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US EPA Accuses Fiat Chrysler of Excess Diesel Emissions (yahoo.com)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of illegally using hidden software to allow excess diesel emissions to go undetected, the result of a probe that stemmed from regulators' investigation of rival Volkswagen AG. From a report: FCA shares plummeted as the maximum fine is about $4.6 billion. The EPA action affects 104,000 U.S. trucks and SUVs sold since 2014, about one-sixth the vehicles in the Volkswagen case. The EPA and California Air Resources Board told Fiat Chrysler it believes its undeclared auxiliary emissions control software allowed vehicles to generate excess pollution in violation of the law. Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne angrily rejected the allegations at a hastily-assembled conference call with reporters, saying there was no wrongdoing and the company never attempted to create software to cheat emissions rules by detecting when the vehicle was in test mode.
You do know that unless it's fairly new that Fx50 probably rolled off the assembly line w/o even a catalytic converter installed.
Newsflash, diesels smoke, especially older ones.
I drive an older VW diesel (not in scope of diesel gate) and was once ticketed for excessive smoke. I came to court with a clean bill of health from the emissions test and the ticket was dismissed.
My car will smoke if it's lugging or has not been pushed hard in a while. Pushing it hard will 'blow the soot out'.
All that having been said - yes people modify their vehicles to belch smoke and I'll agree it is stupid.
You can't do it without urea injection and exhaust particulate filters.
Fiat and VW have no love for you and your failed ideology.
Buy a plug-in electric car, SUV, or truck (they sell them for $9000 in China today and in First World nations like Canada) and stick it to the man.
You do realize that the US has a huge number more electric vehicles available than Canada right? Most EVs are only available in CARB states, which Canada isn't.
Who thought it was a good idea for any part of emissions testing to rely on a query to the entity being tested?
"I'm doing everything very efficiently, I promise!"
-Everyone
The only way that this would possibly be ok would be if the emissions testing system being queried was from a 3rd party that was forced to be installed in the vehicle. But I can see problems with that, too. If you are literally testing to see if a part is breaking the law or not, why the hell would you ever ask the manufacturer if the part is breaking the law?
They need to test them driving around as well as sitting on a dyno. And they should not be allowing manufacturers to make any changes (e.g. taping intakes to reduce drag), the standardized testing is good but you also need to have some real world smoke (ha ha) tests.
Virtually all cars exceed emissions standards because manufacturers build to pass the test, not build to meet the emission standards.
Buy a plug-in electric car, SUV, or truck (they sell them for $9000 in China today and in First World nations like Canada) and stick it to the man.
And where do you think that electricity comes from? The vast majority of it is from fossil fuel electric generation plants. Until nuclear takes over fossil fuels in power generation any arguments about the merits of electric vehicles is moot, except maybe, from an economic standpoint, electricity generated from coal plants.
As a side note about your comment about imported Russian gasoline, it appears most of the fossil fuels in the United States is actually imported from Canada.
I expected this was going to happen. I also expect that in the days to come, we're going to find that every single auto manufacturer has been cheating in some way or another, and that in the end, they're all going to say that the emissions standards were impossible to meet without cheating.
Electricity comes from the wall, everyone knows that. We don't need no stinking power plants, especially nucular!
But seriously, that needs to be solved. We don't all live in California or Texas or Arizona where there's sun all year around for solar power.
Lol, noob, they use solar in most of Canada, not just the south. Wake up, it's 2017, not 1977.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
California reached a nexus point on this issue in the 1990s. See, emissions testing is cost-effective only if a significant fraction of the vehicles are in violation. If a smog test costs $40, and 10% of the cars are failing, then it's costing the economy $400 to detect each non-compliant car. If the excess pollution the car was putting out costs the economy (say) $1000, then testing is a cost-effective way to get these polluting cars fixed or off the road.
But what if the program is successful and compliance rates increases to 99%? Then you're spending $4000 to detect each non-compliant car, and the cost to detect these polluting cars exceeds the damage they do. That's the situation California found itself in in the 1990s.
The companies which made emissions testing equipment came up with a radical suggestion. Get rid of the annual smog tests. Instead, mount emissions detecting equipment at areas where cars normally slow down to pass. Freeway off-ramps, intersections, etc. The equipment would constantly detect emissions, and when it saw a spike in emissions it would snap a photo of the offending car(s). If the same car's plates showed up in multiple photos, you could send that registered owner a fix-it ticket requiring they bring the car in for testing. This way you're not wasting time or money dealing with the 99% of cars which are in compliance, and only spending extra money testing the 1% of cars which are probably in violation.
Unfortunately by the 1990s, smog testing in California had grown into a billion dollar industry. The service stations and smog test stations lobbied hard in Sacramento to kill this idea. They won, and so we still require smog tests today even though the vast majority of cars pass. It's worth nothing that an on-road emissions detection system would've caught the violating VWs nearly a decade ago when they first started cheating.
I suspect this will play out like the doping scandals in sports -- everyone is doing it because if you're not, then you're at a competitive disadvantage.
I'm sure this is why none of the other manufacturers called our VW for this practice before the EPA found out... they didn't want to raise attention to it. I'm sure they all knew about.... if one manufacturer released an engine that met impossible-to-meet standards, you can bet that they all dissected the engine to see how they did it.
In Ontario (Canada) we have no coal plants, though 5% of production comes from natural gas. (65% nuclear, 25% hydro, 4% wind)
Where do you get your information?
I live in Canada, there are very few models of EV available for purchase here compared to any CARB state in the US.
There is also no requirement that EVs be sold at all anywhere in the country, unlike the US where CARB states require the sale of EVs.
So let's revise what you said:
models available: nope
Required to be sold in every province in Canada? nope.
I can purchase locally the following EVs: Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Nissan Leaf and BMW i3. That's the entire list. If I go to another city I can add Smart ED, Kia Soul EV, and Mitsubishi MiEV. (theoretically the chevy spark and ford focus electric are also available, but I've been unable to find anywhere selling them)
I can not buy the following EVs anywhere in Canada despite their availability in the US:
Fiat 500EV
eGolf
Mercedes B Class Electric
Scion iQ EV
Honda Fit EV
> For example, they don't care whether it's a 1.6-2.0 liter 4 cylinder in a 3000lb car that gets 50mpg or a 7 liter V8 in a 7000lb package that gets 15-20mpg.
Not sure who the "they" you refer to is. In the US EPA cares, the have CAFE standards, and the Estimated fuel economy is used to calculate the allowed CO2 emissions per mile. Other emissions are not directly tied to fuel economy, but hitting the above standard closes the loop.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...
These standards
apply to model years 2009 through 2016
and require CO2 emissions for passenger
cars and the smallest light trucks of 323
g/mi in 2009 and 205 g/mi in 2016, and
for the remaining light trucks of 439 g/
mi in 2009 and 332 g/mi in 2016
Be my guest.
Show me a law making EVs available in every province like you stated.
Show me where I can buy an eGolf in Canada
Show me this proof that you think that Canada is somehow further ahead than the USA in electrification of transport when in fact we're about a decade behind.
I've researched this pretty heavily, Canada is SCREWED when it comes to EVs, don't hold us up as a shining beacon of hope to the USA when Americans can buy far more EVs, for lower prices, than Canadians can, and get a federal tax subsidy to boot (also not available in Canada)!