Dieselgate

2lazytogetup

Did it actually change anything in Ireland or did we decide to bow to motor industry lobby groups and let the diesel cars off the hook.

I suppose the air pollution levels arent tested at NCT.

So are our politicans happy to let us breathe in all these emissions?

Atlantic Dawn

2lazytogetup wrote: »

So are our politicans happy to let us breathe in all these emissions?

They simply make sure there's no monitoring stations to measure actual nox emissions in built up areas.

Lyan

Convince people to stop buying diesal cars instead of blaming the gubbament. Us Europeans are oddly attached to them while the rest of the world prefers petrol.

Toyotafanboi

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Did it actually change anything in Ireland or ... are our politicans happy to let us breathe in all these emissions?

Well, they've proposed banning the sale of all exclusively fossil fuel powered cars by 2030, which is doing something.

Dieselgate stopped being an exciting rant around 3 years ago but I suspect either way the decisions made behind it were far beyond the control of any SIMI lobby group.

galwayllm

I always buy diesel, always did always will... And man do I put up miles in a month ...

micks_address

galwayllm wrote: »

I always buy diesel, always did always will... And man do I put up miles in a month ...

Stop killing us all

YFlyer

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Did it actually change anything in Ireland or did we decide to bow to motor industry lobby groups and let the diesel cars off the hook.

I suppose the air pollution levels arent tested at NCT.

So are our politicans happy to let us breathe in all these emissions?

When you have Galway girl boasting about buying diesel. It is likely to be here for the next 10 years at least.

anewme

Is this not what the NoX tax is all about.?

liamog

Ouch https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/motors/2020/0114/1107458-new-diesel-scandal-hits-european-car-industry/

So apparently Diesel is now clean, except for when the filter is being cleaned off, which is ignored for the purpose of testing how clean diesel is.

Rodin

Lyan wrote: »

Convince people to stop buying diesal cars instead of blaming the gubbament. Us Europeans are oddly attached to them while the rest of the world prefers petrol.

Perhaps if petrol was as cheap here as it is in the US for example, then we'd buy more of it.

Diesel is cheaper and goes further. If that's not a Win Win

mada999

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Did it actually change anything in Ireland or did we decide to bow to motor industry lobby groups and let the diesel cars off the hook.

I suppose the air pollution levels arent tested at NCT.

So are our politicans happy to let us breathe in all these emissions?

They were happy enough for us to buy loads of them in the past as the "emissions were better"

If the govt wants us to buy by green cars they can pony up the cash for them

Atlantic Dawn

The asbestos of our generation, big business lobbying politicians to do nothing.

kirving

Fast forward the clock 10 years.

Diesel is all but dead, we have a hole in our tax revenues. Let's see how the government's stance changes on how clean electric cars actually are*, and introduce taxes on longer range cars (since people are harming the environment buying range they never use) and onerous fees on battery disposal.

How long I wonder before we find thousands of electric car batteries buried in Monaghan?

*I know they're much cleaner locally, and can be run on renewable energy, but I don't expect much revolution in the mining of precious metals anytime soon when we're happy to buy from third world countries.

I'm not anti-electric at all (I have a hybrid for the moment, and my next car will likely be electric), but articles like this are purely designed to push the narrative to make diesel a pariah. All cars are terrible for the environment, even electric ones.

There is certainly truth in the article, but the dogs on the street knew diesel particulate was a serious issue 15 years ago, and yet, diesel was pushed under the guise of CO2 being the most serious threat to our climate. It's really economic stimulus measures pushed by the government masquerading as "environmental policy".

Real investment into public transport is what's needed, but is a decades long endeavor that no government wants to commit to, because they know that corruption will turn any large scale project into a white elephant.

jimgoose

mada999 wrote: »

They were happy enough for us to buy loads of them in the past as the "emissions were better"...

The whole sticky-wicket of turbodiesel emissions is complex and multifaceted, in much the same way that Eamon Ryan's brain isn't. :pac:

liamog

Kevin Irving wrote: »

How long I wonder before we find thousands of electric car batteries buried in Monaghan?

Probably never going to happen, an electric car battery is expected to last well beyond the average age of a car before it degrades to 70% of the original capacity, even then it's still useful for stationary storage, followed by recycling. Supposedly 100% of the materials are recoverable, the only reason we don't yet is that batteries are still in the re-use cycle. I wouldn't be surprised if the cells from my 2017 Ioniq are still in either automotive or stationary use in 2050.

Del2005

The ironic thing is that it was the greens who pushed for diesel in Europe as the lower CO2 emissions might save a few polar bears. The fact that they ignored the other emissions that kill people should have seen them destroyed in elections, but its going the other way and they are getting rewarded at the polls while they are responsible for the deaths of thousands.

zilog_jones

Kevin Irving wrote: »

How long I wonder before we find thousands of electric car batteries buried in Monaghan?

All EV and hybrid car manufacturers I know of will take the traction batteries for recycling at end of life. They may even fall under WEEE regulations in that they're required to do this, though I'm not sure about that. And as has been said, there is potential for re-use elsewhere after the car is gone.

Lyan wrote: »

Us Europeans are oddly attached to them while the rest of the world prefers petrol.

It was the likes of PSA (Peugeot-Citroen) and Fiat who brought common-rail diesels into passenger cars in the late '90s, and Europe (both governments and consumers) were all convinced these were clean and efficient and the future of motoring. The US, Japan and other countries always had tighter emissions standards, and European cars are not big sellers there, so they just never took off in the same way.

I suppose you can go back further to things like the PSA XUD engine which brought something resembling refinement to diesel engines in the early '80s, but similarly they had already pulled out of the US market completely by then.

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

They simply make sure there's no monitoring stations to measure actual nox emissions in built up areas.

Not NOx, but Cork City Council are doing a good job at measuring PM: https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/mAQI/a10/cC0#11.4/51.8823/-8.4333
On days with low air pressure and no wind, the levels can be quite appalling.

slave1

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Fast forward the clock 10 years.

Diesel is all but dead, we have a hole in our tax revenues. Let's see how the government's stance changes on how clean electric cars actually are*, and introduce taxes on longer range cars (since people are harming the environment buying range they never use) and onerous fees on battery disposal.

How long I wonder before we find thousands of electric car batteries buried in Monaghan?

*I know they're much cleaner locally, and can be run on renewable energy, but I don't expect much revolution in the mining of precious metals anytime soon when we're happy to buy from third world countries.

You are 100% correct, there will be a huge hole in tax revenue.
But our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, nieces, friends etc will be more healthy and not dead! Can we put a price on that?
Health costs should fall over time as the expense associated with fumes/localised emissions fade away as a by product of the move away from fossils.

Clareman

In 2018 there was 3,838 ktoe Gasoil/diesel/DERV used in Ireland, this is compared to 181 ktoe of LPG (source https://statbank.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=SEI06&PLanguage=0) there's about 1 diesel car for each petrol car (https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/brexit-blamed-as-new-car-sales-fall-44-in-2018-895224.html) in Ireland so there's a lot more uses of diesel outside of cars, I would say that if there's to be a meaningful change in Ireland that cars would be a long way down the list of changes to be made in Ireland.

Personally, I drive a diesel, made the change about 6 years ago, I was getting ~700km a tank of petrol, now I'm getting ~1,100km out of a tank of diesel, taking into account the extra volume of petrol needed to travel the same distance I'd be interested to see the comparison between petrol and diesel in cars by km rather than volume.

RandomViewer

Huge amount of Nox gases come from heating oil , seems to be ignored in the attack on motorists

liamog

RandomViewer wrote: »

Huge amount of Nox gases come from heating oil , seems to be ignored in the attack on motorists

One of many facets, NOx and particle matter pollution get's very concentrated in cities. I don't think many people use heating oil in our cities.

Clareman

Good breakdown of NOx in cities here

http://www.icopal-noxite.co.uk/nox-problem/nox-pollution.aspx

kirving

liamog wrote: »

Probably never going to happen, an electric car battery is expected to last well beyond the average age of a car before it degrades to 70% of the original capacity, even then it's still useful for stationary storage, followed by recycling. Supposedly 100% of the materials are recoverable, the only reason we don't yet is that batteries are still in the re-use cycle. I wouldn't be surprised if the cells from my 2017 Ioniq are still in either automotive or stationary use in 2050.

zilog_jones wrote: »

All EV and hybrid car manufacturers I know of will take the traction batteries for recycling at end of life. They may even fall under WEEE regulations in that they're required to do this, though I'm not sure about that. And as has been said, there is potential for re-use elsewhere after the car is gone.

I'm not arguing that they cannot be recycled, or that they don't have secondary uses.

Builders rubble can be broken down and used as aggregate, and hospital waste is required by law to be disposed of safely, but there have been scandals involving both being illegally dumped.

It just has to be more profitable for one link in the recycling chain to dump batteries than is is to process them.

Not trying to be defeatist here, but electric cars (like all others) can very easily damage the environment if not managed properly. At some point in time, whether for real environmental reasons, politics, or economics, the narrative about their cleanliness will change. Wait and see.

slave1 wrote: »

You are 100% correct, there will be a huge hole in tax revenue.
But our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, nieces, friends etc will be more healthy and not dead! Can we put a price on that?
Health costs should fall over time as the expense associated with fumes/localised emissions fade away as a by product of the move away from fossils.

I agree with you, but noone was shouting this from the rooftops in 2008 - like plenty are now the media has brought attention to it.

Actually, a few people were. Those who had just bought E85 cars. Thier motor tax increased in 2008, as did fuel duty a few years later - despite a €5k VRT rebate, and minimal fuel duty when they bought the car.

People who took a risk to buy the most environmentally friendly kind of ICE car available, were burned by the government who decided that it was dirty again (based solely on tailpipe emissions).

Electric is better than diesel for sure, but don't forget that ~20% of our electricity generation currently is from coal and peat. Local emissions are terrible, but so is polluting our farmland.

liamog

Why would you dump something that can be re-sold for 1000's of Euros.
If your vision comes to mind, we could start a battery mine digging them out of bogland

kirving

Right now they can be sold for thousands, but battery prices are continually falling, and fast. An old car could be worth thousands in parts, to the right buyer, but you'd be lucky to get €100 from a scrapyard.

Your phone contains precious metals, but people throw them in the bin because it isn't worth the effort to recycle them. Labour costs in first world countries often prohibit profitable recycling, so it's cheaper to buy new and scrap the old part.

All I'm saying is, everyone knew about the downsides of diesel long ago and it was pushed anyway, and it's now being presented as a surprising revelation, and the same will happen in future.

Turbohymac

I'd happily drive an ev immediately..
But their price even with government grant is still 40k for a very small Hyundai ionic.. the variations of electric vehicles here is minuscule for the promoters or the misled that have well overspent in purchasing an ev. Theres no vans..cars are tiny..cant tow trailers/boat/caravan..and even the absolute regular ev bloggers on here admit that when it comes to a long journey they still have the good old reliable TDI ..
As said before the evs currently has a very limited role here and with charges introduced for public charging and only going to increase.. the evs dont mean free motoring once initially purchased anymore.. for anyone doing regular average mileage and general gunthering
Carrying heavy loads.towing etc a modest diesel will be beat an ev any day and that won't change anytime soon..definitely for the next 10/15 years
Theres easier ways currently to waste 40k than on an.ev.. spend 20 on a decent tdi and keep 20k in your pocket..as for the pollution aspect..it wouldn't matter in Ireland tomorrow if everyone reverted back to walking and cycling.. as the main polluters usa and China doesn't care..
Happy motoring

galwaytt

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Right now they can be sold for thousands, but battery prices are continually falling, and fast. An old car could be worth thousands in parts, to the right buyer, but you'd be lucky to get €100 from a scrapyard.

Your phone contains precious metals, but people throw them in the bin because it isn't worth the effort to recycle them. Labour costs in first world countries often prohibit profitable recycling, so it's cheaper to buy new and scrap the old part.

All I'm saying is, everyone knew about the downsides of diesel long ago and it was pushed anyway, and it's now being presented as a surprising revelation, and the same will happen in future.

Exactly.

We will be having a 'dieselgate' equivalent conversation about EV's in 10 years time and from there on - and then what ?

And as EV's become more common, and more new ones are developed, then the fleet of (now outdated) EV batteries you extol will become worthless, and just dumped. Just like ICE engined cars now. That pattern will not change.

The fact of the matter is, that politicians and the PS are the last ones to listen to on subjects like this: this is how we got here in the first place. Politicians pandering to the 'Green' agenda forced everyone into diesel in the first place, and anybody who ever stuck their head under the bonnet of a car know the whole thing was BS.

I mean, really, your 3-Litre diesel is 'cleaner' than my 1.2 petrol Clio - really ??

Nope, we've been suckered, and we'd be fools to fall for it again.

liamog

Let's face it, the biggest cause of increase in emissions over the last few years has been the rise of the SUV and Crossovers. The number of Mommy Tanks on the road has got ridiculous. Maybe we should be introducing an element of tax that includes the weight of the vehicle.

bbuzz

liamog wrote: »

Ouch https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/motors/2020/0114/1107458-new-diesel-scandal-hits-european-car-industry/

So apparently Diesel is now clean, except for when the filter is being cleaned off, which is ignored for the purpose of testing how clean diesel is.

Part of the EU regulations covers this (and has done for at least 10 years): you have to do at least one emissions test with the DPF regen active, and then you average the increased emissions out over however many km between regens.

But obviously more aggressive drivers will end up regenerating more etc.

Lantus

Turbohymac wrote: »

I'd happily drive an ev immediately..
But their price even with government grant is still 40k for a very small Hyundai ionic..

By grant of course its tax payers money being given directly to car manufacturers as a freebie. The not so free market run on lucrative subsidies. Great gig if you can it. Its why a new bathroom costs a private individual 3.5k but with a 7k hse grant same bathroom costs 10.5k....

9935452

zilog_jones wrote: »

All EV and hybrid car manufacturers I know of will take the traction batteries for recycling at end of life. They may even fall under WEEE regulations in that they're required to do this, though I'm not sure about that. And as has been said, there is potential for re-use elsewhere after the car is gone.

.

That will probably happen . The government will use it to ad on an extra charge or tax on every electric car sold

galwaytt

Normally I don't, but there's more than a bit of truth in what Mr Tormey says here: https://www.independent.ie/life/motoring/car-news/confused-buyers-being-rushed-into-evs-toyota-chief-claims-38862580.html

liamog

galwaytt wrote: »

Normally I don't, but there's more than a bit of truth in what Mr Tormey says here: https://www.independent.ie/life/motoring/car-news/confused-buyers-being-rushed-into-evs-toyota-chief-claims-38862580.html

Uhh, not really, most of the confusion is caused by Toyota themselves, their whole BS about self-charging hybrids (spoiler it's a petrol engine), and their numbers peg the Irish electricity gird at the same level of emissions as Poland, when in actual fact we are much better than that.

Everyone's electricity bill has a fuel mix which indicates the CO2 g/kWh their supplier and the national average. The number he's reported from ESB 70g/km would put our grid at around 450g/kWh, check your own bill and tell me what the number says.

Even more madness is the EVs don't work for rural people. Unless you have a particular need to tow (which fair enough is a gap right now), EVs can be very suitable, buy a Niro and start everyday with a fully charged battery. It's apartments and on-street parking that have real problems.

zilog_jones

Kevin Irving wrote: »

I'm not arguing that they cannot be recycled, or that they don't have secondary uses.

Builders rubble can be broken down and used as aggregate, and hospital waste is required by law to be disposed of safely, but there have been scandals involving both being illegally dumped.

It just has to be more profitable for one link in the recycling chain to dump batteries than is is to process them.

I'd hope with the current regulations and the way vehicle registration works these days that cars (or components) are not being illegally dumped anymore, outside of theft. I don't think ATFs could get away with dumping batteries easily. I might be wrong though...

Electric is better than diesel for sure, but don't forget that ~20% of our electricity generation currently is from coal and peat. Local emissions are terrible, but so is polluting our farmland.

Peat has no future, and coal is on the way out too. We've gone for weeks with no coal-powered electricity in Ireland in the past year. But even if you are using coal power for your EV: Coal power stations are far away from densely populated areas, and emissions can be treated much more effectively on a large scale than with millions of individual cars (with things like DPFs that stop working properly or just get removed due to lax controls, etc.).

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Your phone contains precious metals, but people throw them in the bin because it isn't worth the effort to recycle them.

People are throwing them in the bin out of pure laziness or ignorance. The WEEE Directive gives them multiple options for free recycling of electronic devices.

Turbohymac wrote: »

the variations of electric vehicles here is minuscule for the promoters or the misled that have well overspent in purchasing an ev. Theres no vans...

VW e-Crafter
Nissan e-NV200
Renault Kangoo ZE
LDV EV80
Ford Transit Custom PHEV
Need I go on?

Sure they don't yet suit every situation, but to say there aren't any is false.

As said before the evs currently has a very limited role here and with charges introduced for public charging and only going to increase.. the evs dont mean free motoring once initially purchased anymore..

Anyone expecting "free motoring" with an EV is a fool. Charging at home is ridiculously cheap compared to running an ICE car, and that hasn't changed at all.

as for the pollution aspect..it wouldn't matter in Ireland tomorrow if everyone reverted back to walking and cycling.. as the main polluters usa and China doesn't care..

We're talking about local pollution in the form of NOx and particulates - road vehicles are a significant cause of this and air quality in populated areas of Ireland is getting worse. The US and China are irrelevant to this issue.

galwaytt

liamog wrote: »

Uhh, not really, most of the confusion is caused by Toyota themselves, their whole BS about self-charging hybrids (spoiler it's a petrol engine), and their numbers peg the Irish electricity gird at the same level of emissions as Poland, when in actual fact we are much better than that.

Everyone's electricity bill has a fuel mix which indicates the CO2 g/kWh their supplier and the national average. The number he's reported from ESB 70g/km would put our grid at around 450g/kWh, check your own bill and tell me what the number says.

Even more madness is the EVs don't work for rural people. Unless you have a particular need to tow (which fair enough is a gap right now), EVs can be very suitable, buy a Niro and start everyday with a fully charged battery. It's apartments and on-street parking that have real problems.

The comment about ESB emissions is but one thing he said, and I have no doubt that the is putting a PR spin for Toyota benefit on it.

But I have family in Norway, I've been to Norway, and I've looked at some of the things they've done. The simple fact they have an effective surplus of ('green') electricity alone makes any reference or comparison to Ireland irrelevant. Add in huge State subsidies, not only for EV purchase, but taxes generally, parking, ferries, bus lane use etc makes the picture even more lopsided.

Oh, and did I mention all this is on the back of a State built on the back of....oil ?...which they have no problem drilling for & exporting.....

I quite like the idea of EV. I like the E-tron (saw two in Galway lately), but it needs to come down by about 50% to be truly comparable to ICE - and that's before anyone even spells r-a-n-g-e

liamog

Toyota have been spreading a lot of anti EV press to drum up hybrid sales, so any article linked to Toyota is suspect.
Not sure what Norway has to do with anything, EVs cleaner in Ireland and over a 3 year period reach cost parity on a TCO basis versus a comparable model (and spec level), keep them longer than that and you start to save money.

To be honest, one of the biggest reasons we should all switch outside of emissions is the amount of money leaving the state. From the CSO we imported in €438 million worth of Petroleum, petroleum products and related materials. Surely it's better for that to be spent in the state, jobs for people in the Irish electricity sector, instead of importing middle east petroleum.

galwaytt

liamog wrote: »

Toyota have been spreading a lot of anti EV press to drum up hybrid sales, so any article linked to Toyota is suspect.
Not sure what Norway has to do with anything, EVs cleaner in Ireland and over a 3 year period reach cost parity on a TCO basis versus a comparable model (and spec level), keep them longer than that and you start to save money.

To be honest, one of the biggest reasons we should all switch outside of emissions is the amount of money leaving the state. From the CSO we imported in €438 million worth of Petroleum, petroleum products and related materials. Surely it's better for that to be spent in the state, jobs for people in the Irish electricity sector, instead of importing middle east petroleum.

Because Norway is repeatedly thrown out by EV fans as a model of what can be repeated elsewhere. It can't.

Power Stations, like Data Centres only create big numbers of jobs whilst under construction: once up & running the no of jobs is not huge. Useful, yes, but low 1000's - we need 100's of 1000's. (e.g, if you replicate Electricity Ireland in totality, it would only be 7,000 jobs).

And the switch to in-State generation vs imported fuels will actually work against the State: the State takes 65% duty on petrol for example.....no petrol = no excise = empty coffers. The State exchequer is actually a beneficiary of imported energy.....and Revenue have already flagged this to Govt.

In 2016, the State took in €3Bn in motor fuel taxes. Swithching to EV (or Hybrid or H2 or (whatever you like) ) will expose this enormous funding gap.

Expect ownership, usage taxes to increase substantially into the future.

Like all things, it will come down to money, and like the Bank at the Casino: the House never loses..........Leinster House in this case...

Markcheese

There is some advantage to the state in having renewable energy as our main fuel source ,but most of the wind turbines are corporate owned ,their profits head to where ever suits best at the time .
,there is a serious benefit in fuel / energy security ,
But it doesn't really matter ,transitioning to renewables is a thing (it's a necessity),. We've used aprox half of the world's oil / gas , it took aprox 100 years to use the first quarter ,25 years to use the second quarter ... And that's most of the easily obtained stuff ,
We won't run out anytime ... But think of the cost once demand seriously outstrips supply ,and if there's no alternatives

kirving

galwaytt wrote: »

Because Norway is repeatedly thrown out by EV fans as a model of what can be repeated elsewhere. It can't.

Ironically enough, Norway's EV grants are funded heavily by oil and gas exports.