allow the vehicle to drive without DEF. There are many system checks (software, freeze sensors, pressure sensors, urea quality sensors to make sure you don't just put water in the tank, etc) in place to ensure that DEF system is filled and operating correctly.
Back to the original point of the summary, I suspect the answer lies more in the relationship between test conditions and real-world conditions. Also, we've seen from VW that there are some gaps in the "self-certification" regime.
Source: I work for an engine manufacturer and own/drive a diesel powered Jeep Grand Cherokee
I think i agree with the sentiment.
I don't think EU Council Directive 96/96/EC of 20 December 1996 even states that DEF status has to be checked to get renewal.
I am not even sure there is any warning signs in cars with DEF.
They have not tested school buses in North America.
Oh, I'm sure that the cars check the DEF status, when they have such a system at all. But they also tend to use such a microscopic token amount of DEF that they won't run out. And the EU directive seems more concerned with particulates than NOx, which is primarily what a liberal amount of DEF reduces to near-zero.
And rightly so. Particulates are much more harmful than NOx.
I'm curious:
Unload truck onto train, ship, unload train onto truck, deliver?
or
Drive truck onto flatbed railcar, ship, drive truck off railcar, deliver?
For trucks that are separate tractor trailer, just the trailer on the flatbed.
The law doesn't specify anything.
But it seems to me that for logistic reasons, the 3rd option you mention is the most popular :
the trailer is a standardized contrainer that can be moved from the truck to the train without needing to lose time for unloading/reloading the merchandise.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Trolley buses are - unfortunately - only widespread in the former soviet union and its client states
CH, here. The country has mostly been neutral during cold war and is far from being a client state.
But bigger cities here love trolley and trams too.
Electricity is easily available (thanks to alpine dams)
And city centers are rather densely populated - and thus the network of bus stops is also dense (you don't need hundreds of km of wire just to link 2 bus stops)
(for some reason soviet government seriously loved trolley buses, they have even built a trolley bus line in Afghanistan, back then they were there)
I would say that electric motors are simpler, smaller, easier to install into a vehicle. And are easy to ship around.
Whereas ICE are more a custom job that is vehicle specific.
Thus it's much easier for a Sovietic planned economy to make a 5-years plan to build a huge mega factory in one client state (e.g.: Bulgaria) and ship motors and install them into bus through the whole communist world.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]