France curbs Paris car drivers to combat dangerous smog

My Point was that if you are going to provide an exemption for an old petrol, someone will point to the emission standards and demand you do so with an old diesel. Which has a better chance of still being around.

 

The "scrap rate" fo petrol vs diesels may surprise you. Not only a gasoline car is more a collectors car (smooth and responsive), but also high price parts (and fuel storage problems - biodiesel sludge and corrosion) make diesel less wanted for lower annual mileages...

 

And they're more likely to be 'worked' and also more likely to fail their emissions. As they get older diesel cars appear more likely to be popular for being worked too and also their engines appear to get nicked for parts.

But the same applies to the gas guzzler SUV's that were popular here in the 1990's. You don't see those around as much now either. Once the owner of a 15 year old 4 litre petrol considers their petrol costs, running costs, tax and then increased maintenance costs seen make it unviable and easier to scrap it and buy a cheaper car.

 

Hi guys,

I am a French engineer and I live near Paris.
I would like to give my opinion and some additional information here:

Some facts:
1. 80% of French passenger car are diesel. As around 2000s, French government set up a system of Bonus/Malus based on Car CO2 emission. For this reason, the French massively bought small car with diesel engine (like Renault Clio, size of Prius C), because the government give them a cash back around 800dollars.
2. As diesel cars become the majority here, French petrol group can't refine enough diesel for the french population, and at the same time, they refine excess gasoline. That is why half of French diesel is imported and they have to sell the excess gasoline to US with a very low price. Bad for the commercial balance...

For this reason, French government is under the pressure of 2 different lobbies:
-Pro-Diesel: French car companies such as Peugeot or Renault, which invest a lot money in diesel engine technologies, and do not have good gasoline engine in stock.
-Diesel detractors: Very implicit influence from French petrol group (Total), and environment group.

For question of "Can Euro 6 solve all the problem": I really doubt that.

Euro5 aims mainly PM emission, that is why the car companies equipped diesel car with the famous DPFs. But they noticed with DPFs it produced an excess of Nox.
That is why Euro6 tries to correct this problem and Peugeot, for example, in order to meet Euro6 requirements, develops a system neutralizing Nox with urea (Blue Hdi system).

Another problem that you didn't talk about: the real efficiency of DPFs.
It is not magical, it can't make particles dissappear...
It is a filter only...that means it can get plenty as a vaccum cleaner.
When it gets plenty (around every 1000km), it required engine's high RPM to burn the particles in the DPF, and evcuate them. (And the particles after burning becomes smaller and more dangerous).
The DPFs is good for NDEC cycle (less than 100Km of distance)...but in the real life, it doesn't work well, specially in city driving...

 

You can't get a old car to emit as a recent one.
At MOT will be checked for limits for its legal emission at its registration/manufacture date: pre-1985 4% CO; 1985-1992 2,5% CO; and 1993 onwards 1%CO (Euro1). [years and limit may not be correct, sorry, just an example]

 

I know. The old diesels can't even pass those! My old Peugeot diesel would scrape through - only just. That was a 2002 with a basic dpf.

 

Agree that diesels with DPF don't work well in true city driving. Constant-speed highway driving is more appropriate.

However, DPF has been shown in a myriad of studies to be extremely effective in removing particles across the entire size range, especially in the extremely small size categories (nanoparticles). For example, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), who is probably as institutionally hostile toward diesels as anyone, conducted a study on a Euro-spec Peugeot diesel car ("Golden Vehicle"). In the FTP test duty cycle, the particle number (PN) emissions were virtually indistinguishable from HEPA-filtered background air (tunnel blank) based on multiple particle counters....





Source: State Of California, California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources Board, "California’s Informal Participation in the Particle Measurement Programme (Pmp) Light Duty Inter-Laboratory Correlation Exercise (ILCE_LD) Final Research Report." October 2008, http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/veh-emissions/pmp-ld/CARB_Golden_Vehicle_PMP_Report_Final-05JAN09.pdf


A few studies have shown that diesels with DPF actually have lower PN than "room" air...




Source: John Storey et al., Oak Ridge National Laboratory, "Comparison of Direct Exposure of Human Lung Cells to Modern Engine Exhaust Particles." http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2003/session9/2003_deer_storey.pdf


DPF regeneration does significantly increase PN, but it's still much lower than an unfiltered diesel (http://www.epa.gov/region9/climatechange/blackcarbon/pdf/greenbaum-black-carbon-and-health.pdf - slide #13), and about the same as what petrol vehicles typically emit. Regeneration also only occurs about 1% of the operating time.

There's also the comprehensive emissions study ("Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study" - ACES) of 2007-compliant (Phase 1) and 2010-compliant (Phase 2) large diesel truck engines. This study not only looked at regulated emissions (e.g., PM, NOx, NMHC), but also about 300 unregulated emissions such as PAH, nPAH, BTEX, etc.) Emissions of both regulated and unregulated emissions have been drastically reduced relative to 2004-compliant diesel truck engines. Press release for Phase 2 is available at http://www.healtheffects.org/Pubs/ACES-Phase2-Final-Press-Release-120413.pdf. A third phase of this comprehensive study (Phase 3) looked at health effects of exhaust from a 2007-compliant diesel truck engine. Few health effects were found after 12 month of nearly continuous exposure (http://pubs.healtheffects.org/getfile.php?u=708) and preliminarily through the normal life cycle of the laboratory test animals (about 30 months - http://www4.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/resources/merit-review/sites/default/files/ace044_greenbaum_2013_o.pdf, slides 15-23).

Regarding Euro 6 and NOx emissions, the diesel vehicles meeting U.S. Tier 2 Bin 5 should be proof of that capability. Actually, the 2014 BMW 328d (320d in Europe) technically meets Bin 2/SULEV II (certified FTP NOx = 0.01 g/mile (0.006 g/km)).

It still appears that the rapid proliferation of direct injection petrol vehicles (GDI) is more of a concern than DPF diesels. There's a potential that new GDI vehicles could more or less offset the reduction in PM emissions from old diesel vehicles as they are retired.

 

France says diesel cars a 'mistake,' announces phase-out plans - Autoblog

Looks like they're still going forward with eliminating diesels.