French Diesel oiu/non?

[vulgalour]

 

 

With there being proposals to phase out diesels due to a harmful emission - nothing to do with the tax breaks that diesel cars get, of course - in France it makes me wonder how they're going to go about doing it and whether or not the UK will end up following suit.

 

I've read various articles on this claiming figures of up to 80% of French motorists making use of diesel cars.  There's an incentive to trade in your oil burner for an electric car but there doesn't appear to be the infrastructure in place to support fuelling these vehicles.

 

My suspicion is that this will boil down to a scrappage scheme of sorts where you get extra off a new electric car purchase if you trade in a diesel but that in reality nothing much will happen.  The French have a delightful habit of saying NON so effectively that a push to make them do what they don't want to will be ineffectual.

 

Would I trade my oil burner for a brand new electric car in the UK even if I could straight swap with the infrastructure as it is now?  Not a chance.  Would I like an electric car in the future?  Actually, yes.

 

 

[Cavcraft]

I like diesels, older ones at least and would be massively pissed off if they ever 'banned' it as a fuel, though I really don't think they would.

 

I'd also love an electric car, though DW's recent report puts me off a bit. For now.

[beko1987]

Hopefully they they'll concentrate on newer dervs and leave nice, vegetarian dervs like the ones we run alone.

 

Infact if I'm ever asked to present my derv for a 'emissions test', where a score of x means its crushed I'll brim it with veg, give it an italian tuneup and then stick my fingers up.

[gordonbennet]

Gawd nose what the french are doing, presumably what the germans tell 'em to again.

 

As for here, something's in the pipeline cos there have been several articles in the papers mentioning how Diesels are killing the cheeeeldren/puppies/nuns with baskets of kittens etc etc.

 

Hopefully they'll ban all older cars from cities whatever the fuel, bloody great i then have the perfect excuse never to go near one of the shit holes again.

 

In practice i reckon it'll be a propaganda softened up tax grab again, due to CO2 based VED millions of good little drones did as they were told and bought small new Diesels (scrappage anyone?),  the govt of the day get little or no VED and only minimal fuel duty cos these little buggers do around 60mpg, so it's time for Diesel to get hit and it'll be shortly after the next election....when millions of turkeys vote once again for their own Christmas yet seem surprised when it comes.

 

I too like older Diesels, simple as a simple thing, bugger all to go wrong so long as you give 'em some clean oil and fuel and change the belts when needed.

 

Modern Diesels i wouldn't give you a thankyou for, far too much crap to go wrong.

Notice how many turbo failures there are now, unheard of in the early Diesel days, even the lorries have gone the same way, turbos dropping out left right and centre, nothing to do with extended oil changes of course Oh No, didn't you know this new Gucci oil is the bleedin bollox, lasts forever doncha know, it's your turbo that gets changed instead.

 

and breathe.

[scruff]

Can't see it happening in France - the farmers for starters will refuse.

 

Electric car for me?? No thanks, not ever, they have zero appeal to me. If we reach a stage in this country where I cannot out of choice run a vehicle made in the 50s, 60s, 70s or earlier every day I will be moving somewhere else.

[Junkman]

And we all know, that electricity is created by magic.

[dollywobbler]

Can't see it happening in France - the farmers for starters will refuse.

 

Electric car for me?? No thanks, not ever, they have zero appeal to me. If we reach a stage in this country where I cannot out of choice run a vehicle made in the 50s, 60s, 70s or earlier every day I will be moving somewhere else.

 

I'm with you there. I may like electric power, but only if I can jump back into something ancient when I fancy it. 

[dave21478]

A massive proportion of folk run dizzlers here, mainly because for many, many years it was by far the cheapest fuel by a significant amount due to subsidies. That legacy continues, and while the price gap has narrowed hugely, diesel is still cheaper by about 20 cents a litre and people are still buying up diesel cars and scorning their petrol variants to the point where petrol cars are seen as a joke - Joe Average (or is that Jean Moyenne?) generally doesnt realise that a decent petrol engine will still give good economy.

 

Now the government have admitted that they were wrong to back diesel in the past - government minisers admitting they were wrong! that doesnt happen often, especially over here. 

 

The last thing I read was that diesel was to be phased out for passenger cars, while commercials would be unaffected. How likely this is, I dont know. They dont like being told what to do, but they are much less revolutionary than in the past, so I suspect that if this is pushed through with some kind of diesel scrappage and a "think of the environment" green message, it might well come to pass amid muted grumblings. But then its only going to affect new car sales, existing cars wont be forced off the roads, so since I am never, ever going to buy a brand new diesel car, it wont affect me. What it will do to used car prices is anyones guess.

[xtriple]

Sorry to go against the grain here chaps, but I HATE diesels with a passion bordering on the psychopathic! Can't stand the smell of the fuel itself, loathe the stench that comes out of the back of them and hate the sound of the engines; engines should sound sweet and smooth and either silent or rorty. I've driven a few (under protest) new ones and I must admit that the surge of torque is rather appealing but just at the point it should REALLY get going, it's all over and change gear you must....  Old ones, were just shite, slow, smelly, noisy clattery messy pieces of shit that should be bombed out of existence  

 

You may have gathered, I don't like diesels and the sooner the frigging lot are banned from the face of the planet the better as far as I'm concerned.

 

On the other hand, 'leccy cars are fun! They surge away silently and make interesting whirrs and boop noises and I would have a full electric car like a shot if I had off street parking so I could charge the bastard reliably... on street parking and electric cars don't mix! I'd like a Tesla but am short the parking and about £80 grand required!

 

Interesting today driving the new Jazz - same engine as mine apparently, but totally gutless, the electric motor in mine really gives it some zip and it feels a much bigger motor even though my car  is bigger and heavier.

 

I accept that electric cars are NOT the future in their current guise: they are inefficient, poor range, heavy batteries and cost a bloody fortune without the government subsidies, but, as demand increases (and it surely will) technology will improve to make them more appealing. Hydrogen fuel cells anyone?

[vulgalour]

Old ones, were just shite, slow, smelly, noisy clattery messy pieces of shit 

That' a big part of the appeal. Here's my shite, slow*, smelly, noisy clattery messy* piece of shit(e).

 

[They_all_do_that_sir]

I've always been a fan of scrapping car tax completely and just adding a few pence onto the price of fuel - as I see it it's the only way to fairly tax based on emissions and usage.

 

I've said it many times before but my car costs ten times as much as my wife's to tax yet does a handful of miles compared to hers. MPG / emissions means frig all unless you add actual usage as a variable.

 

Then again we all know its a massive revenue generation scam so it's never going to be administered fairly

[Junkman]

I've always been a fan of scrapping car tax completely and just adding a few pence onto the price of fuel - as I see it it's the only way to fairly tax based on emissions and usage.

 

And what is fair about taxing emissions?

It's all bollox.

[HH-R]

A scrappage scheme for diseasels wouldn't really be needed (if no more could be sold) - the (newer) cars right in the gov't's crosshair will sort themselves out with mega self destruction pretty quickly.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Anyone wanna buy a VAG diesel? Or swap for AA batteries?

[Uncle Jimmy]

But they is low emissiens is they not?? A valve stops the nastiness killing the babies which nice Mr Volkswagon replaces for loadsamoney after about 30,000 mls?

[Junkman]

A few phaktz:

 

- Back in the Eighties, quite a few European countries propagated Diesels as the way forward to protect© The Environment, and issued tax incentives to this accord.

France was actually quite a late comer to the game, which was pioneered by - you guessed it - Germany.

 

- Everyone with half a brain knew even back then, that this is RONG, and purely based on lobbyism by the car industry, because to develop faster Diesels was more profitable in the short run, than to meet ever more stringent emission legislation for petrols by proper engineering. Instead, they could simply whack emission control devices onto their existing engines. That's where everything started to go wrong, and we now harvest the fruits of this, in form of bailouts with tax money, and being taxed into oblivion based on emissions, and new cars being good for anything but proper and environmentally friendly transport. I hope I don't have to explain here what the impact of adding emission control devices to an engine is, compared to a cleaner burning, more efficient design. For the record, this was when I left the car industry, because I didn't want to be part of this scam, and I predicted the current situation accurate to the year.

 

- France is not banning Diesels. The plan is to reverse the legislation introduced in the Eighties, and this way creating the incentive to phase out Diesels. This time France is pioneering this, not Germany. I wonder why.

 

- The reason France is doing this, is because they have a serious problem with air quality, due to the geographic location. Modern Diesels emit fine particles, which you can't see and can't smell, and they are small enough to enter the bloodstream straight through the alveoles (sp?) without being caught out by the natural filtering devices built into humans. These fine particles are highly cancerogenous and toxic. This problem is not restricted to France. We all have to breathe them due to the high proportion of people selfish enough to buy a Diesel.

Note: This does hardly apply to the Diesels favoured on this forum, which are of the old type and do not emit fine particles. They merely emit rather large particles, which are relatively harmless, since they are filtered out by the respirative system to a large degree. Those are the ones you can see and smell.

 

- Based on the above, I demand the right to smoke in pubs until all Diesels are phased out.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

And what is fair about taxing emissions?

It's all bollox.

I agree it's all bollox but if my car produces twice as many kitten killing emissions as yours yet you do four times the miles then overall you produce more than me yet I'm taxed more than you.

 

Utter bastards

[Uncle Jimmy]

Junkman, you are the Nostradamus of Autoshite.com, smarter even than Russell Brand. We woz duped by the evil car manufacturers.

[robinmasters]

I had an unreasonable and irrational hatred of electronical cars until a month or so ago; Car Mechanics did a piece on the Prius-it's not the slow, expensive, overly complicated pretentious pile of wank I thought it was.

[Angrydicky]

Can't see it happening in France - the farmers for starters will refuse.

 

Electric car for me?? No thanks, not ever, they have zero appeal to me. If we reach a stage in this country where I cannot out of choice run a vehicle made in the 50s, 60s, 70s or earlier every day I will be moving somewhere else.

Amen to that, I'll be doing exactly the same thing. And I can see it happening within my lifetime as well.

[forddeliveryboy]

Note: This does hardly apply to the Diesels favoured on this forum, which are of the old type and do not emit fine particles. They merely emit rather large particles, which are relatively harmless, since they are filtered out by the respirative system to a large degree. Those are the ones you can see and smell.

 

- Based on the above, I demand the right to smoke in pubs until all Diesels are phased out.

 

London and other big towns will continue their war on car exhaust gases by taxing their emission over and above the tax already imposed on all us drivers. Of course some central heating boilers run on oil, but these are essential (England has yet to hear of really decent insulation) as are the Nuclear power stations who will probably provide the extra baseload nighttime power for obese battery cars. Tough luck if you're a child who suffered the side-effects of our nuclear-tipped weapons, or you happen to eat a highly radioactive fish which spent its time near the rusting oil drums filled with high level nuke waste in the Irish Sea, Channel and probably near Dounreay.

[dieselnutjob]

It's not the particulates that is causing the current panic, but NOx emissions.  London is missing its EU targets as are many other cities.

 

The reason that diesel engines emit NOx is because they are so lean burn that they burn all of the fuel, and not satisfied with that they have a go at burning the nitrogen right out of the air as well (most of it is nitrogen).

 

The industry's answer to that has been EGR which is just crap.  It clearly doesn't work well enough, is unreliablish, and causes the engine to ingest its own fumes rather than nice clean filtered air.

 

I feel that the correct answer to this is not to ban diesels, but to sort out the NOx emissions properly.  I am guessing that an intake throttle and some sensors to guarantee the correct fuel/air ratio, just like petrol engines might do it.

[coalnotdole]

I recently was offered a test drive in an all electric BMW I3 through work and had the opportunity to take one for a drive as an alternative to working...

 

It was first time I'd driven anything electric powered (apart from a dodgem) On first impressions I found the exterior styling to be a bit awkward, suffering from the overbloated look that seems to afflict a lot of current production cars and I found the detailing to be a bit fiddley and unnecessary. The interior was better it was very spacious and had a futuristic look that could easily have belonged to a science fiction film, it will probably date really quickly after all the dominant colours seemed to be a hemp themed mix of creams and bieges. The long windscreen and electric controls clustered around the steering wheel give you the impression that your not so much a driver of a car more like the pilot of the starship enterprise.

 

Out on the road the road the first thing you notice is the noise, I had been expecting it to be be quiet and it is! theres something very un-nerving about pulling up at a junction in near total silence. Over the course of my 10 mile drive I never quite shook off the nagging feeling that it had stalled everytime it came to a halt. Its not completely silent as you put your foot down your rewarded with a whine from the electric motor. Power delivery was good the electric motor felt much more lively than expected it felt like it picked up speed a fair bit quicker than a comparable small petrol or diesel would have. It handled ok, it felt heavy through the corners but never felt like it was going to step out of line. Presumably due to a whole load of clever traction control systems.

 

Technologically its interesting as it is more or less a return to building a car with a separate chassis, The drive components, batteries and suspension are all built on an aluminum chassis which has a body made from carbon fibre reinforced plastic fitted to it.

 

When I started the test drive the range indicated 57 miles of battery life (only part full,) a brisk drive around the lanes of sussex later (10 miles) and the range had fallen to 33 miles. Suggesting that the biggest limit to the all electric car is still lack of usable range. The car i drove was an all electric one but someone did tell me that the I3 can be equipped with a range extending petrol generator which is probably how most buyers will order them.

 

VERDICT: Futureshite

 

I think as the technology rolls out were going to see an increasing number of new cars built to use hybrid petrol / electric technology the big car makers seem to be sinking large amounts of money into not only developing the technology but also on making it more mainstream by offering it on their flagship models. In 5-10 years I think its likely that hybrids will become the new normal rather than the exception.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I love my modern diesel, and if I understand this correctly ,I should gut the DPF, remove the cats and blank of the EGR. This combined with a chip and the 155mph limiter removed should result in 300bhp and nice black cloud out of the back to piss off Prius drivers. I is Ecowarrior.

[oman5]

To be honest, for my everyday work car I will be buying whatever is old and cheap, like i do now. If in 20 years that means an EV, that's fine assuming the infrastructure is there to support it.

For now I intend to run the diesel volvo for as long as it will last, it's the perfect vehicle for me and I love it.

 

However...there will always be some old petrol car parked in the yard for me to tinker with.

 

I think it's quite ironic France wanting to ban diesel cars, for a long time their govt were huge advocates of it and this was reflected in the fuel prices. This was probably the direct cause of the PSA XUD engine being so damned good.

[e287yba]

It's not the particulates that is causing the current panic, but NOx emissions.  London is missing its EU targets as are many other cities.

 

The reason that diesel engines emit NOx is because they are so lean burn that they burn all of the fuel, and not satisfied with that they have a go at burning the nitrogen right out of the air as well (most of it is nitrogen).

 

The industry's answer to that has been EGR which is just crap.  It clearly doesn't work well enough, is unreliablish, and causes the engine to ingest its own fumes rather than nice clean filtered air.

 

I feel that the correct answer to this is not to ban diesels, but to sort out the NOx emissions properly.  I am guessing that an intake throttle and some sensors to guarantee the correct fuel/air ratio, just like petrol engines might do it.

 

BINGO!

 

(NB The aim of EGR is to reduce the combustion temperature which means reduced NOx emissions - it's a bodge .)

 

I also suggest people google "QUARG 1994" and read it - it reflects the situation pre-October '93 when petrol engine catalysts became (in the main) mandatory. Goalposts have shifted massively wrt emissions technology since - but the basic differences between petrol combustion and diesel combustion in Internal Combustion Engines is spelt out clearly in that report (anti-diesel though it was ) as well as the PM10 vs PM2.5 argument. I suspect the sheer ccarcinogenicity of some of the PAHs in diesel exhaust emissions was understated with hindsight, mind... I suspect QUARG's day might now have come, 20 years later.

 

With respect to NOx emissions (and reducing them), I'm going to assert now that reduced limits on "managed motorways" during the day (when the motorway is otherwise clear) will be common to reduce NOx emissions (from ALL vehicles) for the foreseeable future (such as until the day when most diesels are 'throttled', for example) - "technical fix versus radical change" .

 

If only the the UK didn't have so many large conurbations between the big empty spaces (compare with France, for example, which has the same population as the UK but four times the area )... We'd not trip NOx limits so often (if at all) then - in simple terms, anyway .

 

This cynicism comes from a post-grad critique of QUARG '94 on paper (no PC then), for info - sadly said paper is long consigned to the dustbin of time (but I have retained a few shreds in ye olde memory banks) .

 

PS if we really wanted to reduce NOx we'd be looking at using two strokes in mainstream vehicles - with all the other compromises that choice would entail... It ain't gonna happen . Don't forget that using ANY fuel-burning motor vehicle causes tailpipe pollution - and don't imagine for a second that petrol exhaust emissions are NOx-free ...

[willswitchengage]

I've always been a fan of scrapping car tax completely and just adding a few pence onto the price of fuel - as I see it it's the only way to fairly tax based on emissions and usage.

 

I've said it many times before but my car costs ten times as much as my wife's to tax yet does a handful of miles compared to hers. MPG / emissions means frig all unless you add actual usage as a variable.

 

Then again we all know its a massive revenue generation scam so it's never going to be administered fairly

 

+1

 

I proposed this years ago on this forum to little fanfare but it's the only 'fair' way to tax/road price. I calculated that fuels would be ~6p more expensive per litre for the Government to receive the same revenue. Would it make a difference? Well, no, if you look at how blindly we've all watched the price of fuel drop by 20p over the past twelve months.

 

 

 

And watch the price of all consumer goods skyrocket!

 

 

My original logic is here, calculations not blanket Daily Mail-isms http://autoshite.com/topic/10897-thoughts-on-fuel-prices/?p=317799

 

The losers would be the purchasers of new cars with low VED rates.

 

An interesting other proposal, which I am neither advocating nor criticising, is introduce a road pricing/vignette system but ending VED. Germany is proposing this for its roads as it is fed up of foreign drivers using it as the crossroads of Europe. The EU prohibits discriminating against foreign motorists but this is a cheeky way around it that they have thought up. Can't find a reference but I read about it in The Economist a few months ago.

[willswitchengage]

It's not the particulates that is causing the current panic, but NOx emissions.  London is missing its EU targets as are many other cities.

 

The reason that diesel engines emit NOx is because they are so lean burn that they burn all of the fuel, and not satisfied with that they have a go at burning the nitrogen right out of the air as well (most of it is nitrogen).

 

The industry's answer to that has been EGR which is just crap.  It clearly doesn't work well enough, is unreliablish, and causes the engine to ingest its own fumes rather than nice clean filtered air.

 

I feel that the correct answer to this is not to ban diesels, but to sort out the NOx emissions properly.  I am guessing that an intake throttle and some sensors to guarantee the correct fuel/air ratio, just like petrol engines might do it.

 

At the end of the day that's the best that they can come up with. I work as a systems engineer and they're following perfectly sound logic: can you market a product that meets the requisite laboratory tests on emissions to be sold? Yep.

 

SCR works a lot better but suffers from consumer acceptance; not even all HGVs have it (it should also boost fuel consumption slightly as it doesn't cause the reduction in burning temperatures that EGR does, although MAN and Scania don't mention this).

 

It's the diesel engine's high local burn temperature that causes NOx emissions, not that they burn 'lean'. Nitrogen doesn't burn in a petrol engine as they burn much cooler, EGR 'cools' the combustion by introducing inert CO2 to act as a heat sink in the cylinder.

 

NOx creates photochemical smog, 'poisonous air' in simple terms. It's not especially bad in London but in sunny, densely populated areas such as northern Italy and Los Angeles it gets trapped in low areas and is a major health hazard.

[derskine]

Can't see it happening in France - the farmers for starters will refuse.

 

Electric car for me?? No thanks, not ever, they have zero appeal to me. If we reach a stage in this country where I cannot out of choice run a vehicle made in the 50s, 60s, 70s or earlier every day I will be moving somewhere else.

 

Same here.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Hummm, just a thought. Is it possible that some kind of condenser could be used to trap all the nox? Positioned in the boot of the car, it would use the aircon for refrigerant, plus a chemical that reacts with the nox to produce a bi - product that can be periodically removed.