Paris Wants To Rid Itself Of Conventional Cars By 2030

Paris is known for taking progressive measures to fight climate change. In December of 2015, delegates from every nation gathered in the City of Light to create the historic COP21 climate accords. But in March of this year, the city suffered through a period of intense smog, during which the air over the city was dirtier than the air over Beijing and blotted out the view of the Eiffel Tower. Much of that smog was attributable to the exhaust emissions from conventional cars.

Photo Credit: The Guardian

In response, the city of Paris put aggressive new procedures in place to limit the number of cars powered by internal combustion engines on its streets. It has banned cars more than 20 years old, which have rudimentary pollution controls, from entering the city and instituted a plan that prohibited cars with license plates ending in even or odd numbers on alternating days. It also converted streets that used to run along the banks of the Seine into pedestrian walkways and bike paths.

October 1 was proclaimed “a day without cars,” a move designed to make Paris “less polluted, more pleasant and more peaceful.” Nitrogen dioxide levels dropped 25 percent, and noise levels dropped an average of 20 percent. On the Champs-Élysées — one of the world’s busiest thoroughfares — noise levels dropped by 54 percent.

“Sensitizing residents to the need to modify their behavior towards the car was part of the objectives of this day,” the mayor’s office said in a statement, adding that it was also meant to be a symbol “that cities can and must invent concrete solutions to fight air pollution caused by traffic.”

Now the mayor of Paris has announced a plan that seeks to remove all gasoline and diesel powered vehicles from its streets by 2030. The plan is not a ban. Instead it involves a series of investments and incentives designed to encourage citizens to leave their old fossil fuel burning vehicles behind and switch to walking, bicycling, and using electric cars. The objective is to make Paris a carbon neutral city by 2050.

“We are seeing a revolution in terms of mobility and on the issue of climate,” Christophe Nadjovski, Paris deputy mayor in charge of transport and public space, told France Info Radio on Tuesday. “We can’t wait. This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases. Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers…so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030.

The mayor’s office released a statement after initial reports incorrectly labeled the new plan as a ban on conventional cars. “No measure of prohibition or sanction is included,” it said. “In order to achieve the goal of an end to the thermal engines in 2030, the City has decided to invest in the development of alternatives and in the reinforcement of financial aids that allow individuals and professionals to buy clean vehicles.” The proposed climate plan will be submitted to the Council of Paris for approval next month.

Most Paris residents do not own private automobiles. Instead, the rely on a comprehensive system of public transportation, bike sharing programs, car sharing and taxis. The city’s plan is focused on convincing residents to rethink their commitment to getting around the city by car and adopt a lifestyle that contributes much less atmospheric pollution to their daily lives.

Source: NPR/KHSU

What Will Happen To All Those VW Diesel Cars?

What is going to happen to all those Volkswagen diesels after the company buys them back starting later this month? Most people assume they will be fed into a giant crusher that will melt the engines down so the metal can be used again. Ideally, the same machine would reconfigure the chassis at the same time and spit out a brand new electric car with 400 miles of range. That would be lovely, of course, but it’s not gonna happen.

According to the terms of the legal settlement to a federal lawsuit entered into by Volkswagen, it has three options:

• modify and resell them as used cars (if approved), with proper disclosure to the buyer.
• export them for resale abroad.
• render them inoperable and recycle them, or salvage them for parts that may be sold in the U.S. or exported.

Which way Volkswagen decides to go will depend largely on which cars we are talking about. They are organized into three groups, depending on year of manufacture and which engine was installed at the factory.

Group One consists of:

• 2015 Golf TDI, Golf SportWagen TDI
• 2015 Audi A3 TDI
• 2015 Jetta TDI, Passat TDI, Beetle TDI

These 67,000 vehicles are most likely to receive approval for modification because they come closest to meeting emissions regulations as built.  They use a newer 2.0 liter TDI diesel engine known as the EA288 and are fitted with tanks for the Diesel Emission Fluid necessary for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) treatment system that removes pollutants from their exhaust gases.

Group Two is made up of 2012 through 2014 Passat TDI vehicles. These 90,000 cars were built in Tennessee during that car’s first three model years. They use an older 2.0 liter diesel engine known as the EA189 but are equipped with the SCR system and tanks for the urea fluid it requires. Some of those could be exported to other countries and resold without modifications.

Group Three is the largest. It includes 325,000 cars that were not fitted with the SCR system. They have only a Lean NOx Trap. Included in this group are:

• 2009-2014 Jetta TDI, Jetta SportWagen TDI
• 2010-2013 Golf TDI
• 2012-2014 Beetle TDI
• 2009-2013 Audi A3 TDI

These cars are by far the dirtiest, and would likely be very expensive to modify. To comply with emission standards, they might require installation of catalytic converters, urea tanks, and many engine modifications they were never designed to accommodate. Most of these engines will probably be “disabled” or rendered inoperable.

That process would probably be similar to the how cars covered under the infamous Cash For Clunkers program from 2009 were disposed of. Volkswagen has already conducted a pilot program to see how the process would work. In the meantime, it is making arrangements to store the nearly half million vehicles involved at locations around the country.

Someday, cars in Group One could be offered for sale to US customers again. They would probably be offered at very attractive prices to overcome the pollution belching stigma attached to them. Would you buy one if the pollution problems are resolved and the price is right? Let us know in the comments section below.

Source: Green Car Reports

GM Wants To Be New Leader In Diesel Powertrains

GM thinks the Volkswagen diesel cheating scandal has left a vacuum in the marketplace — a vacuum it would be only too happy to fill. Speaking at the Center for Automotive Research’s annual Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Michigan last week, Dan Nicholson, GM’s vice president of global propulsion systems, said, “I am very optimistic about the diesel market in the U.S. It has been abandoned by others and we are happy to step in and be the leader. Frankly that’s what we’d like to do.”

Last month, Hinrich Woebcken, CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, told Automotive News that his company won’t relaunch “clean diesel” as a core element of its brand identity in the U.S. He said Volkswagen will use diesels where they make sense until at least 2019. After that,  tougher emissions regulations will make the diesel engines extremely difficult to certify for sale in the US.

Nicholson disagrees. He said the upcoming standards will be tougher, but not impossible to meet. “I think the U.S. is one of the few diesel growth markets on the planet. There are a lot of diesel intenders and diesel-loyal people who are looking for a brand and vehicles to go after. They tend to be more tech savvy than the average customer. And they won’t stop wishing for a diesel. And we’ll go after those customers.” GM currently offers a diesel engine in its Colorado midsize pickup trucks.

Nicholson also said GM wants more continuously variable transmissions. “We’re relatively bullish on CVTs,” he said. “We’re optimistic about CVTs in the U.S. market for front-wheel-drive applications up to a certain weight level. You will see more of that from GM in the future.”

To go down that road, GM would have to decide whether to obtain CVTs for its cars from an outside supplier or build them itself. GM currently sells only one car with a CVT — the Chevrolet Spark. That transmission is supplied by Jatco, a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co.

“We are happy with the product we are buying today,” said Nicholson. “It is enjoying good success in the marketplace. We usually look at make-versus-buy and volumes.” Nissan has switched all of its volume cars, including the midsize Maxima, to CVT. Honda has also been replacing its traditional automatics with CVTs.

Nicholson would not rule out the possibility of producing a CVT through a partnership with Ford Motor Co. The two companies have jointly developed a 10-speed automatic for rear-wheel-drive vehicles, and a nine-speed automatic for fwd cars and crossovers.

That fact alone should tell you how things have changed in the auto industry. For decades, Ford and General Motors refused to work together. It was an era when the “Not invented here” syndrome made sure there was little to no interchange of ideas between the two companies. Ford would not comment on the possibility.

Source: Automotive News

States Sue Volkswagen: Now It’s Personal

New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland have filed lawsuits in their respective state courts seeking millions of dollars in damages for the higher-than-permitted emissions of the diesel engine cars VW sold in those states starting in 2009. The attorneys general for each state say they now know who lied, who destroyed evidence, and who in upper management knew about the cheating scandal but failed to act. They say they are ready to name names.

The suits charge that dozens of Volkswagen employees at various levels knew that the company’s “clean diesel” engines could not meet pollution standards in normal driving without compromises to performance or fuel economy. The suits publicly identify many of these employees and accuse them of “unlawful conduct.”

They also say at least eight employees in the company’s engineering department deleted or removed incriminating data in August 2015 after a senior attorney advised them of an impending order not to destroy documents. The New York suit stated that “some but not all of the data has been recovered.” Destruction of evidence could lead to criminal charges being filed. It is also grounds for disbarment.

The New York lawsuit alleges that the Volkswagen chairman at the time, Martin Winterkorn, and former global head of marketing Christian Klingler knew in the spring of 2014 about “the existence of unlawful ‘defeat devices’ and did nothing to prevent both Audi and Volkswagen from repeatedly deceiving regulators.”

Winterkorn succeeded Ferdinand Piech as head of the company after a boardroom coup d’etat in the spring of 2015. Many people believe it was the autocratic Piech who first bullied his staff into creating the cheating software. Winterkorn’s involvement is a blow to German national pride. He was widely considered the finest engineer in all of Germany, a nation that places a high value on engineering skill. German prosecutors said last month they are investigating Winterkorn.

In a statement, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said the suit is aimed at sending a message “to all auto manufacturers that violating laws designed to protect our environment and our public health is unacceptable and will be punished with significant penalties.” Prosecutors say they have combed through 1.1 million documents totaling 7.5 million pages during their nine-month-long investigation.

The New York suit claims that current CEO Matthias Mueller, who was head of project management at Audi, and Winterkorn became aware in July 2006 of the effect that undersized urea tanks were having on the company’s ability to comply with emissions standards. It says VW opted to install defeat software instead of larger tanks, in order to save money. The defeat software was devised because the soot filter needed to capture particulates in the exhaust stream would break within 50,000 miles if used all the time. US regulations required the soot filter to last longer than that.

For its part, Volkswagen has reacted like a whipped puppy. Spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan criticized the states’ decision to file suit after the company has already agreed to spend billions to address all environmental damages from the excess emissions. These state claims “are essentially not new and we have been addressing them in our discussions with U.S. federal and state authorities,” Ginivan said. “It is regrettable that some states have decided to sue for environmental claims now.”

It looks like the long corporate nightmare for Volkswagen is far from over.

Source: Automotive News | Photo Credit: Massachusetts Attorney General

Mercedes Announces New, $3 Billion Diesel Engine Family

Despite the trouble other European manufacturers like Volkswagen and Fiat may be having with diesel emissions, Mercedes-Benz has remained adamant that its diesels are fully compliant. The company looks set to double-down on those claims with the billion dollar launch of an all-new, all-turbodiesel engine family.

Codenamed OM654, the latest Mercedes-Benz built 2.0-liter diesel offers 191 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque. That’s nearly 25 more HP than before from an engine that weighs 76 lbs. less and delivers a 13% improvement in fuel economy than the outgoing “advanced” 2.0 diesel.

All of that should help make the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E220D- the first production car to get the engine when it goes on sale in Europe later this year- a pretty fun car.

Fun or not, though, the new Mercedes diesels will doubtless be subjected to independent testing. To prepare for this inevitability, Mercedes is using a new type of “selective catalytic reduction” (SCR) converter. The company says the SCRs will help to eliminate the sort of nitrous oxide emissions that have caused VW so many recent troubles.

Time will tell if Mercedes gets caught with its TDI pants down, I guess. In the meantime, check out these pretty engine pictures and let us know what you think of MB’s “clean” diesels in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Mercedes-Benz’ New Diesel Engine Family

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Source | Images: Mercedes-Benz, via MBWorld.

Mazda CX-3 Gets Diesel Engine, But Only In Japan

For two years now, Mazda has teased us with the promise of diesel engines that are both efficient, and worthy of the brand’s “Zoom-zoom” tagline. The Mazda6 diesel was supposed to go on last sale, but difficulties meeting American emissions standards and performance expectations has delayed the engine again and again.

Mazda is having no such issues in Japan though, where it announced that the new CX-3 would be sold solely with a diesel engine, as the automaker continues to pursue better fuel economy. Reuters reports that while just 3% of Japanese car sales are diesels, Mazda expects to build some 150,000 oil-burning CX-3s for worldwide distribution. Europeans can also get a CX-3 with a diesel mill, but Americans are limited to one of two four-cylinder motors that deliver decent enough fuel economy, but likely nowhere near what a Mazda diesel might offer.

The Mazda 6 sedan, for example, offers up to 40 MPG on the highway, while its diesel sibling manages up to 57 MPG. Now I’ll grant you, thats on the more generous (and easier to cheat on) European MPG testing standards, but even if you cut the difference by 50%, the diesel engine should still easily manage 47 MPG highway, or about 20% better than the gas engine. The CX-3 could see an even more drastic improvement.

Then again, this move might be a bad one for Mazda right now, as both the English and French government officials have renounced diesel vehicles in recent months as bad public policy. These countries are instead moving towards plug-in hybrids and EVs, with France offering as much as €10,000 for diesel owners to make the switch to an electric car. But Japan is a car economy all onto itself, from its weird kei cars to an almost zealous devotion to hydrogen fuel cells. Can Mazda convince a world moving away from fossil fuels that diesel crossovers have a place at the table?

Maybe those rumored diesel-electric hybrids would be a better bet…if they ever get there. Mazda’s current track record isn’t exactly faith-inspiring.

Source: Gas2