Featured Long-Range EVs Are The Antithesis Of Efficiency And Sustainability

EREV is a subset of PHEV. Just like mild and full are subsets of hybrid.

 

No. They saw the Jetta 'passing' with just a NOx trap while maintaining performance and efficiency, and so spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out how for their own cars. Without VW's actions, they would have quickly realized SCR was the only reliable way of meeting EPA emission targets, which is what Mazda did for the CX-5.

If VW is at fault for lost hybrid sales because of their cheating, then their cheating also harmed companies with honest diesels.

 

That's called moving the goal posts. We all know the target numbers, dates, and locations... none of which that damage-control effort will forgive. This is yet another example of: OVER PROMISE, UNDER DELIVER

 

The PiP had the same 60k(30k Japan:30k US) target number as the Volt when it was released.

 

A little over 51,000 sold the first year, despite an extremely limited rollout here (just 15 states), makes your desperate attempt to change focus pointless. We all know the full story quite well. Pretending this is new information screams unfulfilled objectives.

Reality is, the measure for success of failure was always based upon the ability for each automaker to deliver a system that could achieve sustainable & profitable sales prior to tax-credit phaseout. The reason for that is undebatable. It was the very purpose of such a generous subsidy. In fact, that is why each automaker was given the discretion of choosing their own timeline, to best utilize that limited opportunity.

GM squandered what they had, wasting it on conquest rather than finding a means of spreading the technology to other vehicles. That's why the lame excuse for Volt being discounted holds no merit. That system should have been implemented within a Trax or Equinox many years ago. Remember how all that EREV vastly superior nonsense? Volt sales plateaued at the 1,600 to 1,700 level. Each month, regardless of what GM attempted, growth was never achieved. That's so far below the business goal to keep the technology viable, there's nothing else to but try something quite different.

Toyota's approach is quite different, hence the absence of any constructive attempt to discuss the situation. Toyota still has time. They have an ample number of tax-credits available and they are already well into the diversification effort. Corolla PHV will be rolled out later this year, starting elsewhere. That gives them even more time to prepare the stage here for that necessary growth. In the meantime, RAV4 hybrid is pushing well into the mainstream, reaching a new audience GM could only dream of. It's a platform capable of offering a plug later too.

So all the spin about not failing won't cover up the reality of status quo remaining unchanged for GM. Their dealers are doing the same old push of giant guzzlers with no plan for the future. It's just a day-to-day survival situation... which is why there's reason not to consistently remind everyone of that past. You don't overcome mistakes in history by not acknowledging they ever happened.

This is why recognition of Toyota's effort genuinely change their fleet should be taken seriously. This antithesis thread revealed what about efforts to achieve efficiency & sustainability?

 

The most recent ADAC test results showed that all 13 Euro 6d-temp diesels that were tested produced NOx emissions below the regulated limit in RDE ( Neue Diesel-Pkw sauberer als vorgeschrieben ).

The Honda did produce the most NOx emissions in its testing (102 mg/km), but all the other were well below the 80 mg/km WLTP limit. The BMW 520d and Opel Astra produced 1 mg/km, and the Mercedes C220d produced no measurable NOx during the RDE testing.

Appears the NOx-emissions-from-diesels issue has been resolved.

 

IIRC Chevy offered up the cruise with a no cheat diesel option, as far back as 2014. 3yrs ago our next door neighbor came home / pulled up with a brand new one - in 2016. He had it on lease until this year. All that to say, there are sometimes exceptions to the rule.
Find more Diesel Chevy Cruze for sale at up to 90% off
Good mileage, but - offset by higher maintenance cost & fuel oil more expensive than gas, usually, to run it.
That said, I do love a good historic article - pre- cheat discovery / scandal.
From over a ½ decade ago;
German automotive companies launch “clean-diesel” marketing campaign in US - Green Car Congress
.

 

Why didn't you tear down a TDI to expose the cheat? The ICCT has been studying vehicle emissions for decades in Europe. Their research has shown how much diesel, and petrol, have been exceeding regulated limits. They didn't get evidence of cheating until they funded research on for US cars with West Virginia Tech in order to get data on how clean diesels could be in order to have it for lobbying for stricter regulations in Europe. The results of that study is what started the EPA investigation of VW. The tested BMW didn't raise any flags.

I'm sure other companies uspected the cheating, but they didn't see exposing it as their concern, or were in on it. Toyota only stopped selling diesels in Europe recently; they lost hybrid sales to some of their own diesels. Part of the reason they stopped was because their diesels weren't selling well. They haven't stopped diesel sales in other markets, including Japan, whose emission standards are what Mazda's SkyActiv-D was designed for.

Being efficient and good for the environment aren't the only thing important for buyers. Performance is another, and many hybrids were lacking in that department in comparison to diesels. Power hybrids have never done well; that's why the first Accord hybrid was being cancelled. Then some buyers prioritize operation costs, and diesel is simply cheaper in much of Europe. Diesel cars are doing poorly in the US, because the fuel costs more than premium gas in most of the country.

Completely agree. I feel if a society is going to have capital punishment, it should apply to white collar crimes with huge impacts to societies.

Greed is not the sole factor to consider. There are technical ones.

Gasoline engines are not clean. Before we started regulating emissions of cars, gas ones were horrible, and worse than diesels in many areas. Anyone that has used a gas lawnmower has an idea of the pollution levels a gas engine can produce, and today's lawnmowers have tighter regulations than pre-emission cars. The classic cars I encounter on the road have a hydrocarbon cloud in their wake.

Gas cars are only as clean as they are today after decades of steady tightening of emission limits and improvements in technology. Because of sulfur levels in US diesel, diesel cars have been limited to technologies only possible at the beginning of the emission control era. Then they had a few years to make the advances gas cars got over those decades. They had a head start because of what was known fro gas cars, but not a guarantee for success.

Then there is the fact that the official tests don't model the drive cycles people actually put cars through. Political inertia makes changing the tests difficult. In the US. Changing the emission test cycles will also need changes to CAFE in addition to the emission limits, for example. Changing the test while keeping current limits, or tightening the limits while keeping the current test, could encourage cheating if they are technically difficult to achieve.

By whose numbers?
Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid - Wikipedia has 27,279 gobal PiP sales, and that comes from Toyota's own press release.
実績データ（ハイブリッド車グローバル販売） | トヨタ自動車株式会社 公式企業サイト
Better than the Volt, but GM is not the company people have in mind when criticizing Toyota over plug ins.

The EPA has an anti diesel car bias, so will scrutinize them harder than Europe does. Just applying the same standards to them as gas in evidence of this bias. While the EPA is stricter than Europe overall in emission limits, gasoline cars wouldn't pass for CO if they had to follow Europe's diesel standard for it.

Locally, the per mile cost between a diesel and gas model is about the same. With a MSRP thousands more, diesels don't sell. Did see a Cruze diesel hatchback recently on the road. A plus for GM, and maybe Ford, is that their diesels can handle up to B20. It's B5 for the others.

 

But the ‘customer expectation’ remains along with the unreconstructed models that still have the diesel stink.

Bob Wilson

 

That's true whether new diesels are completely banned or not. You can't unring that bell unless they have some buy-back program, and that would likely cause more emissions than just letting the high-emitting diesels run to retirement.

Fact of the matter is that all diesel vehicles type-approved at Euro 6d-temp and Euro 6d have NOx emissions as low as gassers. According to the ADAC data you provided a few years ago ( https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2017/10/133571_ADACecotests.txt ), HC, CO and PN emissions of diesels are generally lower than gassers, including hybrids.

Recent research has cast doubt on the contribution of NOx emissions to secondary ambient PM2.5 ( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL082028 ). In that study, control of NOx emissions is ineffective in reducing ambient nitrate PM2.5, but control of VOC emissions is effective.

Sorry, didn't realize that any defense of diesel is off-limits here.

 

um - no... please re-read Peterson's header;
" Long-Range EVs Are The Antithesis Of Efficiency .... " & From Webster - antithesis is defined as, "the direct opposite" . Ie; ev's are the opposite of efficiency - opposite of sustainability.
It is disingenuous to defend this (insert your favorite ad hominem here) person's motive - or to try to defend his motive(s) .

His point is dishonest on several fronts. Dishonest in that he presumes his readers are so stupid as to believe you have to have a massive World supply of batteries before you start building battery cars .... & dishonest trying to convince readers there's not enough materials to build batteries - on that nonexistent scale. The only lie that Peterson didn't toss into this claptrap was the old, "there's not enough electricity in the whole wide world to have all the cars in the world on batteries.
This guy doesn't pass the sniff test.

wait - the 1st to open the diesel dialogue was Post #53 in this thread.
Unringing the bell?

.

 

As I stated, the official tests do not reflect how cars are actually driven today. Most of them are also light load engine loads. The regulatory limits were set with this knowledge.

So a car exceeding those limits on a real world drive, which introduces more variables into the test, is not proof of cheating in and of itself. Cleaning up ICE exhaust is not easy. If it was, we wouldn't have had to taken decades to advance the technology, nor would anybody need to cheat.

A Norwegian study into diesel emissions found that buses and trucks exceed the EU limits by less than cars. The pressure to pass, and thus cheat, isn't going to be much different between the two markets. So the difference likely comes down to the catalytic converters. They need to be hot to work properly. The smaller ones on cars are going to shed heat quicker, and buses have the extra space for larger units.

The move towards mild hybrids being the norm will mean equipment like heated catalytic converters become more feasible.

Then the study saying hybrids are the best use of resources for reducing carbon emissions, also supports using diesels over gasoline cars.

I may have been the first to mention diesel, but I was comparing the burning of it outside of an engine to the burning of plastic. No matter the fuel or energy source, a car fire is a mini environmental disaster.

 

This is interesting; the thing that concerns me, however (without reading the article) is that my Gen 2 Prius uses electric motors. The battery uses nickel, maybe lithium in the future - all easy things to find. The rare earth metals in the motors are an issue - recycling will help with that. China will also help, as they have the ability to mine all of Tibet after they 'liberated' Tibet a few decades ago....

What I find interesting is that MG1 would be powerful enough to drive my car in a fairly gentle manner. It can generate maybe 30HP. I've seen MG2 do 65HP (briefly). If I took MG2, gave it improved cooling, put a big lithium battery on it, I have a nice EV.

Therefore, hybrids use the same amount of rare earth metals as EVs. Maybe even more (two motors rather than one...). So the argument says we should go to gasoline vehicles, which is unsustainable. I don't know if the article mentions hydrogen, but I believe practical hydrogen vehicles are coming very soon, probably around the same time that a hydrogen fusion reactor comes online for true clean electrical energy and a clean future for our planet!

 

I think the flack is due to it being such a contentious topic! I am probably very guilty as I drive my Prius daily and my Leaf is just parked up, since my Prius battery did *not* like being left alone. I am going to start alternating soon.

What I would love to see would be a Prius with a Leaf battery. In fact, a Prius Prime would do me fine (except for the fact that I would lose full EV commutes after 30% battery degradation). I would be happy if the world moved to higher-capacity plug-in hybrids (maybe 60-70km EV range, and a modular battery, maybe in four parts, so you can swap packs in and out at will (by a trained mechanic but compartmentalised and fairly easy to access with the right tools, to make maintenance easier etc). Then, gasoline would become a premium item, and we would only use it when truly needed (for very compact energy storage - 500km winter range etc). We would reduce CO2, gas prices could go through the roof, the oil companies would be happy, and we might not totally destroy our planet.

My long term project is going to be to get a Toyota Hiace 'Jumbo' van, and somehow put the Prius HSD 1.5 in it. The challenge is that the Hiace is rear wheel drive. However, the torque curve and power of the 1.5 HSD would easily run the Hiace. Then it would be a camper van with air-con and all the benefits of a Prius camper, but all the room of a custom built super camper van. Adding a Leaf battery would be the icing on the cake!

I would love to see a Gen 2 battery pack, filled with Leaf cells and a modified ECU, that is a drop-in replacement for the NiMH (same connectors and the battery ECU talks nicely to the rest of the car). This could allow plug-in charging, dramatically reduced gas usage, and would allow Gen 2 (and newer or older) become almost full EVs most of the time. All that is needed is a modified battery ECU (probably a gateway ECU, a modified Prius ECU, and a Leaf ECU to balance the battery). The regen braking and peak power output from the NiMH is less than that of the Leaf, so the Li Ion would be 'safe' if someone could make such a mod

 

I agree with Bosco with everything except I don't know whether Seeking Alpha is a shill for oil industry. Interestingly, EV advocates use this same strategy to disparage HFCVs. Everyone's turned partisan. It's difficult to know if people really believe what they write or if their strings are being pulled.

 

no strings .... it's just correcting lobbyists' lies . Some HFCV test programs run quietly in the background. Others - deliberately run frontal attacks against ev's - such as Toyota/Lexus's dishonest smear campaign below;

Smearing is implemented when the opponent has the goods on you, and they begin to leave you in the dust, making your stuff look foolish. The dishonest smear above is a perfect example. Plugins sales took off at a much faster pace than either hydrogen (promised 'in just 10yrs' - for the past 4+ decades) or HEV's. Nothing wrong with regular hybrids. Nothing wrong with hydrogen. BUT - the trillion dollar cost of fuel cell "never ready" Tech is being laid on the backs of California taxpayers, mostly. Even using the cheapest source of fuel to reform hydrogen (non-renewables) the cost is multiples above ICE, and/or electric - not to mention the vehicles. Hydrogen's only exhaust is water? Never mentioning the non-renewables that were releasing CO2 for reforming? .... or mountains of coal ash?
So - if anyone desires to say it's "disparaging"... to just set the record straight when the BS thickness gets up to your eyeballs ... so be it.
Fact is - it was the other 2 forms of Transportation Tech that fired the first volleys. Sure - plugin advocates could just roll over. Would that be preferred?
.