The Journal poll on diesel restrictions

http://www.thejournal.ie/diesel-cars-poll-restrictions-ban-restrictions-3270587-Mar2017/

68% , 11,800 people said NO to imposing stricter controls on diesels.

This just proves what I've been saying about the resistance of Irish people to change, it's incredible and even in light of the diesel emissions scandal see no need to restrict diesels.

It just reenforces the point I've been making that Irish people will not change to EV unless forced to in some way, forced as in much increased taxes on diesels.

140 odd a year to tax a Diesel for a year is just bloody insane and people will buy them on that bases alone that the motor tax is cheap, this incentive needs to be removed and greatly increased.

I know the above is only a tiny proportion of the population but it highlights a mindset that is strong in Ireland.

The amount of Coal Smog in my village at times is just downright disgraceful and despite much better alternatives people are deluded into thinking the bag of Polish Coal (bag of slack more like it) is the best thing ever and won't even touch smokeless fuels not that they're clean either but they greatly reduce the smog/smoke .

It just goes to prove that a significant amount of people couldn't care less about air quality in Ireland.

gctest50

Even when they start dropping dead they won't care - try open a factory though and the very same ones will whinge like there is no tomorrow





http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deaths-europe-0303

Study: Volkswagen’s excess emissions will lead to 1,200 premature deaths in Europe

n97 mini

The people who voted no are probably the same ones that bought diesel cars since 2008.

You can't really blame them, one of the comments is "I bought a diesel because we were told it's the right thing to do".

Still, a poll on the Journal isn't a reason not to do something and it would be very easy to financially incentivise people to buy a hybrid or EV. E.g. all taxis going forward must be hybrids or EVs or face increased registration charges.

Though IMHO, as someone who lives in the GDA, Dublin Bus is one of the biggest offenders and is doing nothing to move off diesel. Plenty of CNG and electric alternatives.

isnottheword

It's a difficulty for people - who were encouraged to buy diesel - and currently drive diesel. $ is always the first/primary concern with people.

Over time, I think you'll see people gradually come on board. Measures to discourage use of existing diesel should be incremental/gradual. Encouragement to buy EV over diesel today - from new - should be achieved by increasing motor tax on new diesels.

Shefwedfan

Pointless poll. Would be better if question was below

Do you think there should be restrictions on high emission vehicles

Most people have bought diesel as they thought it was low emission, because the Green d**ks told them. If you just do a poll about diesel people wont look at the emission part just the part about extra tax and there own diesel car...

Also correct me if I am wrong but is Hybrid sales up 150% this year? That is what Toyota are saying so alot of people are moving away from diesel. I myself have 2 big durty 2ltr diesel engines.

I bought them because I based it on them been better than petrol, that is what was out there. Now more information has come out and I am aware they are harmful so I am looking to change.

I know the majority of people in my office would have bought diesel, the car park is slowly filling up with hybrid etc...not a full electric to be found yet but I might change that

I did have interesting chat with a guy at weekend, he travels alot(similar job to me) and has a X5 Diesel jeep. Was giving out about having to fill it so many times, it was more a discussion about hybrid. He is same age as me(early 30) but grew up thinking diesel is good and has always bought diesel, like me.

He wasn't looking at hybrid/electric yet simply because of the depreciation in models. Also he said the electric market is not robust, as he said you buy a model and 6 months later it is obsolete so you lose a fortune. He said give it 2-3 years and he and everyone he knows will no longer be buying diesel. For those 2-3 years he is going to enjoy his "big durty diesel"

So I don't agree with this point "
It just reenforces the point I've been making that Irish people will not change to EV unless forced to in some way, forced as in much increased taxes on diesels. "

I think if you talk to any reasonable person 20-40 in Ireland they realize diesel is not the way forward. Of my friends 3 years ago everyone of us would have had 2ltr diesel cars. At least 1 if not 2. Now majority(apart from me) have a hybrid in that mix

My last edit, something to note. I have a big Audi A6, bought from Audi. This was to replace a VW Golf bought via same chain. The benefit of this is you pay a lot more day one to get into this car chain. Once you are in there to swap up years is a lot cheaper. They keep it like this so you stay with Audi/VW etc and stay with that chain of garages. If I go back to that chain with my A6 now my option is ?????? DIESEL. If I sell the car to buy electric I am taking a hit on value as the Nissan/Hyundai garage won't sell it and are just passing it onto a dealer. Or that is what they tell me

This is a huge issue for Irish buyers. The likes of Audi don't have an alternative to diesel at the moment and customer will not move away from the Audi chain of garages they buy from, I am just using Audi for reference but you understand what I mean. Only now is BMW & merc coming out with alternative.

Sleeper12

Deleted User wrote:

68% , 11,800 people said NO to imposing stricter controls on diesels.

80% of new vehicles being sold are diesels so a lot of people voting would have a vested interest in voting no (myself included).

isnottheword

Sleeper12 wrote: »

80% of new vehicles being sold are diesels so a lot of people voting would have a vested interest in voting no (myself included).

I don't think it's equitable to hold people accountable for having bought diesel over the last number of years (given that they were actively encouraged to do so).

However, a disincentive should be placed on new diesel purchase right now. People will then know the direction this is headed in - and will have to take responsibility for future clampdowns / disincentives ref. diesel going forward.

Shefwedfan

isnottheword wrote: »

I don't think it's equitable to hold people accountable for having bought diesel over the last number of years (given that they were actively encouraged to do so).

However, a disincentive should be placed on new diesel purchase right now. People will then know the direction this is headed in - and will have to take responsibility for future clampdowns / disincentives ref. diesel going forward.

For majority of older people RTE is king. Even my parents wouldn't believe me when I told them RTE news puts a spin on some stories.

If RTE put out some news in proper context that diesel is bad you would have loads of people quickly moving.

Talked to OAP yesterday, fellow Leaf driver who stopped for a chat :P He admitted he was amazed at the amount of people his age driving around diesel/petrol cars when they can buy an electric and get free electricity and a free charge point into there house. Like why is the government not all over that? It makes so much sense....

Or why is none of these age organizations telling people this.

bk

n97 mini wrote: »

Though IMHO, as someone who lives in the GDA, Dublin Bus is one of the biggest offenders and is doing nothing to move off diesel. Plenty of CNG and electric alternatives.

Actually they aren't they are surprisingly decent! All new DB and BE buses bought since 2014 use Euro 6 engines.

The Euro 6 rules are vastly stricter for buses and trucks then they are for cars.

A Euro 6 Dublin Bus produces less then half the NOX of a Volkswagen Golf.

Let me repeat that because it is pretty shocking, I don't mean per passenger, I mean vehicle to vehicle. As in a 2016 Dublin Bus with just the driver in it, produces less then half the NOX then a 2016 Volkswagen Golf sitting next to it in traffic!!!!

Now add 80 or so passengers to the bus and that buses is producing about 160 times less NOX then a VW Golf!!!

And yes, before anyone says it, yes this numbers have been varied in the real world by the same independent group that discovered the VW Diesel gate cheating.

Basically the Euro 6 rules for buses and trucks are very strict, requiring real world testing, etc. Whereas Germany, etc. had the rules for small cars vastly watered down to help the German car industry. All quite shocking really.

It also helps that big vehicles can more easily fit physically larger engines with more gearing and large filtration units that wouldn't fit in a Diesel car.

It shows just how terribly pollution Diesel cars are that they produce significantly more pollution then a Dublin Bus!

BTW I agree that DB should start getting hybrid diesel buses for even greater efficiency. The problem is DB don't actually buy buses, new buses are actually bought and owned by the NTA and temporarily lent to DB for their use on PSO routes. Hybrid buses are more expensive to buy, but obviously cheaper to run, which can offset the higher purchase cost. The problem the NTA have, is that they pay for the buses, but DB pays for the Diesel. So if the NTA buys hybrid buses, they will get stuck for the extra cost of them, while not benefitting fro the lower running costs. This needs to be changed, perhaps by the NTA paying for the fuel costs too, but reducing the PSO subsidy as a result.

Also the argument from the NTA is that given their budget they can either buy 100 Euro 6 buses per year or 70 hybrid buses. Given that these new buses replace the oldest, least efficient and most polluting buses in the fleet. The argument goes that 100 Euro 6 buses will actually result in less NOX and CO2 being produced then 70 hybrids. Note that Euro 6 buses produce about 80 times less NOX then the older Euro 5 engine buses, which produces a lots less then even the old Euro 4 buses, some of which are still kicking around. Hybrid buses are only 30% less polluting then a straight Euro 6. So you can see why an extra 30 Euro 6 places displacing 14 year old Euro 4 buses can have a massive positive effect, much greater then going hybrid.

So it is a lot more complicated story then it might initially seem.

zilog_jones

I wonder if the emissions controls are actually maintained properly on the buses? Can they get away with not topping up the AdBlue, etc.? Anyway, the fact these things have a much higher passenger capacity compared to cars means there are significant environmental benefits - same goes for trains, which IIRC outside of the DART and Luas are all diesel.

bk

zilog_jones wrote: »

I wonder if the emissions controls are actually maintained properly on the buses? Can they get away with not topping up the AdBlue, etc.? Anyway, the fact these things have a much higher passenger capacity compared to cars means there are significant environmental benefits - same goes for trains, which IIRC outside of Dublin commuter stuff (and DART) are all diesel.

I believe they are pretty damn strict about it. In the end the buses are still owned by the NTA and they want them looked after.

BTW Dublin Commuter trains are also Diesel electric. Only DART and Luas are fully electric. But as you say, per passenger km they are very clean by comparison to small Diesel cars which are simply a very stupid idea.

n97 mini

bk wrote: »

Actually they aren't they are surprisingly decent! All new DB and BE buses bought since 2014 use Euro 6 engines.

Diesel and decent can't go in the same sentence. I don't care if they're Euro 16, they're still burning diesel!

I'll put it in context. I live in a major US city for the summer. Nice wide streets, unlike Dublin's. Think lots of O'Connell Streets. Yet 80% of their buses are CNG and they're moving increasingly to BEV buses. By the end of this summer their last diesel buses will be on the scrap heap.

bk wrote: »

BTW I agree that DB should start getting hybrid diesel buses

Nooo! They should be getting away from diesel completely.

* BTW, it's not possible to compare bus and truck engines to car engines in terms of emissions as the methods of measuring are completely different, according to wikipedia at least.

bk

n97 mini wrote: »

I'll put it in context. I live in a major US city for the summer. Nice wide streets, unlike Dublin's. Think lots of O'Connell Streets. Yet 80% of their buses are CNG and they're moving increasingly to BEV buses. By the end of this summer their last diesel buses will be on the scrap heap.

Actually NYC scrapped their hybrid buses and returned to Diesel only. Though they are now thinking of looking at electric buses.

CNG isn't really any cleaner then a modern Euro 6 diesel.

I agree I would love to see fully BEV buses. The issues for the UK and Ireland is that they don't come in Double deckers yet, mostly only single deckers.

It is easy to put batteries on the roof of a single decker, but you can't do the same with a double decker (too high and top heavy). London Bus is trialling 3 BEV double deckers from BYD at the moment. Though the problem with them is that to put the batteries at the back of downstairs and thus remove at least two rows of seats and thus passenger space. A trade off.

n97 mini wrote: »

Nooo! They should be getting away from diesel completely.

Which is completely idiotic. Fully BEV buses are VASTLY more expensive then Euro 6 Diesel. That would mean the number of old Diesel buses replaced every year would be greatly reduced and thus the old worse polluting buses would be running around for years longer, causing WAY more damage.

I don't understand why that is so hard to understand.

Sure if we were Norway, with all it's oil money, we could afford to replace all our buses overnight. But we aren't, a Dublin Bus costs €400,000 a pop and there is a 1000 of them. What the NTA is currently doing is sensible given the budget constraints they have.

n97 mini wrote: »

* BTW, it's not possible to compare bus and truck engines to car engines in terms of emissions as the methods of measuring are completely different, according to wikipedia at least.

The difference is that buses and trucks are tested in the real world, on the road. While cars are tested in the lab. It was this lab testing that allowed VW to cheat on the lab tests.

It was an independent test lab who did the same real world road test on VW cars that they normally do on buses that discovered the VW cheating. THis same organisation has independently confirmed that VW cars produce over twice the amount of NOX and other particulates as a Diesel car. So yes, they are comparable.

And who

cros13

bk wrote: »

I agree I would love to see fully BEV buses. The issues for the UK and Ireland is that they don't come in Double deckers yet, mostly only single deckers.

It is easy to put batteries on the roof of a single decker, but you can't do the same with a double decker (too high and top heavy). London Bus is trialling 3 BEV double deckers from BYD at the moment. Though the problem with them is that to put the batteries at the back of downstairs and thus remove at least two rows of seats and thus passenger space. A trade off.

http://www.bydeurope.com/vehicles/ebus/types/10_2.php

Sure, but 25% of the cost of running a bus service is fuel. It's the biggest expense after wages. You could just run more frequent buses.

We should at the very least be trialing BEV buses.

bk

cros13 wrote: »

http://www.bydeurope.com/vehicles/ebus/types/10_2.php

Sure, but 25% of the cost of running a bus service is fuel. It's the biggest expense after wages. You could just run more frequent buses.

We should at the very least be trialing BEV buses.

Yup, that is the one I mentioned above.

Unfortunately the rumours I've heard from London indicate that the trial hasn't gone well. But we will have to wait and see.

BTW fuel only represents about 10% of DB's cost. And as I mentioned, the capital cost of buying buses comes out of the NTA's budget, while fuel comes out of DB. So the NTA wouldn't benefit from reduced fuel costs.

As for more frequent buses! Pretty much all buses are already out and operating at the peak hours. So no room for more frequency with the current fleet.

n97 mini

bk wrote: »

Which is completely idiotic. Fully BEV buses are VASTLY more expensive then Euro 6 Diesel.

What price do you put on human lives? On human health? The only semi acceptable place for diesel buses is out in the countryside, but even then they usually begin and end their routes in cities.

CNG is cleaner burning than petrol and vastly cleaner than diesel.

Emissions of NOx and particulates from both LPG and CNG powered vehicles are significantly lower than those from diesel vehicles. Moreover, emissions of NOx from CNG vehicles are half those from equivalent petrol engined vehicles.

http://www.air-quality.org.uk/26.php

n97 mini

bk wrote: »

BTW Dublin Commuter trains are also Diesel electric.

Some diesel locomotives have an electric transmission, meaning they have a generator and motor instead of a gearbox. Dublin Commuter trains have hydro dynamic transmissions, which are essentially automatic gearboxes. Either way it's not important as the only fuel they use is diesel.

bk wrote: »

Only DART and Luas are fully electric. But as you say, per passenger km they are very clean by comparison to small Diesel cars which are simply a very stupid idea.

Yes DART and Luas compare well. Diesel commuter stock not so much. In the morning and evening rush the numbers compare better, but then it all goes to pot off peak when when you have a 4-car, 8-engined, 160-tonne train carrying only 10 people.

punisher5112

DB trialed a gas bus years ago and was a huge flop.

They then had the hybrid on mainly 16 route and that was either sent back or being repaired can't exactly remember but its dust now. It burnt to the ground.

cros13

Hybrids are too bloody complex. BEVs have significant reductions in maintenance over the current fleet.

n97 mini

punisher5112 wrote: »

DB trialed a gas bus years ago and was a huge flop.

They then had the hybrid on mainly 16 route and that was either sent back or being repaired can't exactly remember but its dust now. It burnt to the ground.

I remember that. Its economy figure was double the regular buses. Something like 13mpg vs 7mpg.

n97 mini

n97 mini wrote: »

one of the comments is "I bought a diesel because we were told it's the right thing to do".

Yeah for their pocket !

colm_mcm

Sleeper12 wrote: »

80% of new vehicles being sold are diesels so a lot of people voting would have a vested interest in voting no (myself included).

66% this year.
70% last year.

The introduction of credible turbocharged petrol alternatives has a part to play as well.

unkel

colm_mcm wrote: »

The introduction of credible turbocharged chape tax petrol alternatives has a part to play as well.

FYP

n97 mini

God, and I remember all the TDI fanboys on the motors forum (a large part of the reason why I bailed out), and the guff about hybrids not being efficient "cuz of all dem heavy batteries" (despite the diesel equivalent of the same car actually weighing more).

How times have changed. One day this forum will be the motors forum!

And to think of the abuse I suffered when I started posting about electrics from some members here that are now EV owners.............:D

Shefwedfan

Deleted User wrote: »

And to think of the abuse I suffered when I started posting about electrics from some members here that are now EV owners.............:D

Dont see why anyone would post abuse? Did everyone not watch Tomorrows World on BBC?

unkel

bk wrote: »

The Euro 6 rules are vastly stricter for buses and trucks then they are for cars.

A Euro 6 Dublin Bus produces less then half the NOX of a Volkswagen Golf.

Just read an article in this week's Sunday Times that backs you up. It stated that the NOx from a brand new 1.4l diesel VW Polo is the same as that of a new 13l diesel Euro 6 Scania full size truck.

zulutango

Is NOx the only gas emission that concerns us? Or are there other gasses that diesels spew out that are harmful?

bk

n97 mini wrote: »

How times have changed. One day this forum will be the motors forum!

God, yes this is so true! EV's as we see from Tesla and even the Volt can be really exciting vehicles with fantastic acceleration that should excite any motoring fan.

I suspect 30 years from now we will be looking at dirty diesel and petrols cars as a pretty much insane idea, up there with Asbestos in our walls or arsenic in our wall paper!

unkel wrote: »

Just read an article in this week's Sunday Times that backs you up. It stated that the NOx from a brand new 1.4l diesel VW Polo is the same as that of a new 13l diesel Euro 6 Scania full size truck.

Yup, it is pretty shocking when you think about it. Small little private cars being far more polluting then massive trucks and buses. It shows just how bad the whole Diesel car thing really is.

It also shows the sad effect of lobbying by German and French car manufacturers on their governments to get the rules watered down and ignored :mad:

zulutango wrote: »

Is NOx the only gas emission that concerns us? Or are there other gasses that diesels spew out that are harmful?

Good question, yes there are other things that we also need to worry about. The big one being CO2, a green house gas that leads to global warming.

A bus does release about 5 times as much CO2 as a small diesel car. However if you put 80 people in that bus, obviously the amount of CO2 per passenger KM is much smaller then for the car.

There is also PM and THC, but they are pretty much closely linked with NOX. If you reduce NOX you reduce these too.

Euro 6 emission standards have maximum levels allowed for CO2, NOX, PM and THC. You can see more details from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Emission_standards_for_trucks_and_buses

n97 mini

zulutango wrote: »

Is NOx the only gas emission that concerns us? Or are there other gasses that diesels spew out that are harmful?

PM (Particulate Matter). Aka smuts. Doesn't exist with petrol engines unless they are direct injection (very very few).

The executive summary is NOx produces respiratory problems as it burns the lungs and PM causes lung cancer.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah for their pocket !

Now now, you are fond of your pocket yourself.