Tag Archives: Diesel

Diesel for Dinner, by Doomberg

Converting food to fuel is not a good idea when we have plenty of fuel and food shortages loom. From Doomberg at doomberg.substack.com:

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.” – Lao Tzu

The words edible and eatable are often used interchangeably but embedded within their respective definitions is a distinction that makes an important difference. Edible means “safe to eat,” whereas eatable means “pleasant to eat.” A variant of the word eatable is delicious, commonly defined as “highly pleasant to eat.” Delicious certainly sounds more enticing than highly eatable, a phrase nobody would use to compliment an exquisite meal crafted by a professional chef. We find such linguistic nuances pleasing.

Whether the balance of calories a person consumes is edible, eatable, or delicious depends on where they sit on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a concept we covered at length in a piece we wrote last July called Why Are Cows Sacred?  For those at the base of the pyramid, the struggle to consume enough edible food just to see another sunrise defines much of their existence. At the top of the pyramid sit those fortunate souls who can afford to cook delicious meals with fresh ingredients, eat at fine restaurants, or even hire a personal chef to tend to their every dietary indulgence.

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Well, Now We Know . . . by Eric Peters

Consumers are paying a high price for the punishment the government inflicted on Volkswagen. From Eric Peters at theburningplatform.com:

Well, now we know… how much Uncle’s persecution of VW is costing us – on top of the billions it has already cost Volkswagen.

Are you ready, Freddie?

About seven miles per gallon.

That’s how much the mileage of a 2015 Jetta TDI droops after it gets “fixed” – a term also used by farmers and used in the same manner here as well.

The VWs in question – like young male calves – were not broken. “Fixing” is a euphemism for taking something away . . . .

In the case of the VWs, what’s being taken away – by those who brought their cars in for “fixing”- is their formerlyexceptional fuel efficiency.

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Sniffing a Scandal, by Eric Peters

Has VW been persecuted and fined because it befouled the air, or because it builds diesel cars that people prefer over electrics? From Eric Peters at theburningplatform.com:

They only crucified Jesus once – and that was enough (so we are told) to atone for all mankind’s sins . . . in perpetuity.

And mankind did (and does) sin. In the moral sense. Murder, theft, rape and all the other uglies.

VW suffers crucifixion in perpetuity for its sins – which are of a purely statutory nature. Like failing to buckle-up for safety. So far, the German automaker has been godsmacked to the tune of $30.4 billion (not a typo) in fines and other levies for tuning its diesel-powered cars to pass government emissions certification tests.

To which the obvious rejoinder is – well, what’s the problem? They passed the tests, right?

Ah, but they didn’t really pass the tests. VW “cheated” by programming the cars to make it through the tests, then altered their programming once through the tests.

Here’s where things get . . . interesting.

The tests VW “cheated” on are not the same tests as the tailpipe exhaust emissions tests most of us have to subject our cars to, in order to register them and renew registration. All of the “cheating” VWs passed – and continue to pass – these “tailpipe sniffer” tests, which ought to give you some idea about the amount of “cheating” VW was up to on the other tests.

Think about it.

The smog check joints – thousands of them, across the land – detected no smog (technically, no noxious compounds such as oxides of nitrogen) in excess of the allowable thresholds. The cars passed those tests. If their emissions were not within allowable limits, they wouldn’t have.

They also passed by the automated roadside emissions detectors in ultra-strict California. These snuff the air as cars pass by and if the air is not up to snuff, they snap a photo of the offending car’s plates and send its owner a nasty note informing him that he must bring the car in for examination, pronto – or else.

But not one VW diesel – as far as I have been able to determine – was identified as a “polluter” by these tests. Or the tests you stand in line to go through to get your tags renewed. The absence of any California drive-by smog alarums is particularly noteworthy because the cars being snuffed were being driven. Not idling while hooked to a test rig. But the “cheating” asserted by Uncle asserts that once out in the world, actually driving, the “cheating” cars became churning cauldrons of toxic effluvia-spewing foulness.

To continue reading: Sniffing a Scandal

The Anti-Diesel Jihad Expands, by Eric Peters

The government is bent on destroying fuel-efficient diesel engines in favor of less efficient and more environmentally destructive electric cars. From Eric Peters at theburningplatform.com:

For reasons that aren’t inscrutable (give me a minute – I’ll explain) the jihad against diesels  is metastasizing to include FiatChrysler.

The combine – which subsumes the Jeep and Ram truck brands – has been accused of selling diesels that emit “as much as 20 times” the maximum allowable quantity of an exhaust byproduct, oxides of nitrogen (NOx).

This is exactly what got VW nailed to the cross. And it’s exactly the same demagogic coverage. “As much as 20 times” the allowable maximum!

Good god, it sounds apocalyptic! A lung-melting catastrophe!

Except of course it’s not.

A bureaucratic standard may have been affronted – that is all.

Note the “as much as . . .” verbiage. As in, could be – or might be. As opposed to something exact.

Weasel words, the sort of copy an advertising shyster would use to hawk a product that didn’t actually do a damned thing but the words implied it did because it might. It is of a piece with third-empty cereal boxes – the box itself meant to make you think you are getting what you just paid for.

Only, it’s worse, because in this case there is nothing in the box.

Nothing in whole numbers, that is.

As in the VW crucifixion, the standard affronted amounts to a difference of less than half of one percent. If you don’t know this, you don’t know your Tiers and Bins – EPA-speak for the various levels and thresholds for allowable exhaust emissions. The difference between one Tier and Bin and the next is fractional.

I bold this out of exasperation.Because it is never explained by the media. Search for yourself and see. It is outrageous, a monstrous dereliction of duty. Because with explanation, without qualification, the “as much as 20 times” business creates an egregiously false impression.

People have been grossly misled about misled about the extent to which new cars do not pollute. The whole aim of practical politics, as H.L. Mencken once said, is to menace the public with dangers – all of them false – so as to instill in them a hysterical fear and make them clamorous to be led to safety.

Exactly so.

To continue reading: The Anti-Diesel Jihad Expands

VW Says: Thank You Sir! May I have Another? by Eric Peters

From Eric Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

So why did VW “cheat”? Uncle?

That question hasn’t been asked enough. It ought to be.

Now we have the answer – confirmation of what I suspected and wrote about earlier when this “scandal” broke last year.

VW “cheated” because it had to.

Because “cheating” was the only way to keep on selling diesel engines that delivered the mileage buyers expected at a cost that made economic sense to them.

Satisfying Uncle – passing his Rube Goldberg-esque emissions tests, which among other defects don’t measure the totality of a vehicle’s output – grams per mile – but rather sample parts per million (PPM) with the vehicle in a stationary test rig, would have entailed a noticeable reduction in fuel efficiency and a very noticeable uptick in the cost of the vehicle. Or rather, the cost of the additional hardware necessary to placate Uncle.

Now there’s proof of this.

European Uncles have discovered that diesel-powered VW vehicles “fixed” to comply with the tests use more fuel now – which is a problem over there because European Uncles also regulate carbon dioxide (C02), which is classified as a “pollutant” because Global Warming (whoops, Climate Change).

The more fuel used, the more C02 produced. You see the problem.

Which isn’t the displeasure of the European Uncles.

It’s the fact that you can’t have your affordable/high-mileage diesel cake and eat your making-Uncle-happy, too. There is a reason why there are no modestly priced diesel-powered cars available in the United States … now that VW’s cars are off the market.

VW was the only automaker selling them – and now, they’re not.

And not likely to, ever again.

You can make a diesel that makes Uncle happy. But you can’t make one that makes Uncle happy and which is also affordable to buy and delivers mileage high enough to offset the always-higher price of buying a diesel car vs. the equivalent gas-powered version of the same car.

To continue reading: VW Says: Thank You Sir! May I have Another?