So let me get this straight: major German manufacturers are in trouble for agreeing to... not do something none of them were actually required to do yet? In a truly free market I guess that could be called collusion, but in this climate I'd call the particulate-filter agreement basic self-defense, because you know the instant some hapless do-gooder in one company decided to start adding those performance-raping, cost-increasing abominations in gasoline vehicles, it would provoke an immediate response of "LOOK HOW RIGHTEOUS THIS COMPANY IS! THE REST OF YOU ARE REQUIRED TO USE THESE TOO NOW!" from the do-nothing administrative class that clusters in the cities and attempts to run entire nations as if they were entirely urban. The urea tanks, I'm not sure what purpose that agreement would have other than to make the car more annoying to drive. Maybe that is the purpose. But then, by driving people away from diesels they'd actually be helping the environment. I'd honestly feel comfortable calling this investigation nothing but a political hit job to punish companies for not being sufficiently WOKE. I guess it's not enough to just follow the endless stream of environmental diktats, you have to stay ahead of this stream because if word gets out that you deliberately didn't, you can be investigated for collusion. Modern car design, anyway, is wholly perverted. It used to respond to market forces, now it's just an endless stream of government-mandated bandages to fix the unintended consequences of previous government-mandated bandages. Port fuel injection was perfectly fine, but it doesn't get good enough fueeeellll econommyyyyyyy any more, so we had to move to direct injection, but that's particulate dirty like a 70s diesel, so now we need backup port injection systems to keep the valves clean and particulate filters to keep the air clean. And if you form an agreement not to use the latter until it's actually mandatory you're "colluding to limit technical development" according to the ignorant, arrogant, unelected losercrats who run the formerly-great nations of Europe. They've got such an itchy trigger finger on the regulatory howitzer that the manufacturers have started behaving like gophers on a rifle range, afraid to do anything that attracts attention, and then they punish manufacturers for acting out of that fear.
Long story short, companies are not allowed to enforce cartels to prevent other companies from innovating. If a company decides to use smaller AdBlue tanks, it is welcome to do so. However, forming a pact to ensure that customers have no choice but to buy a poor performing product is illegal. Because that creates a monopoly. If all the companies are in bed with each other, they can decide to stop competing, because consumers will have no choice but to buy whatever junk they are producing. That is what the investigation is targeting. As mentioned below, the investigation has literally nothing to do with emissions equipment itself, they have other investigations into illegal practices related to emmisions. Below quotes from the EU press release directly: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-2008_en.htm
I'm still not convinced there aren't political overtones here. I'm not sure why they'd want smaller adBlue tanks, however I have some ideas about why they would collude to avoid particulate filters and they aren't necessarily anticompetitive. It's more along the lines of, if someone had started adding particulate filters to gasoline cars, that would have caused the regulators to become aware that such a thing was possible, and then EVERYONE would have got stuck using them well before they did, because that's how clueless utopians operate. But if they could keep gasoline particulate filters out of public/regulatory awareness for a while, then they could buy themselves at least a few more years to build somewhat customer-focused cars and/or search for a better solution to the DI particulate problem. Yes, there was collusion, but to me this bears all the hallmarks of manufacturers rebelling against the forced inclusion of devices they don't really want to use, and getting punished for failure to love Big Brother as a result.
My only conspiracy is the government hiding synthetic fuel and I get called crazy. But what's being said above me is loony bin levels of insanity.
I'm not sure clueless is the word I would use: https://cordis.europa.eu/search/en?q='particulate filter' AND (contenttype='project' OR /result/relations/categories/resultCategory/code='brief','report' OR /result/relations/categories/collection/code='deliverable','publication')&p=1&num=10&srt=Relevance:decreasing For reference, that is all research funded at least in part by the EU on the topic of "particulate filters". Of course they also take into account research that they didn't fund themselves. A quick search on Google Scholar will also bring up many valid results. --- Post updated --- If you fancy some "not so light" reading, there is some interesting info here: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/95914/brief/en The linked page is just the results in brief, there is a full paper behind it (the "reporting" tab), but I didn't fancy that sort of time investment, and I don't blame you if you don't either But they suggested that what they researched may be possible commercially in 10-20 years (5-15 from now). Obviously that depends on whether people have continued to research it after that point. And while it would reduce oil dependence, and doesn't require lots of farm land, which is great, it still doesn't address the pollution and waste issues that are faced by ICE engines.
They are clueless. Remember the London and Paris air quality problems? That was all a direct result of government over-promotion of diesel passenger cars according to the previous "peak oil" zeitgeist. Well, I won't say they're all clueless - some of them knew diesels would cause a public health crisis in their overcrowded cities, and went along with it anyway to keep up their "environmentally friendly, likes to save fuel" image. As to the research you linked... I'm going to have to assume that it completely ignores the question of whether the dang things are even necessary, or perhaps whether they would have been necessary if overzealous fuel-economy regulation hadn't led to DI in every car. Furthermore most of the top results are for diesel or non-automotive applications. Furthermore, even if the regulators do occasionally get something right from a practical (as opposed to principle) sense, that doesn't mean they're not clueless. There are only two reasons a typical regulator or politician does something: to accumulate more power/push an agenda (if they're in the know), or to feel better about themselves (if they're not). It's not just cars. The people making rules in the modern world are, by and large, utter idiots who have zero practical and little theoretical knowledge of or experience with the things they are attempting to regulate - and are very likely to favor "research" that supports their politically predetermined conclusions/hidden agendas, regardless of its validity. Note that I am not making a comment on the validity of the research you linked as I'd rather not spend my Saturday reading pages of incredibly boring literature about making cars slower, more expensive, and harder to tune. As to @redrobin above - that didn't make much sense to me either, but I really can't figure out why else they would collude to restrict urea tank sizes. All that will do is make the car significantly more annoying to own, and since there are other players in the market not party to this agreement, someone else could easily come along with a bigger tank. That leaves me with no conclusion except that the manufacturers feel like they have to make diesels, but would would prefer it for some reason if no one bought said diesels, possibly due to some kind of government-set-up regulatory bind. Same thing with the particulate filters - even if the EU had been looking into gasoline particulate filters before, having them become common in cars would foreground the issue and may have still led to those horsepower-absorbing demon canisters becoming mandatory sooner than they otherwise would have; it's possible that the manufacturers were hoping that a better solution to the DI particulate problem could be found before the mandate came along as once an onerous rule like that has been made there's usually no walking it back even if it becomes completely unnecessary and obsolete.
I love how EU antitrust turns a blind eye to big tech but go on red alert when anything that vaguely resembles an antitrust violation is formed by a car manufacturer. And anyways, what was stopping a company from making a bigger tank? A colloquial agreement made several years ago doesn’t make it a legally binding agreement. Frankly, those trigger-happy regulators need some diezapam or something and to chill out. Also, diesel was a lie. It ruined European air quality. DI will do the same thing. Electric cars damn well may too. We need to take the time to test new technologies long-term before accepting them with open arms. EU take note
As I said. Clueless utopians. The ones who don't really know what's up just glom onto anything with the words "environment", "fuel economy", or "safety" attached because it makes them feel virtuous and ride it full throttle while ignoring/attacking anyone who raises concerns about it. For the ones who do know, making cars more expensive and less functional probably figures into their plan somehow. Big Tech gets a pass because they make it easier to monitor and control people, while skirting laws designed to keep governments from doing just that because they're technically privately owned.
I'm not sure what you mean about the EU giving "big tech" an easy time. They literally passed article 13 within the past few weeks, which is one of the biggest pieces of regulation that "big tech" has seen to date (within the Western hemisphere). They also have a long history of anti-trust in that sector, such as enforcing Web browser choice on windows, and now also on android, as well as preventing Google from forcing device makers to install the full Google apps suite on all phones they sell (within the EU). It is however worth noting that with all of the "big tech" companies being American, there is only so much that the EU has the authority to do. All three companies in the automotive collusion agreement are European, and the agreement affected exclusively Europe, meaning the EU has full jurisdiction over the matter.
Looking for a first car with an automatic, I stumbled upon this 2004 US Accord: https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/honda...ejestrowany-i-ubezpi-ID6BOGcU.html#f19be6f7b7 217,183 miles on the clock, 213,000 km in the ad. That's prime Polishusedcaritis. Also this 2013 C4 Picasso: https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/citroen-c4-picasso-ID6BM6vc.html#0df18a3419 Who in their right mind put a matte black hood, graphite front bumper and fenders, two yellow doors and a yellow fender, two red (resprayed blue) doors and a blue fender on a light blue car? That's basically a real-life cartoon jalopy.
There's only one real reason anyone would do that, which is that the car got in a massive wreck and they couldn't afford to have the body repaired properly, so they just went to junkyards and started grabbing whatever panels were straight off other cars of the same model. Maybe best to not go anywhere near that thing?
What wreck could that be? Multiple rollovers? Ran over by a monster truck? Driven into by a train? I wasn't considering a C4 Picasso anyway, that's just what I saw. Especially not one like this, a hiariously beat-up 1st gen one marked as a 2nd gen.
It appears to me the o2 sensors are all working correctly. The downstream sensors fluctuate on a wavelength as the upstream sensors do. From what I've read the downstream sensors are supposed to have a more constant reading. I still want to log the data so I can look at the wavelengths and such. Haven't done that yet. The exhaust leak is well downstream of the cats and has been fixed, mostly.
Here's a fun fact that I wasn't aware of until today. These 3 cars have something in common: They all had their styling done by the same design house, Pininfarina. And it turns out that Hyundai did not fiddle with their design either: In fact, the Hyundai even has their logo on each side of it at the base of the C pillar:
I've been looking at electric cars for a family member. VW has a "estimate your fuel savings" slider where you can put your current vehicle's MPG. Their slider only goes down to 12mpg. My Jeep WK gets 7mpg... I guess I'll never know how much I would save from buying an eGolf
