I'll hold off on the celebration until his EPA decides that all those "crossover" pieces of shiat are not light trucks after all, and adds them into the "car" column for CAFE purposes.
What does this mean for those of us living in non-emissions areas who have spent ungodly amounts of money building a car with ZERO consideration for emissions? What about the thousands of unmaintained cars running in non-emissions areas that probably won't pass? It looks like cash-for-clunkers is about to start getting a LOT of business.
Hopefully there is a cutoff date for those cars, 25 years is the law in Cali, if my memory is correct.
I can quickly think of a dozen people running around with a CE light and a P0420 for a Cat efficiency code meaning the Cat is no longer doing anything. When you tell them it is $1,000 for a proper replacement they will gladly drive it with the light on. The car runs normal, will for a long time, it's not plugged, just done.
Those people will be paying to replace it.
My area has zero emission testing or safety inspections. If this is a across the board equalizer there will be a lot of cars off the road.
Hell, I had a Chevy Celebrity with the front brake rotors so far worn down the fins where exposed from the center. Can't force them to fix it, or condemn the car, made them tow it out of my lot when they refused to have it fixed.
It's a free-for all on pre-75 or diesel titles vehicles before something like '05. Post '05 diesels aren't tested now, but they reserve the right to do so in the future.
No safety inspections (but cops can give you a fixit ticket if they see something).
The thing about CA is that despite the (false) crazy leftist image we have, we love our cars. There's a huge automotive aftermarket here.
Additionally, there's not much public transit, so poor people (who usually vote Dem.) need to be able to afford cheap cars. That argument tends to thwart legislation that affects automotive bottom-feeders.
@Tomsk Яespects the BuЯbeЯЯy BanhammeЯ: Which, to be frank, is a joke. The rolling cutoff was one of the best legislative compromises I'd ever met, and now it's gone.
@Flathead Smith: ...You mean subject the independent states to the sovereignty of the federal government! Pish tosh! This is 1880, my good man! Such a notion is ludicrous!
@baldy_pm: yeah, electric cars with massive torque at 0 rpm and 4-cyl cars with huge turbos and 6-cyl ecoboosts and turbo diesels and lighter-weight cars and sh!t like that! argh so mad!
Oh, I guess I was wrong, because there are soo many families out there with their 2.5 kids that want to pack their kids into aveo sized cars, and proceed to go out on the interstate and play bumper cars with 18-wheelers.
@baldy_pm: Something like two-thirds (I remember it was sixty-odd percent) of collisions with 18-wheelers are the fault of the other vehicle. Given a few more regulations on truck maintenance and drivers' rights (one of the few times I'd support a proper union), it'd basically be up to passenger-car drivers to learn to drive courteously around truckers.
Europe's filled with small cars. They've also got quite a few huge trucks. Know why? Because they know that if any car, Fit or Suburban, crosses over the line and nails a semi head-on, they're gonna get seriously screwed over, probably killed.
And hulking ladder-frame vehicles, driven by the typical American (not saying you're in this category, necessarily) simply don't handle well enough to avoid most oncoming danger. Swerve too hard, and you're upside-down in a ditch, and your family's still badly hurt. With a smaller car you can often avoid what you'd otherwise hit.
As long as a vehicle's well-equipped for collisions with something intended for commuting or family-hauling, and it's got plenty of room for parents and children, go for it. An Aveo's a bad example, and it's not too safe anyway, but the above Honda Fit is slightly more practical, and something like an Accord, Malibu, or Fusion even more so. Plenty of room, safe against anything up to and including a one-ton pickup, maneuverable and reasonably efficient.
@FstrPssycw: "And hulking ladder-frame vehicles simply don't handle well enough to avoid most oncoming danger. Swerve too hard, and you're upside-down in a ditch, and your family's still badly hurt. With a smaller car you can often avoid what you'd otherwise hit."
I'LL DRIVE WHAT I WANNA DRIVE YOU COMMIE!!!!! ARGH SO ANGRY!!!!11
@Mad_Science: Yes, but isn't that a false dilemma? It's not a choice between what's best for "society" vs. "what I want." And this debate isn't taking place in a vacuum; I have lots of issues with how my tax dollars are spent and how I as a vehicle driver will be held to account while GE and other giant polluters are not, or the government itself is not--ahose the biggest fossil fuel burner in the US? That would be the Pentagon. How much fuel is Obama wasting on his "I'm still campaigning!" speech tour? Ain't he supposed to be high tech? How about some video conferencing to set an example? So I both flinch and laugh when I hear about these "standards."
I will continue in support of the tireless efforts to curb vehicle emissions by finally removing the 3rd cat from my car. The replacement with a catless up pipe will allow my emissions to be spread over a longer distance much faster. That's better right?
What they are doing in California hasn't worked so well, so please tell me how "Lets do what California does" is going to work for the rest of us knuckleheads.
"The plan supposedly marries U.S. fuel economy and emissions standards to California polices and be supported by automakers and policymakers."
I can really only hope that this does not mean "the US will adopt California's policies," although pretty much anything but would mean California's policies will be relaxed somewhat. That would suck if no one in the entire country could buy a dark colored car because the extra a/c load uses up too much fuel...
@nataku83: "That would suck if no one in the entire country could buy a dark colored car because the extra a/c load uses up too much fuel... "
Except there's no regulation about that.
Right now, CA already sets the standards for the rest of the country. CA and the states that have adopted its regs represent a significant enough portion of the market that it's easier for most companies to just adopt the standards for everything.
@Mad_Science: Yeah, there isn't currently a ban on car color, but like so many other things it has been discussed and, last thing I heard, was still being considered.
@Bad Juju: The amount of pollution that comes out of a cars tailpipe is miniscule compared to the past. The amount of pollution that comes from a tailpipe in California is perhaps more minuscule, but is the increased cost to get there is not worth it, hardly. Cars are so clean today that if we went back to the mid 80's standards there would be no noticeable degradation of the environment.
Explained another way, installing PCV valves on engines got rid of 50% (just guessing)of an engine's pollution. Installing a catalytic convertor and EGR valve decreased it by 35% (again just guessing) and all the other stuff got us to another 10 or 14% (just guessing again). To get that 1% out will take tremendous resources that will really do nothing for the environment.
The only real way to get that 1% is to get rid of gasoline burning engines, but that my friends is the greenies point.
@nataku83: You heard incorrectly. There was a study on the reflective properties of various paint colors, and it was found that jet black paint was just plain hard to make more reflective. That was IT. Of course, that didn't stop Limbaugh from making up a "coming ban on black paint" from whole cloth.
@Flathead Smith: I find the entire situation hilarious: emissions are laudably low these days, yet we're using just as much fuel as always. Yet we have plenty of time to clean up our act, and only a few decades to wean ourselves off of oil entirely.
I'm thinking coal into hydrogen. We've got a couple hundred years of coal.
Actually, it has made a huge difference. Back in the 80's, air quality here in Los Angeles wasn't significantly better than Mexico City, which is ranked as one of the world's most polluted cities.
20+ years later, it's actually possible to breathe in LA again. Yes, it sucks that it deprived us of a lot of automotive fun, but I'll take breathing any day.
It is my understanding that there are two serious issues with Los Angeles. The first is that it is in a basin which during the day concentrates pollution. The other is that there are very high ozone levels in LA of which it has not been established that the cause is from automobiles (It may even be natural). So LA in large part has driven the EPA requirement for California which is not fair to the rest of California. Are you now saying LA should drive requirements for the rest of the nation?
@Flathead Smith: You are correct in your understanding of the special case that is Los Angeles
Being a Los Angeles resident, the last time I checked, Los Angeles is physically inseparable from California. Additionally, the votes of Los Angeles alone would not have been sufficient to pass the existing legislation, so I call bullshit on your assertion that California's emission's standards are due solely to LA, and therefore LA is forcing their requirements on the rest of the nation.
Go check the federal legislation that brings the rest of the US up to California standards when it is released, and I bet you that you'll find positive votes from a lot of other states as well, which being that we live in a representative democracy, would go someway to indicating that the populace of other states voted for this as well, completely voluntarily.
Personally, I could give a damn what standards the rest of the US uses. All I know and care about is that the standards that California uses are both necessary and effective at what they were intended to do for the state of California.
I'm gonna go ahead and take an optimistic view that adding some more logic/consistency/sense into the basis and testing on emissions and fuel consumption could be a good thing for the likes of us.
Not the strictness, but the Byzantine nature of the current requirements is what keeps us out of diesels, stickshifts and great models from around the world.
@engineerd: We have Diesels in California. Diesel jeans, Diesel watches, Diesel shoes... Seriously though you can totally buy a new Jetta TDI or an F-350 with a Powerstroke or a Ram with the Cummins. Wow, diesels even sound dirty.
@jark: Trucks aren't a problem since they have a different set of standards.
It's the cars that are problematic. VW is one of the few car companies to offer a diesel in CA. In order for a diesel-powered car to be certified by CARB it essentially needs urea-injection, particulate filters, etc. which starts adding to the complexity and cost.
@engineerd: I like the urea system. Which you can, I suppose, just flat-out uninstall in most areas - doesn't California's smog-check exempt diesel vehicles? Or will the lack of piss extract throw a CEL?
@engineerd: And the cost, so that you can purchase a diesel vehicle at a three thousand dollar premium over gasoline models, and then pay thirty-five cents per gallon more while severely limiting the number of places you can refuel at that actually offer diesel.
And then, after that, you get to pay more for servicing because of all that extra equipment!
HAHAHAHA! Izn't Zhat Funny!
Fuck diesels. I don't care what the benefits of them are. As long as they have the afore-mentioned drawbacks, they sound like a great way to piss your money away.
05/18/09
05/18/09
You heard it here first.
05/18/09
Yes. Although I believe that It is because they didn't suckle at the teet of Government, and they don't have Obama as their CEO
05/18/09
They had the foresight to get loans start restructuring years ago, rather than wait until they were in dire straits.
05/18/09
05/18/09
Hopefully there is a cutoff date for those cars, 25 years is the law in Cali, if my memory is correct.
I can quickly think of a dozen people running around with a CE light and a P0420 for a Cat efficiency code meaning the Cat is no longer doing anything. When you tell them it is $1,000 for a proper replacement they will gladly drive it with the light on. The car runs normal, will for a long time, it's not plugged, just done.
Those people will be paying to replace it.
My area has zero emission testing or safety inspections. If this is a across the board equalizer there will be a lot of cars off the road.
Hell, I had a Chevy Celebrity with the front brake rotors so far worn down the fins where exposed from the center. Can't force them to fix it, or condemn the car, made them tow it out of my lot when they refused to have it fixed.
They figured it just needed pads.....
05/18/09
05/18/09
It's a free-for all on pre-75 or diesel titles vehicles before something like '05. Post '05 diesels aren't tested now, but they reserve the right to do so in the future.
No safety inspections (but cops can give you a fixit ticket if they see something).
The thing about CA is that despite the (false) crazy leftist image we have, we love our cars. There's a huge automotive aftermarket here.
Additionally, there's not much public transit, so poor people (who usually vote Dem.) need to be able to afford cheap cars. That argument tends to thwart legislation that affects automotive bottom-feeders.
05/18/09
05/18/09
Nevermind, maybe that's not such a good idea, cause that would require everybody not in California to have a lobotomy.
05/18/09
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05/18/09
Thanks anyway.
Don't want a 'lightweight' car that increases my chances of getting killed by a collision with a gnat. Don't care if it has a smaller engine or not.
05/18/09
Personally, I'd prefer if we as a country checked out of the extra mass and ladder frame arms race mentality.
05/18/09
05/18/09
Oh, I guess I was wrong, because there are soo many families out there with their 2.5 kids that want to pack their kids into aveo sized cars, and proceed to go out on the interstate and play bumper cars with 18-wheelers.
RLY.
05/18/09
why not the rest of the world is mixing with 18 wheelers in their aveo sized cars and they dont all seem to be instantly dead!
05/18/09
05/18/09
Europe's filled with small cars. They've also got quite a few huge trucks. Know why? Because they know that if any car, Fit or Suburban, crosses over the line and nails a semi head-on, they're gonna get seriously screwed over, probably killed.
And hulking ladder-frame vehicles, driven by the typical American (not saying you're in this category, necessarily) simply don't handle well enough to avoid most oncoming danger. Swerve too hard, and you're upside-down in a ditch, and your family's still badly hurt. With a smaller car you can often avoid what you'd otherwise hit.
As long as a vehicle's well-equipped for collisions with something intended for commuting or family-hauling, and it's got plenty of room for parents and children, go for it. An Aveo's a bad example, and it's not too safe anyway, but the above Honda Fit is slightly more practical, and something like an Accord, Malibu, or Fusion even more so. Plenty of room, safe against anything up to and including a one-ton pickup, maneuverable and reasonably efficient.
05/18/09
I'LL DRIVE WHAT I WANNA DRIVE YOU COMMIE!!!!! ARGH SO ANGRY!!!!11
05/18/09
Would you say that it's ok to drive a vehicle with giant metal spikes on the front, so that if you hit someone, you guarantee a kill?
Maybe a car rigged to explode in the event of an accident?
How about a simpler example: a car with a leaky gas tank and a completely shot brake system?
Essentially, it's not ok for you to drive a vehicle that puts others at undue risk.
It's not far back from there to an argument that maybe driving the biggest thing you can find isn't necessarily what's best for society.
05/18/09
And this debate isn't taking place in a vacuum; I have lots of issues with how my tax dollars are spent and how I as a vehicle driver will be held to account while GE and other giant polluters are not, or the government itself is not--ahose the biggest fossil fuel burner in the US? That would be the Pentagon. How much fuel is Obama wasting on his "I'm still campaigning!" speech tour? Ain't he supposed to be high tech? How about some video conferencing to set an example?
So I both flinch and laugh when I hear about these "standards."
05/18/09
Thanks for the inspiration, Daddy-O.
05/18/09
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This guy is a complete and total dumb-ass.
05/18/09
05/18/09
"The plan supposedly marries U.S. fuel economy and emissions standards to California polices and be supported by automakers and policymakers."
I can really only hope that this does not mean "the US will adopt California's policies," although pretty much anything but would mean California's policies will be relaxed somewhat. That would suck if no one in the entire country could buy a dark colored car because the extra a/c load uses up too much fuel...
05/18/09
Except there's no regulation about that.
Right now, CA already sets the standards for the rest of the country. CA and the states that have adopted its regs represent a significant enough portion of the market that it's easier for most companies to just adopt the standards for everything.
05/18/09
05/18/09
05/18/09
Explained another way, installing PCV valves on engines got rid of 50% (just guessing)of an engine's pollution. Installing a catalytic convertor and EGR valve decreased it by 35% (again just guessing) and all the other stuff got us to another 10 or 14% (just guessing again). To get that 1% out will take tremendous resources that will really do nothing for the environment.
The only real way to get that 1% is to get rid of gasoline burning engines, but that my friends is the greenies point.
05/18/09
05/18/09
I'm thinking coal into hydrogen. We've got a couple hundred years of coal.
05/18/09
Actually, it has made a huge difference. Back in the 80's, air quality here in Los Angeles wasn't significantly better than Mexico City, which is ranked as one of the world's most polluted cities.
20+ years later, it's actually possible to breathe in LA again. Yes, it sucks that it deprived us of a lot of automotive fun, but I'll take breathing any day.
05/18/09
05/18/09
It is my understanding that there are two serious issues with Los Angeles. The first is that it is in a basin which during the day concentrates pollution. The other is that there are very high ozone levels in LA of which it has not been established that the cause is from automobiles (It may even be natural). So LA in large part has driven the EPA requirement for California which is not fair to the rest of California. Are you now saying LA should drive requirements for the rest of the nation?
*See
Clearing the Air
By Indur M. Goklany
05/18/09
Being a Los Angeles resident, the last time I checked, Los Angeles is physically inseparable from California. Additionally, the votes of Los Angeles alone would not have been sufficient to pass the existing legislation, so I call bullshit on your assertion that California's emission's standards are due solely to LA, and therefore LA is forcing their requirements on the rest of the nation.
Go check the federal legislation that brings the rest of the US up to California standards when it is released, and I bet you that you'll find positive votes from a lot of other states as well, which being that we live in a representative democracy, would go someway to indicating that the populace of other states voted for this as well, completely voluntarily.
Personally, I could give a damn what standards the rest of the US uses. All I know and care about is that the standards that California uses are both necessary and effective at what they were intended to do for the state of California.
05/18/09
Not the strictness, but the Byzantine nature of the current requirements is what keeps us out of diesels, stickshifts and great models from around the world.
05/18/09
05/18/09
Which is why I am still trying to build my Army to overtake it all. Bring your swords to a gun fight, bring em!
05/18/09
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05/18/09
Sneaky Wu-Tang reference.
/They thought Mazda MPV's were "phat".
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TWIN turbos!
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It's the cars that are problematic. VW is one of the few car companies to offer a diesel in CA. In order for a diesel-powered car to be certified by CARB it essentially needs urea-injection, particulate filters, etc. which starts adding to the complexity and cost.
05/18/09
05/18/09
05/18/09
And then, after that, you get to pay more for servicing because of all that extra equipment!
HAHAHAHA! Izn't Zhat Funny!
Fuck diesels. I don't care what the benefits of them are. As long as they have the afore-mentioned drawbacks, they sound like a great way to piss your money away.
05/18/09
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