Another Dieselgate...

[woodgeek]

I drove tractor trailer for years, both pre computer controlled diesels and post DEF catalytic controlled diesels. On the older trucks if it was parked for the weekend when I started it there would be a dusting of soot come out of the stacks. It got to where on the new trucks we didn't even have stacks just low road exhaust even on sleeper cabs. You could be hooking up with the truck running and not even smell the diesel fumes. Of course, most hated the DEF and the particulate filters. The newer diesel pickups can use the same technology but if you look at used truck ads or diesel shop ads they all have the delete done or shops offer the delete service. No emission checks or state inspections so they do what they want. Plus "rolling coal" is the cool thing to do when Granny buys you a diesel pickup and you want to impress your buddies.

So why not make light diesel trucks subject to annual (and perhaps random) inspections and fines to crack down on that?

NOx emissions do kill people, if they occur in populated areas. This analysis suggests that the VW cheating results in 10,000 premature deaths per year in the EU.

https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/the-dieselgate-and-air-pollution-in-europe/

How much does cheating on US diesel light trucks cause?

Compare that with 40,000 deaths in car accidents per year in the US, that we spend a lot of money to reduce.

 

[peakbagger]

Emission testing is state by state. NH plugs into the OBD port during yearly inspections and if the truck is not in compliance its doesnt pass. I think Mass has yearly testing. Maine does not have those rules, so Maine is a dumping ground for NH vehicles that dont pass. VT passed some tough rules a few years ago to weed out units that didnt meet the standards but the state caved at the last minute and watered down the regs so beaters are still on the road. Tennessee is somewhat infamous for ignoring clean air standards so there is thriving industry stripping emissions equipment. More than a few folks up north have been burned buying "southern cars" and shipping them north to emmission states and discover they are unable to pass emissions meaning they cant get them inspected or drive them until restored.

In most cases states and the fed have a 25 year cut off for emissions compliance. My Unimog 1300 was imported when it was 26 years old which means it did not need to meet EPA or US safety standards. Same with with my LJ 70 landcruiser.

BTW the infamous Unimog once owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger was reportedly an illegal import originally and it floated around in the gray market for several years bouncing between various dealers. I talked to a legit importer who was contacted to try to clean up the paperwork and he wouldnt go anywhere near it. I see it is for sale again and maybe its now legit. Last thing I knew CA has some regulations that ban registering of these import diesels.

 

[Eman85]

I live in the land of no rules and regulations, no state inspections and a very loose law on required car insurance. Not going to see any regulations on vehicles in many states.

 

[woodgeek]

I live in the land of no rules and regulations, no state inspections and a very loose law on required car insurance. Not going to see any regulations on vehicles in many states.

Looks like ground level NOx has a lifetime of 2-8 hours in the atmosphere, so the spread between distant states should be minimal.

PM2.5 lasts longer however...

 

[Ashful]

Excuse my ignorance, but I get that Diesels are cheaper per hp at high hp (especially naturally aspirated), and have better low end torque. But if that is all there is, then it seems that low end torque can be made up with a better transmission, and the cost per hp factor may be negligible. Maybe we need gasoline V12s? Or turbo injection?

Weee already said it well, the trouble with gassers is that their efficiency nosedives under heavy towing. 7 - 8 mpg on gasoline while pulling a horse trailer is a real thing. Diesels do not suffer such enormous drops in mpg, when loaded.

Also, you call out horsepower, but gasoline engines are actually substantially cheaper for high horsepower. It's torque where diesels dominate, their horsepower is actually lower. Big old Freightliner 400's with pistons like 1 gallon paint cans and displacements that would make your head spin, only made 400 horsepower.

But I totally agree with you that diesel passenger vehicles should be a thing of the past. Also, at least around here, as many heavy duty diesel pickups are driven by young guys who want to pretend they're truckers, as people actually hauling or towing anything heavy. You can't take away freedom of choice, and substantial financial penalties will only hurt the folks who actually need these vehicles for work, so there's no real obvious solution to the problem.

 

[peakbagger]

Small diesels are still used in the third world as diesel is a lot easier to source than gasoline. The UN and other aid agencies preferred vehicles are still Toyota LJ70 diesels for durability and range despite the actual vehicle design going back to the mid seventies. They have cleaned them up over the years with better injection systems but they would not meet US emissions. They were still being sold in Europe until a few years ago but NOx issues did them in. Biodiesel can make them low carbon but even biodiesel makes NOx and the complexity of NOx removal systems saps too much HP (as VW learned).

 

[woodgeek]

Weee already said it well, the trouble with gassers is that their efficiency nosedives under heavy towing. 7 - 8 mpg on gasoline while pulling a horse trailer is a real thing. Diesels do not suffer such enormous drops in mpg, when loaded.

Also, you call out horsepower, but gasoline engines are actually substantially cheaper for high horsepower. It's torque where diesels dominate, their horsepower is actually lower. Big old Freightliner 400's with pistons like 1 gallon paint cans and displacements that would make your head spin, only made 400 horsepower.

But I totally agree with you that diesel passenger vehicles should be a thing of the past. Also, at least around here, as many heavy duty diesel pickups are driven by young guys who want to pretend they're truckers, as people actually hauling or towing anything heavy. You can't take away freedom of choice, and substantial financial penalties will only hurt the folks who actually need these vehicles for work, so there's no real obvious solution to the problem.

So, it seems if a factory dumps a bunch of crap into local waterways and groundwater and ends up causing a bunch of premature deaths, we get up in arms about it, but if folks driving 'deleted' diesel pickups do the same thing, we give them a pass, bc the gasoline options get worse gas mileage while towing... and they may not be able to afford to switch?

From a purely tech point of view, I am sure the issues are solvable. (1) a hybrid gasoline drivetrain would help mpg slightly (when not towing) AND could be used to boost low-end torque. (2) since gasoline cylinders don't scale up, you could have a v10 or V12 or turbocharged engine sized for efficiency during towing loads, and turn some of the cylinders off when not towing, as done for mpg in some cars.

I also think it very unlikely that the makers would be interested in engineering and building trucks with such power plants, as long as they can sell diesels and the Feds look the other way on ALL THE CHEATING. Esp since electric powertrains will then sunset these powerplants after 2035 plus or minus.

As for heavy trucks, I think NOx regulations are working fine, and fleet owners can navigate the transition to electrification based upon their own cost of ownership calculations. Given their high mileage, EVs might pencil out earlier there than in personal pickups.

 

[woodgeek]

Small diesels are still used in the third world as diesel is a lot easier to source than gasoline. The UN and other aid agencies preferred vehicles are still Toyota LJ70 diesels for durability and range despite the actual vehicle design going back to the mid seventies. They have cleaned them up over the years with better injection systems but they would not meet US emissions. They were still being sold in Europe until a few years ago but NOx issues did them in. Biodiesel can make them low carbon but even biodiesel makes NOx and the complexity of NOx removal systems saps too much HP (as VW learned).

Ofc crude fractionates onto a certain amount of gasoline and a certain amount of diesel. The existing system managed to use both fractions efficiently (and used the asphalt for roads). Very nice. It will be interesting to see how things evolve if the relative demand for diesel/gasoline shifts in the future...

Diesel is basically just an incomplete combustion process machine, and makes a witches brew of unstable compounds, but as stated above, has great power scaling to large formats, low cost, and good throttleability. If we wanted a powerplant for a PHEV vehicle, its not clear that the optimum choice would be diesel or gasoline ICE... an external combustion steam turbine or Stirling engine would probably be more efficient and have fewer parts (while having terrible throttleability and slow startup). The use of gasoline ICE in PHEVs is just a function of sunk engineering costs in such engines and their manufacturing.

 

[Ashful]

I also think it very unlikely that the makers would be interested in engineering and building trucks with such power plants, as long as they can sell diesels and the Feds look the other way on ALL THE CHEATING.

I know I'm naive on the specifics, here... always counting on the true experts to have already done their homework when the current laws were put on the books. That said, I look at this problem just the same as I consider the border crisis or any other, in that we need to enforce the laws we have today, before any valid discussion can be had on changes in tech, laws, etc. If we're not going to enforce the law, and those currently circumventing it know that, then any new effort will be also similarly hampered.

If police actually pulled over and ticketed or impounded every coal roller on the road today, then discussions of what to do next might carry more weight. Likewise, if stiffer penalties and supervision were implemented for vehicle inspection centers, actually taking away the inspections license of any facility that allowed modified diesels to pass thru unchecked, then folks deleting their emissions would be quickly removed from the road.

Of course, that's really only applicable to light trucks. I think the big boys are going direct from diesel to battery. I guesss that could be pure BEV or PHEV. With mature battery tech so close at hand, do you really see much merit in investing in development new gasoline/diesel hybrids, or large freight-class variable cylinder deactivation schemes based on gasoline?

 

[woodgeek]

Of course, that's really only applicable to light trucks. I think the big boys are going direct from diesel to battery. I guesss that could be pure BEV or PHEV. With mature battery tech so close at hand, do you really see much merit in investing in development new gasoline/diesel hybrids, or large freight-class variable cylinder deactivation schemes based on gasoline?

Given that the makers are not jumping to build such engines for light vehicles, I assume they can't/won't amortize the engineering cost before EVs show up.

This suggests there is not a (suitably low cost) tech solution to the problem. We can add the lost lives from preventable NOx and PM2.5 to a list of others due to, as you say, poor enforcement of existing laws and regulations.

 

[weee123]

For the gasoline hybrid trucks, the current hybrid F150 gets the same if not worse mpg than my current F150 and has less towing capacity due to the extra weight of the battery.

Cylinder deactivation causes a lot of problems in the trucks that have it. GM has been trying it and their truck engines are plagued with valve train issues because of the cylinder deactivation. People swap out the cam in favor of one that deletes that ability for more reliability.

V10 engines were tried in the late 90s early 2000s with no real benefit to them and none are made anymore as far as I’m aware. V12’s are for super cars not trucks.

I never said I was in favor of diesel deletion. The people who roll coal are clowns who don’t do it for performance gain as it is just raw unburnt fuel spewing out of the tail pipe. The ones who care about performance tune the trucks so they don’t waste fuel like that.

Also a big reason people “delete” their diesels is to drastically increase the reliability of them. Unfortunately all of the emissions controls on diesels took away the ultra reliability that the old gutless wonders of the past were known for. They might not have been super high hp or torque power houses but they’ll still tow a house down the road for a million miles.

 

[bholler]

For the gasoline hybrid trucks, the current hybrid F150 gets the same if not worse mpg than my current F150 and has less towing capacity due to the extra weight of the battery.

Cylinder deactivation causes a lot of problems in the trucks that have it. GM has been trying it and their truck engines are plagued with valve train issues because of the cylinder deactivation. People swap out the cam in favor of one that deletes that ability for more reliability.

V10 engines were tried in the late 90s early 2000s with no real benefit to them and none are made anymore as far as I’m aware. V12’s are for super cars not trucks.

I never said I was in favor of diesel deletion. The people who roll coal are clowns who don’t do it for performance gain as it is just raw unburnt fuel spewing out of the tail pipe. The ones who care about performance tune the trucks so they don’t waste fuel like that.

Also a big reason people “delete” their diesels is to drastically increase the reliability of them. Unfortunately all of the emissions controls on diesels took away the ultra reliability that the old gutless wonders of the past were known for. They might not have been super high hp or torque power houses but they’ll still tow a house down the road for a million miles.

Yes the current hybrid trucks don't do anything for hauling/towing. Honestly I think they are pretty much a joke because no one has really put any real effort into it.

 

[weee123]

Yes the current hybrid trucks don't do anything for hauling/towing. Honestly I think they are pretty much a joke because no one has really put any real effort into it.

Absolutely. The one claim to fane they have is you run electric equipment or your house off them. But for less than $1k I can throw a gas generator in the bed and have the same capability in any truck.

 

[DonTee]

Most people I see with half ton trucks almost never use them as trucks. Quad cab with a very short bed. They’re driving them just to say they drive a truck I think.

That’s part of our problem. People driving big/heavy vehicles for no good reason.

 

[woodgeek]

Yeah, I wouldn't expect a hybrid drivetrain to help with towing capacity, since it doesn't deliver sustained power. But it should help with low end torque, and peak power, if done correctly.

 

[Ashful]

For the gasoline hybrid trucks, the current hybrid F150 gets the same if not worse mpg than my current F150 and has less towing capacity due to the extra weight of the battery.

True. But one company's botched or half-assed implementation of a concept does not completely invalidate the merit of the concept.

Cylinder deactivation causes a lot of problems in the trucks that have it. GM has been trying it and their truck engines are plagued with valve train issues because of the cylinder deactivation. People swap out the cam in favor of one that deletes that ability for more reliability.

I pretty much only buy vehicles with high-displacement V8 or larger engines, and so all of my vehicles have had cylinder deactivation the last 10+ years. I've not had a single problem with any of them. If GM can't manage to get it right, there are plenty of other manufacturers who have.

All implementations of cylinder deactivation I owned prior to our 2020 car had noticeable lag in coming out of cylinder deactivation, almost like the lag/surge you'd feel when tripping the kickdown linkage on an older automatic transmission. But on our 2020, and assumedly later, it's so completely transparent and smooth that you can't even tell when it is happening. Moreover you can disable it at the press of the button, which I almost always do on the 2016 sedan, but rarely touch on the pickup truck or SUV.

 

[begreen]

My guess is that hybrid trucks will replace diesel over time. As battery power density increases, pure electric will take over. There is also the outlier - hydrogen.

Toyota’s Fuel-Cell Conversion Kit Can Replace Diesel in U.S., EU

Toyota wins approval from California for its hydrogen fuel-cell conversion kit designed to replace diesel engines.

www.wardsauto.com

 

[peakbagger]

And back to Cummins https://apnews.com/article/united-s...ions-testing-5bf95ebbd255bcd9758edce5fad1205f

The big issue with the VW recall is the cars that were fixed had noticeable performance degradation to the point that VW bought them back from the original customers and resold them. More than a few were never brought back to be upgraded. I do not think any state that tests for emissions were flunking them for not having the recall done. My guess is there will be far less Dodges brought in for the recall and the number will drop if there is one bit of performance loss. There also could be an issue that trucks that have undergone "deletion" of emissions equipment will not be able to be made legit.

Of course, in the VW case there were criminal charges applied to various officers, in Cummins case it looks like they just pay a fine.

 

[woodgeek]

The US also saw a chance to stick it to an EU company, versus being less interested in doing the same to a domestic company.

 

[Ashful]

The US also saw a chance to stick it to an EU company, versus being less interested in doing the same to a domestic company.

... or at least set a good example for other manufacturers, without huge impact on the US automakers.

 

[Dieselhead]

The fix for the rams is a simple ECM reflash to inject more DEF to bring NOx levels down to what was mandated when the vehicles were approved back in 2012-18. Nobody should notice a change in performance like what happened with the VW debacle.

 

[bholler]

The fix for the rams is a simple ECM reflash to inject more DEF to bring NOx levels down to what was mandated when the vehicles were approved back in 2012-18. Nobody should notice a change in performance like what happened with the VW debacle.

So what did they gain by cheating?

 

[DBoon]

Nobody problems wants to spend much money on DEF or have to fill a DEF reservoir often. I recall that the VW diesel engines would have required too large a DEF reservoir that wouldn't fit in the engine compartment and/or drivers didn't want to fill up a DEF reservoir more often than 10,000 miles. Without the DEF, the VW diesel engine would be automatically disabled (from what I recall).

 

[ericm979]

My guess is there will be far less Dodges brought in for the recall and the number will drop if there is one bit of performance loss.

At least in California, getting the recall is a precondition to renewing registration. Other CARB states may follow suit. Or maybe all states- I don't know if it was a CARB thing to tie it to registration or a federal one.

There also could be an issue that trucks that have undergone "deletion" of emissions equipment will not be able to be made legit.

It depends on what the dealer does when applying the recall- if they can't perform the recall due to missing parts, then the owner won't get the recall done and would not be able to renew registration. If the dealer can do the recall, or they're in a state that does not tie the recall to registration renewal, then they'd be ok.

If it's an update to the software to use more DEF, that'd be in the ECU, which would be present even if the emissions equipment was removed or modified. Maybe a dealer would refuse to update a highly modified truck. If the truck is running modified ECU software, the recall update would overwrite it.

Of course, in the VW case there were criminal charges applied to various officers, in Cummins case it looks like they just pay a fine.

VW execs were in Germany where laws are different and corporations can't get away with as much.

 

[Dieselhead]

So what did they gain by cheating?

Beats the heck out of me, if you find out let me know.