The American Goverment are tightening the charges on the VW boys

[Ttaskmaster]

There's a societal cost to cars, and we already have had plenty of cases of "effectively punishing" people for having the "wrong" car technology - remember leaded petrol?

I didn't get my licence until mid-30s because I was living in London, so I didn't pay that much attention at the time, but I do remember leaded petrol.

IIRC, there was a big hoo-har over the switch, with plenty of nonsense about rubbing an eraser around the inside of your engine... But IIRC, it transpired that most cars could run fine on unleaded and leaded wasn't needed. Something about catalytic converters being both a good and bad thing, but I think they only hampered performance on leaded fuel...?
I also believe adding a Cat was the way forward for people, which is FAR cheaper and less punishing than dropping my annual salary on a whole new car that I'll probably hate anyway...
But then many very old cars are still driven around on today's fuels, so was leaded to unleaded really that big of a thing?

MIT's numbers say with 2.6 million VAG diesel vehicles sold between 2008 and 2015 emitting emissions at the levels they do instead of the claimed emissions levels, 1200 people will die early.

As I recall, VAG were the first to be discovered and so got all the hate, but several other manufacturers were guilty of the exact same thing... they were just able to quietly make alterations while VAG were getting hammered for it?

How many deaths is okay?

How many deaths, by comparison, are caused by those same cars running people ove or crashing into other vehicles?

How many other people are killed by other pollutions and what percentages of general pollution do those other pollutions represent?

In the EU it's 1200, and nobody cares (and some entirely nameless diesel fans resent the discussion even happening). Where do we draw our lines, and why?

Nobody will care until affordable, viable replacements are available.

People should either try and walk,cycle or take public transport for shorter journeys,trains where they can and use cars for longer journeys or awkward ones where the previous forms of transport don't work.

Can't walk, no pavements where I live.
Wouldn't want to cycle, traffic too fast and road unlit.
No public transport for 6 miles.
Cars and motorcycles for the win...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Can't walk, no pavements where I live.
Wouldn't want to cycle, traffic too fast and road unlit.
No public transport for 6 miles.
Cars and motorcycles for the win...

Covered by:

awkward ones where the previous forms of transport don't work.

[kompukare]

If everyone biked you'd have virtually no pollution and you'd fit about 4x as many people on the road (I count single-occupied cars as I bike past them on the way to work....).

This is of course the best solution, but the catch-22 50-60 years of very very poor planning which only considered cars and totally ignored cycling and walking. Even in towns, pavements and traffic lights are very poor. Councils can't even build proper infrastructure for the most important users pedestrians. Anyone ever seen elderly people trying to cross near dual-lane roundabout in town centres? Statistically, the UK has some of the best pedestrian safety record, but the iron barrier approach and bad junctions everywhere point to something often ignored: fewer people walk because they are intimidated and scared by cars (and the occasional cyclists on pavements before the car lobbyist jump in with that, but no matter how aggressive some cycles on a pavement I am always far more afraid of 1 tonne of metal at speed than a person on max 20KG bike).

Anyway, (while dependent on decent cycling infrastructure) the best way to encourage more cyclists must surely to push for electric bikes. Yes, they are heavier and currently expensive but being able to use the motor when going up hill, when the wind is against you, or a dark cloud is approaching would vastly increase the amount of people cycling.

Getting even a 30KG bike moving requires far smaller motors and batteries than even the smallest electric car and if the ISO or some such made a standard for the batteries and motors the cost could come way down too. Plus such standard batteries and parts would be way more recyclable (or reusable but don't tell manufacturers that as the only thing even the companies with the greatest green PR spiel hate more than reuse is reduce).

[badass]

There's an elephant in the room here that's been missed.

Self driving cars. The mix of self driving cars and electric power is what's going to make a very large number of people never buy a car again.
It looks like we will have good penetration of level 4 autonomy by 2020 and you'll probably find most cars sold after 2025 will be capable of level 4 autonomy.

Why bother having a money sink sitting on your driveway when you can call a car with an app and pay very little for each journey?
Taxi journeys will be a fraction of the price without having to pay the human to drive them.
Hourly car rental will be possible as well. If you want something posh for a bit, just pay for when you want it.
You will be able to save money by car sharing on some journeys. Use an app and be automatically matched up to people needing picking up on the way.
Public transport will get better. Why have busses every 20 minutes with a capacity of 40+ people when you can have busses 4 times as often that can fit 10 people and be cheaper to run.

Any electric vehicle that needs charging is just taken out of the pool of vehicles available until it is charged whilst it has enough in reserve to complete its journey and make it to a charging station.

I'd say after 2022, sales of new cars to individual buyers will disappear to a tiny fraction of what they are now. I expect the second hand market to take a kicking as well but it will take longer as die hards continue to buy and own cars but avoid the massive depreciation of buying a new car.

Look at the options people will have.

Loaded?
You can get your own electric car like a tesla. Or anything else you want. You can use an app to call a luxury car to pick you up and drop you off.
Or you can just get a normal taxi if there aren't any luxury cars about.

Not so loaded but commuting?

Have a pre arranged hourly rental for less than owning the car yourself.
Get a ride share to and from work.

Skint?

Public transport will not result in simple journeys taking forever with waits between busses. Also, the busses will not stop so often.

The only reason to buy a car will be because you want to pay more money to have your own vehicle. One that sits on the driveway or in a car park doing nothing most of the time.

If I was in government, after 2025 I'd start calling for compulsory yearly driving tests that only the best and safest drivers are capable of passing. Watch the thousands of road deaths per year drop to a tiny fraction of what they were.

[badass]

In the US. Where VW diesels are rare.

EU estimates are over 1k.

http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-...hs-europe-0303

Should VW be allowed to kill over a thousand people through intentional deception, without repercussions?

Of course not. I didn't even hint at a suggestion of that. VM are getting hammered in the US and rightly so. They are being let off lightly in the EU and that's not right.

[directhex]

There's an elephant in the room here that's been missed.

Self driving cars. The mix of self driving cars and electric power is what's going to make a very large number of people never buy a car again.
It looks like we will have good penetration of level 4 autonomy by 2020 and you'll probably find most cars sold after 2025 will be capable of level 4 autonomy.

Why bother having a money sink sitting on your driveway when you can call a car with an app and pay very little for each journey?
Taxi journeys will be a fraction of the price without having to pay the human to drive them.
Hourly car rental will be possible as well. If you want something posh for a bit, just pay for when you want it.
You will be able to save money by car sharing on some journeys. Use an app and be automatically matched up to people needing picking up on the way.
Public transport will get better. Why have busses every 20 minutes with a capacity of 40+ people when you can have busses 4 times as often that can fit 10 people and be cheaper to run.

Any electric vehicle that needs charging is just taken out of the pool of vehicles available until it is charged whilst it has enough in reserve to complete its journey and make it to a charging station.

I'd say after 2022, sales of new cars to individual buyers will disappear to a tiny fraction of what they are now. I expect the second hand market to take a kicking as well but it will take longer as die hards continue to buy and own cars but avoid the massive depreciation of buying a new car.

Look at the options people will have.

Loaded?
You can get your own electric car like a tesla. Or anything else you want. You can use an app to call a luxury car to pick you up and drop you off.
Or you can just get a normal taxi if there aren't any luxury cars about.

Not so loaded but commuting?

Have a pre arranged hourly rental for less than owning the car yourself.
Get a ride share to and from work.

Skint?

Public transport will not result in simple journeys taking forever with waits between busses. Also, the busses will not stop so often.

The only reason to buy a car will be because you want to pay more money to have your own vehicle. One that sits on the driveway or in a car park doing nothing most of the time.

If I was in government, after 2025 I'd start calling for compulsory yearly driving tests that only the best and safest drivers are capable of passing. Watch the thousands of road deaths per year drop to a tiny fraction of what they were.

Further to this, Tesla are looking at integration of a service allowing buyers of their cars to rend them out exactly as you describe - so even if you're a car owner, it's not sitting idle wasting money

[Ttaskmaster]

Covered by:

I know. Just signing up to the Awkward Association.

fewer people walk because they are intimidated and scared by cars

Really??!!
You don't think being warm and dry, or enjoying aircon has anything to do with it?
Back when I walked everywhere, it took 2 hours to get home from work, followed by time to dry off if rainy. Now I can hop on the bike or in the car and be home in 10 minutes, on average... even 45 minutes if the traffic is insanely bad and I can't filter.

Anyway, the best way to encourage more cyclists must surely to push for electric bikes.

No.
The best incentive is to remove the murderous car drivers from the road.

Why bother having a money sink sitting on your driveway when you can call a car with an app and pay very little for each journey?

Because a lot of my work and most of my home roads are unmarked narrow countryside routes.
We don't even get sewerage, gas or >1Mbps internet out here, so how would they get roads up to standard for self-driving vehicles?
I'll be flying a Cobra mkIII to work before we get roads that self-drives can handle.

Use an app and be automatically matched up to people needing picking up on the way.

Ttaskmaster does not play well with others. That's why he has his own vehicles and enjoys not catching the various Lerghi strains that go round seasonally.

Not so loaded but commuting?

Yes, but with variable hours and very short-notice events/changes... a bit like my personal life, really.

Skint?
Public transport will not result in simple journeys taking forever with waits between busses. Also, the busses will not stop so often.

And how often will I have to change busses, plan everything in advance and so on, just because I fancy visiting a mate a few towns over one night?
How much will all these different services cost, too? So far, even at a fraction of the price, they're sounding like they'll rack up very fast!!

The only reason to buy a car will be because you want to pay more money to have your own vehicle.

And the freedom to do what you want, whenever you want.

If I was in government, after 2025 I'd start calling for compulsory yearly driving tests that only the best and safest drivers are capable of passing. Watch the thousands of road deaths per year drop to a tiny fraction of what they were.

You don't need self-drive EVs to do that...

[Lanky123]

If I was in government, after 2025 I'd start calling for compulsory yearly driving tests that only the best and safest drivers are capable of passing. Watch the thousands of road deaths per year drop to a tiny fraction of what they were.

I'm not saying I disagree with the principle, but I'm not sure you'd be in government in 2026 after suggesting it. There are too many people emotionally attached to their 'right to drive' for humans to be taken off the roads en masse for a long time I think.

[Xlucine]

Some kind of standard for hot-swappable batteries would fix a lot of range issues. You'd also be guaranteed a source of replacement batteries as the car ages. Pay for the charge in the new pack and a deposit for the pack itself when you get a new one, like gas bottles, probably with a modifier for the life left in the battery

Also, I screwed up.

The 17kGBP price for a Leaf is with a leased battery, which costs an additional 93GBP/month at the cheapest option. This makes the yearly cost of Leaf fueling 1356GBP and a break even happening never.

Alternatively, you can buy a Leaf with a battery for 21680GBP, giving a break even of 12.5 years.

That's closer to what I expected before I started.

Road tax is simple to add: £140 pa for the note (109g/km CO2), and £0 for the leaf. This drops the break even point to 11 yrs, although it's a very different comparison from the original US one - a volt isn't much fun compared to a camaro, but a leaf and a note are both pretty naff

And while we're at it, my pressing question is: who in their right mind *wants* this rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishing farmyard equipment with a body kit? I have never driven a worse car than a 2015 Passat TDI. I took one 3 miles before coming home & putting down a grand on a Tesla. Absolutely *unbearable* as a driving experience.

I've got a disease-el rover 75, it's quite nice. With effective soundproofing between the engine and cabin I can hear the stereo just fine, and the low end torque is really nice - 2nd gear is the lowest you need unless you're pulling away on a hill, it's almost like driving an automatic. I've heard the bigger V6 option has similar torque, but it won't get 47mpg

I didn't get my licence until mid-30s because I was living in London, so I didn't pay that much attention at the time, but I do remember leaded petrol.

IIRC, there was a big hoo-har over the switch, with plenty of nonsense about rubbing an eraser around the inside of your engine... But IIRC, it transpired that most cars could run fine on unleaded and leaded wasn't needed. Something about catalytic converters being both a good and bad thing, but I think they only hampered performance on leaded fuel...?
I also believe adding a Cat was the way forward for people, which is FAR cheaper and less punishing than dropping my annual salary on a whole new car that I'll probably hate anyway...
But then many very old cars are still driven around on today's fuels, so was leaded to unleaded really that big of a thing?

Lower octane fuels used to be the usual, so on modern high octane supermarket stuff I wouldn't be surprised if the maximum possible compression was similar to leaded stuff

[directhex]

Some kind of standard for hot-swappable batteries would fix a lot of range issues. You'd also be guaranteed a source of replacement batteries as the car ages. Pay for the charge in the new pack and a deposit for the pack itself when you get a new one, like gas bottles, probably with a modifier for the life left in the battery

There's been zero market demand for it. Tesla tried it (and all Model S' are capable of it), but nobody wanted to pay for the privilege. And Renault had a whole "thing" for it in Israel - their partner went bankrupt due to lack of interest.

Nobody buying EVs cares about battery hot-swap.

I've got a disease-el rover 75

low end torque is really nice

See, you dismiss the Volt above, yet the 2015 Volt has just under the torque of the 4.6L V8 Rover 75. And can deliver all 398 N·m from 0 revs, rather than eventually over a curve. And *even with the battery flat* can deliver that on 42mpg of unleaded, compared to Rover's claimed (not actual) 22.1

Actually, the 2.0 CDT Rover 75 is slightly behind a "pretty naff" Leaf on torque, and again, the Leaf can deliver every last pound of torque from 0 revs, so will always leave the Rover in its dust at the lights, junctions, roundabouts, etc.

That was my big problem driving the Passat - not only did it take what felt like hours to move away from stationary, but it made moving away all the more awful (e.g. engaging the steering wheel lock when the engine auto-shutdown, adding additional hours to the time to turn into a junction)

[TeePee]

The performance of some EV's is fantastic. But claiming the Leaf, with it's 10.4 second 0-60 time, will leave a Rover 75 2.0CDT in the dust is a little unfair. The Rover is pathetic, but a mere 0.6s behind.

When it comes to performance, the Volt was fairly good. Not Camaro good, and for the 35,000GBP price in 2015 it should have been. That's serious money. Cayman or Elise money. If you care about driving, petrol is cheap.

The better option, if you must have an EV and want to save money, is to buy a six year old Leaf. It will cost the same as a six year old Note, and the break even lasts until the battery fails.

[peterb]

The lead in leaded petrol poisons the catalyst in the catalytic converters, so lead had to go both because of that and the fact that it is toxic.

Lead compounds did raise the octane rating of fuel and so engines have a lower compression rating. Standard unleaded has an octane rating of 95, in the leaded era, 97 was the minimum, 99 was usual and performance cars used 101.

Linked to that was the development of fuel injection systems on mid and low end cars, both for better combustion (a rich mixture will also destroy the catalyst) and to get better performance from a lower compression ratio engine.

[directhex]

The performance of some EV's is fantastic. But claiming the Leaf, with it's 10.4 second 0-60 time, will leave a Rover 75 2.0CDT in the dust is a little unfair. The Rover is pathetic, but a mere 0.6s behind.

0-30, it'll leave it in the dust. 30-60, the Rover will happily catch up. In city driving, the 0-30 is the bit that matters. A point handily demonstrated by Smart in this tongue-in-cheek drag race vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1iJJZfB7i0

[TeePee]

0-30, it'll leave it in the dust. 30-60, the Rover will happily catch up. In city driving, the 0-30 is the bit that matters. A point handily demonstrated by Smart in this tongue-in-cheek drag race vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1iJJZfB7i0

Take another look at the last few seconds of that video. Those are a very long five meters...

But that said, the city is the last place to care about performance. The cyclists win that argument because they don't have to stop at the lights.

Also, that smart is more expensive than a Camaro. Just saying.

[directhex]

But that said, the city is the last place to care about performance. The cyclists win that argument because they don't have to stop at the lights.

They do, in fact, have to stop at lights. They just don't, most of the time. Bloody cyclists.

And you've really never been in a situation where being fastest off the block would help, when driving in a city? Really? Really? Crossing traffic at lights which go green for both sides at once? Joining a busy roundabout? Overtaking at lights when 2 lanes feed into 1?

Also, that smart is more expensive than a Camaro. Just saying.

$12,490 is, in fact, less than $25,700? Less than half, in fact? https://www.smartusa.com/models/electric-coupe http://www.chevrolet.com/2016-camaro-sports-car.html

[scaryjim]

They do, in fact, have to stop at lights. They just don't, most of the time. Bloody cyclists.

This x1000, and I say that as a cyclist. The number of times I've been stopped at a light and another cyclist just blithely sails past me. Grrrrrr.

Where a cyclist really wins in a city is in not having to wait in queues of traffic - at least, most of the time, and particularly in cities with decent cycling infrastructure. I can generally do the first 2 - 3 miles of my commute home faster than any vehicle on the road when I leave the office. After that I end up on quieter roads where the cars no longer have to queue, but if your commute is 90%+ city-based then, as I said earlier, if you care about the environment you should be on a bike. And a passable city commuting bike costs about the same as a single full tank of unleaded....