France to ban fuel-powered cars by 2040?

tuna55 wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Right, so the point I am adding here is that EU tried very hard to have strict air quality controls, and while trying to do that, they made everything worse by prioritizing the wrong thing and getting PM as a result, in this specific instance. This fortifies my distrust of the ability and/or willingness of the body to operate in a way which truly benefits the citizen of the respective country.

So you take the bad example from another country instead of a good example in our own country?

I guess that is your choice to do that.

I personally like to breathe air that has resulted from the efforts of CARB and the EPA, speculating that had the EU done the same thing, they would be in the same place. Our system works pretty well in containing both agencies, as well- since they have a good communication system in place to consumers.

edit- I honestly don't understand why people think that both agencies are out doing their thing with their own agenda. That's very much not how either work. Never really have. They both work with industry, environmental groups, and scientists to come up with plans to lessen human impact on ourselves.

They always get blamed for "going to far" when they were likely sued to force them to just go that far.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

alfadriver wrote: One can also clearly see that China is VERY serious about cleaning their air. VERY VERY serious. It will take a while to see the effects- much like the 20 year time span that I've been able to travel to Europe. But I suspect that the car rules will help things quite a bit.

Respectfully, the only thing I've noticed about China is that they seem to be very serious about China. While I don't doubt that they are attempting to make big strides towards "greening" themselves, it seems somewhat suspicious that they stand to profit substantially from a good bit of "green" initiative. Not to say that profit is a bad thing, certainly, but one wonders if these efforts' *real* intentions may be clouding their results. I guess, like you said, stick a probe in the air in 20 years, compare it to today's probe, and we'll find out. Great. Now I'm thinking about Probes.

Well, all I know is what I have to meet if I sold cars in China. And I'm confident that given the test requirements, and how they compare with our first hand experience here in the US that they will actually be better for air quality in China. The changes in the requirements are happening so fast to come very close to US numbers that it's not much of a stretch.

I'm not making any judgement beyond that for the motives. If being serious about China means they harm less of their own people, I don't have a problem with that. I'm sure we were look upon that way from Japanese and European makers in the 70's-90's while the rest of the world did their own rules.

In reply to alfadriver:

Understood. Also understood that "fewer regulations" doesn't always mean "cheaper"...the reality is that consistent regulations usually means cheaper- if Ford could build the same car, with the same emissions and safety equipment, and sell that same car in Sandusky or Shanghai, that would drive down everybody's cost.

My issue with China is that they may well be regulating their cars that way, but are they regulating the gigantic tailpipes that stick up into the sky? Or industry, in general? See my earlier post about the giant heavy metal toxic effluent from their rare earth element mining and production centers. If they end up with a country full of E-motor-powered cars but massive, toxin-generating plants to produce the stuff that goes into them (not to mention the power- last I read, China was on track to build many hundreds more coal power plants in the next 20 years), are they really going to be any cleaner?

Car emissions is a tricky game. I get that. And geography has a lot to do with it- this is why LA got air you could cut with a knife in the 60's and 70's where other large metro areas with different geographies weren't as noxious. CO2 emissions matter on a global scale, but the other stuff is more localized. Still, it's of no detriment to have reduced NOx, HC, etc emissions for the guy in farm country, and it's easier, as noted above, for Ford to make 1 type of emissions system, so Mr. Farm Country gets the same emissions package as Mr City Slicker.

Is there still a "California Emissions Package"?

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Is there still a "California Emissions Package"?

Not for anything large scale. The California emissions standards have been adopted by 13 states plus the District of Columbia. Pretty much all OEMs manufacture to CARB standards as there is very little difference between their standards and those of the EPA. As you noted, it's cheaper and easier to simply design and certify to one emissions regulator's standards than having tons of regional configurations. If there is any question, then they'll produce a vehicle that complies with the more stringent standard in order to be covered.

One area where the CARB states are still different, is small volume electric vehicles. Things like the Fiat 500e, Hyundai Tuscon Fuel Cell and Toyota Murai (hydrogen) all go to the CARB states first, and in many cases aren't sold in other states. These vehicles are often made by OEMs in order to meet regulatory minimums which allow them to sell other vehicles in those states. The CARB states also typically get the initial allotments of new "green" vehicles like the Chevy Bolt, Volt, BMW i3 & i8 etc.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

I think China saw the recent predictions that they are facing a rather harsh reduction in population even without the system causing health problems that they are reacting very quickly. I may be interpreting their actions wrong, but the reports and the changes have all happened in the last few years.

Whether they stick with it or not, that does remain to be seen.

As STM317 pointed out- it the California Emissions Package does exist, but is pretty rare. And once the Tier3/LEVIII rules fully phase in, the two sets of rules become one (even if they appear to be different on the books). By 2025, the fleet average will be the same as PZEV. Which is pretty tough, and means we need some very clean, high volume, vehicles. (and that should, theoretically, keep be busy until retirement)

edit this assumes that the EPA isn't totally gutted. Most of the OEM's would rather have one clean set than two very different ones, so they are lobbying to keep the rules as they are- just phased in on the original schedule.

There is absolutely a California emissions package for our industry. It's so bad that we essentially cannot sell things there. They have language (or had, it has been a while since I read up on it) that basically said "emissions have to be as small as technologically possible", which means we would have to throw every add-on and doodad at the turbine which is possible, making it prohibitively expensive, and would bring, for example, the NOx from 9 ppm to 4 ppm. So everyone else gets turbines, but Ca does not.

There is a whole world out there which must be in compliance with local laws, not just cars! So that's a well meaning regulation which basically requires that dirtier energy be produced elsewhere and get inefficiently brought in.

Nearly everyone I've ever asked about higher gas taxes has had pretty much the same thoughts- they'd be willing to pay higher gas taxes, IF they were sure the money would actually be used to fix roads and bridges. But most of them are highly distrustful that it would.

Here's the problem with that, who is to say that the money will go where you want it to go? I mean, just look at what happened to the Social Security fund.

The real question is when do we graduate from contributing to the problem by omission due to our skepticism and move on to contributing to solutions by holding elected officials accountable for the poor performance of budgets and road projects that are ongoing in everyone's hometown at all times? That's the leap we need to make, not a leap of faith but a leap of effort, a leap of citizenship and statesmanship.

Skepticism can be helpful if directed in the right directions, but we are so indoctrinated as to what is an acceptable target that the skepticism we end up with usually just ends up benefiting the people who are actively making our government run poorly: the 'starve the beast' types that lobby to push all government expenditures into the hands of less-accountable private contractors and actively try to undercut the success of any government effort that didn't involve privatization. If you're looking for cost savings and efficiency, keep in mind that if a contractor DIDN'T think he could pull down more money from the government as a private contractor, they'd simply try to get the government version of that job and the push for privatization across all areas of government would be much less. That's what you call 'administrative overhead' or being 'top heavy', which is ironic considering how many people have been trained to think of the exact same scenario as 'small government'. If anything that is smaller government handing out checks to increasingly bloated and unaccountable private firms producing E36 M3tier results. If you could FOIA-request the internal workings of every private contractor with government road contracts there would be hell to pay, but you CANT. There's simply far less accountability to actual results, and what accountability there is is only possible when citizens actually engage their elected officials instead of refusing to give the government any more money because in the past they catered to the interests of those who reciprocated (business interests over voter interests). Any human in a capitalist society with no counterbalancing consequences is simply going to do whatever benefits themselves most. I don't think the solution is to give the government less money. It's to enact consequences for catering to the interests of the small group of businesspeople who constantly interact with elected officials over the interests of the thousands of voters who never say a word to them.

alfadriver wrote: edit- I honestly don't understand why people think that both agencies are out doing their thing with their own agenda. That's very much not how either work. Never really have. They both work with industry, environmental groups, and scientists to come up with plans to lessen human impact on ourselves.

I for one am ecstatic that they, with assistance from various groups, mandated OBD-II twenty-odd years ago. Every car sold in the US has to monitor everything AND have a universal interface with one of a small handful of defined protocols?

EVERYONE who uses a $10 Bluetooth dongle to communicate with an app on their smartphone, or a datalogger, or even a video overlay for in car camera, has the EPA to thank for mandating a universal interface.

Just like every independent shop that no longer has to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment just to service a small fraction of the cars on the road.

tuna55 wrote: There is absolutely a California emissions package for our industry. It's so bad that we essentially cannot sell things there. They have language (or had, it has been a while since I read up on it) that basically said "emissions have to be as small as technologically possible", which means we would have to throw every add-on and doodad at the turbine which is possible, making it prohibitively expensive, and would bring, for example, the NOx from 9 ppm to 4 ppm. So everyone else gets turbines, but Ca does not. There is a whole world out there which must be in compliance with local laws, not just cars! So that's a well meaning regulation which basically requires that dirtier energy be produced elsewhere and get inefficiently brought in.

If that is true, you need better lawyers. Both CARB and EPA have mechanisms in place to deal with unintended consequences, and they work pretty well.

For your original point, this is where you earn your engineering $$. Find a better way to lower NOx in half. It's the same part that I enjoy putting the thumb screws to other companies.

tuna55 wrote: There is absolutely a California emissions package for our industry. It's so bad that we essentially cannot sell things there. They have language (or had, it has been a while since I read up on it) that basically said "emissions have to be as small as technologically possible", which means we would have to throw every add-on and doodad at the turbine which is possible, making it prohibitively expensive, and would bring, for example, the NOx from 9 ppm to 4 ppm. So everyone else gets turbines, but Ca does not. There is a whole world out there which must be in compliance with local laws, not just cars! So that's a well meaning regulation which basically requires that dirtier energy be produced elsewhere and get inefficiently brought in.

Yup. And what that means is that, OK, you "earn your engineering $$$", make that reduction in NOx cheaper, and then another reduction is discovered that takes it, say, from 4 to 3, but again, makes it prohibitively expensive, but, goshdarnit, this here California law says "as small as technically possible", and "ERMAHGAWD the evil energy companies are just sitting on this technology to reduce pollution 25%!!"...and you're back pushing the same boulder up the same mountain, over and over again.

That's a terribly-written law. And I've seen some terrible laws.

Meanwhile, Nevada bought the cheaper technology, and Cali is importing their electricity from them. NIMBY.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: and "ERMAHGAWD the evil energy companies are _just sitting_ on this technology to reduce pollution 25%!!"...and you're back pushing the same boulder up the same mountain, over and over again.

One should point out that there are the opposite conspiracy people out there who claim that the agencies are just out to destroy companies based on their political agenda. Because the "science" isn't clear.

In other words, those claims go both ways. Doesn't make either any better than the other. Again, your post assumes that the agencies work in a vacuum of their own agenda- which isn't what happens.

It's better that every one sits down at the table, looks at the data, looks at the penalty for the current situation, looks at the cost to fix, and goes that way.

alfadriver wrote: It's better that every one sits down at the table, looks at the data, looks at the penalty for the current situation, looks at the cost to fix, and goes that way.

As a fellow engineer, I agree with you. However, it seems that doesn't always happen in practice.

Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible in the current climate to uncouple the politics from the science. You have two extremes screaming at (or, more accurately, over) each other, which makes it harder to do anything really productive. Your industry seems like it's a lot harder to work in than mine- I give you credit for that. Everyone sort-of expects big, diesel-powered locomotives to make some pollution, and the trade-off for that is a lot fewer cars on the roads, less congestion, fewer new roads needed, etc. But they're cracking down on us, too- limited idle regs, Tier IV emissions, requirements for overhauling older locomotives- I spent the better part of last week sifting through 40 CFR for a project I'm working on. I'm sure you're familiar with it.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

I'm aware of it, but far more aware of the marine stuff going on, given that my wife and I are cruising enthusiasts. They have a lot more space than you do for emissions solutions, and they are struggling badly.

But, given how ships and trains concentrate in some very specific areas, you do have to see the need of lowering their output greatly.

IMHO, the real opportunity is to find an effective way to deal with NOx and PM, and then play HEAVILY on the reduced CO2 moving stuff from A to B. Even with the cost of the emissions hardware, you get to use the very high public debate item in your favor. And if they don't trust global warming, then the flip side of lower CO2 = lower costs because of lower fuel consumption.

BTW, I know people at the EPA, quite a few, in fact. For the most part, industry isn't listened to when all they do is drag their feet and try to appeal to the public for relaxation. The HUGE risk for doing that is one company decides to go the other direction, going farther than asked, and making those original companies look really bad. That is what happened in the auto industry, and did happen in the cruising industry.

For us, in the late 90's, much of the auto industry had an epiphany, and at the same time, the EPA got a few upper management who were willing to sit down and talk- and now we are in a pretty good place to work out the technical issues face to face. And since then, it would seem that CARB is at the same table. If we can just have a single spec fuel for the ENTIRE US, I would be super happy.

In reply to alfadriver:

I have read somewhere that marine operations contribute something like 9% to overall global pollution. If true, that's kindof a huge number. But, you also realize that most of those ships are still burning bunker fuel, which is about the dirtiest diesel one can imagine. There are new regulations coming to require them to be more clean-running, which is going to have a big impact on everyone. Not only will ships need to run more expensive (non-bunker) fuel, which will drive up shipping costs, but that will increase demand for diesel in general- meaning the trucking industry is going to get hit, and anyone who buys diesel or home heating oil is going to pay more.

These regs are scheduled to hit in 2020, IIRC. Here's some details

It's going to be a problem for us, to, as diesel is pretty much the locomotive fuel. They've already got us on the ULSD kick. Particulate matter and NOx are our biggest concerns. The new engines (we're talking around the 95 liter class stuff) all have DEF and particulate filters and whatnot- they also run at about double the RPM, which is a concern for longevity. Imagine a 95 liter engine spinning at 1600 RPM. The noise is a bit...unsettling, especially when you're used to a good old smoky two-stroke diesel running at 900 RPM at WOT.

Navistar ran into big troubles when they tried to do their mass-EGR solution to NOx emissions, while everyone else went to DEF. They gambled on being able to hit targets with their tech, and lost. Cummins, Caterpillar, et al now have most of the market. I'm not sure if Navistar will recover from that.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

The interesting thing, to me, about the marine rules is that they are now global- it's not just the US and the EU that are part of it. Given how crappy bunker fuel is, the idea that they can pollute over the open oceans gave me the heebe-geebies. I still don't like seeing the orange plume of exhaust coming from our mobile resort. But it will change soon enough. (one ship's captain pointed out that the rules for the Great Lakes still allow the terribly dirty Lakers, and he thought it wasn't all that fair. But since the rest of the open seas were changing, so be it. Oh, and did you catch that some new ships will be powered by natural gas??? Very interesting, to me)

For the diesel thing- the flip side to the demand- my hunch is that the EUROVI and beyond rules will roughly eliminate diesels from most small cars- so that the EU will be more like the US. Unless there's a huge development in diesel emissions that lowers the cost dramatically. So there will be a new increase in gasoline demand... Not sure how that will change the global market.

alfadriver wrote: For the diesel thing- the flip side to the demand- my hunch is that the EUROVI and beyond rules will roughly eliminate diesels from most small cars- so that the EU will be more like the US. Unless there's a huge development in diesel emissions that lowers the cost dramatically. So there will be a new increase in gasoline demand... Not sure how that will change the global market.

We should also see increasing fuel economy in large, commercial diesel applications. Simultaneously, more and more fleets are adopting natural gas engines, and hybrid and full electric commercial trucks will be available by then. All of this should start to reduce the demand for diesel.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

Some reality about battery technology adoption.

I always got a chuckle that the 400hp small block V8 we put in the ski boats were SULEV rated and the 500hp big blocks were ULEV rated.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: In reply to alfadriver: I have read somewhere that marine operations contribute something like 9% to overall global pollution. If true, that's kindof a huge number. But, you also realize that most of those ships are still burning bunker fuel, which is about the dirtiest diesel one can imagine.

Bunker oil is pretty much the "bottom of the barrel" stuff that is left after refining. it is thick, almost solid, and highly toxic. You need to heat it up before it becomes liquid enough to burn in the engines of a ship.