Tesla Throws Cold Water On Its Own Hype
Volkswagen’s diesel scandal could just be the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to carmakers faking emissions figures. Carmakers are exploiting weak and outdated EU laws to claim misleading statistics about fuel efficiency, a new report says. Real-world CO2 emissions are up to 40 percent higher than in the lab.
According to a study released this week by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), vehicle manufacturers are “systematically exploiting technical tolerances and imprecise definitions” to wrongly record their fuel efficiency and therefore their carbon dioxide emissions.
The ICCT tested 29 passenger cars built between 2009 and 2012 (including ten available in the US), comparing their real-world emissions with the official figures of the French and German approval agencies, and – for the US cars – official parameters used in US emissions certification tests. Full story –Ben Knight, Deutsche Welle, 12 May 2016
Here’s a dose of reality about Tesla’s heavily hyped mass-market Model 3 electric car: The company hasn’t yet finalized the design for the Model 3, hasn’t selected its parts suppliers, isn’t sure it can produce and deliver the car in volume and on time, and still needs to do “extensive testing” to make sure the car can meet quality standards and government regulations. –Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 11 May 2016
h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser, GWPF
It’s astounding that anyone would think that any of these discrepancies in gas mileage would have any relevance whatsoever. Does anyone think that Meredes changing their sticker to reflect emissions more accurately would have any effect, on anything? Pointless article that can’t explain why cheating means anything. It doesn’t.
Your spot on tadchem and arthur.
It’s the impossible to meet fuel + bio-fuel mixture mandates by government around the world that are the problem, the car manufactures have stated this all along to deaf eared watermelons like Obama and company.
arthur4563
Small quibble: NOX actually does damage health. Cheating increases this. That definitely counts as something.
And I Do see McCarthyism here and don’t know how
real needed
TTIP ever get’s through against a deep confounded Mistrust over the Pacific.
TG on May 12, 2016 at 12:46 pm
Your spot on tadchem and arthur.
It’s the impossible to meet fuel + bio-fuel mixture mandates by government around the world that are the problem, the car manufactures have stated this all along to deaf eared watermelons like Obama and company.
__________________________________________
+1 TG.
Problem is : Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes should have told EPA
no automaker can comply with your demands.
You’re strangling car producers globally. What You’re up to.
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And go into self defending as EXXON already does.
It doesn’t really matter does it? The quoted figures are only useful as a comparison so if all manufacturers cheat and present a best possible result the consumer still gets the guidance they think they need.
It seems to me that VW should receive some sort of reward for meeting some numbers extablished bya bureaucracy. I salute VW.
Off topic but…. The WUWT Wikipedia entry is hysterical.
Wow! The 1,775 words in the footnotes far outnumber the 957 words in the actual article.
I have no idea what this means, but just saying.
I expect the usual 10% off the top stuff to be pretty ubiquitous. But a cool third is a little steep.
It’s not fraud. Fraud is a deliberate act of deception by a freely acting fraudster. On the other hand, this behavior is a behavior forced upon the carmakers by the nasty environmentalist bureaucrats. It’s analogous to a hostage’s saying something when someone is pointing a gun to your head. Everyone who sides with the government bureaucrats is inhuman.
When someone is being bullied by an anti-CO2 bureaucrat in this way, he surely has the right to say anything inaccurate, use any trick, or do everything to physically neutralize the bully. In that case, it wouldn’t be a murder but a self-defense, too.
New, unsold Teslas gather dust in a public car park
https://dailykanban.com/2016/05/480053/
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/4ik2fl/crashed_a_tesla_meet/
There are two solutions to producing more fuel efficient and lower emitting cars. A. Figure out how to do so technologically, up to the natural limits of the system being studied. B. When politicians demand improvements not possible with the technology and no foreseeable technology solutions are available, then just make shit up. The most cost-effective solution in the short term is B and the only one ultimately feasible after simple improvements have been implemented, is B. What I see more than anything, is that the feasible limits of mileage and emissions has been reached, so like the Chinese, fraud is going to consume the manufacturing process. It is going to get much worse over time as the demands increase and the technology flatlines for improvements. In the end, the technical reports with be so full of garbage, they will be suitable for use in American or EU budgets by politicians. They may even give up on technology studies altogether and just have the marketing department come up with data.
There is nothing wrong with the figures produced by the manufacturers for the original purpose they were created for (excluding VW’s shenanigans – though I have a theory on that one that is less nefarious than the current zeitgeist would have it). These are controlled tests for the purpose of comparing representative models (rolling road at 20-30 C) with a specific acceleration, deceleration, idling and cruising profiles – details here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/fcb/the-fuel-consumption-testing-scheme.asp . They were not designed as test of real world conditions and not a test for measuring “climate change” impacts.
Much like the temperature data collected for the use by the agriculturally minded (min and max temperatures are very important for crops and livestock – average temperatures not so much) – when it is put forward as a measure for something it was not to designed to measure you can find many faults with it.
So whilst a few marketing departments made much of the enforced declaration of the above test results – there is not some huge conspiracy by the industry to confuse their customers (most of which these days are more clued up than the dealers) .
Disclaimer – yes I work in the motor trade but the above is my own opinion.
The Tesla like wind turbines and solar panels are a green wet dream of saving the planet, but in the real world disruptive and cost the tax payer many more times over than what they are worth.
TSLA is off from its high of $270 five weeks ago to $207 today.
Model S Tesla’s do around 3.5 miles per KWH. Drive beautifully and can pull performance ratings far beyond their use/cost base. Also you can buy one of these for 50K and fill her up for free, for life.
A moot point made by a previous poster about “unsold teslas”. They don’t make them off spec like all the other mfr’s. You order the car and you have to wait.
Lets pity the 450,000 “Model 3” depositors.
They are not perfect. No US built gear is, ever. Must admit they are improving.
Lets go back to the consumption of these and compare a standard size/performance motor. say 10(US)mpg and YOU have to pay for every drop. The electric bill to crack crude into fuel is not small nor cheap either and that adds to the CO2 bill imposed by the greenies..
Dream on fan boi. Do some analysis of the “free” charge up and you will see it is yet another way Tesla is burning cash, along with the money they lose on the sale of each car. And try costing the purchase without the fat subsidy provided by the governments.
Tesla continually states that they are supply constrained – that they would sell more cars if they could make them. So why are there unsold, unregistered Model S’s and X’s gathering dust in a public car park? If demand was so great, surely some of these would be taken by people who found the spec “close enough”.
I do pity the Model 3 depositers as they have tied up $1000 for a car that won’t be delivered – not that the design is finalised so they are taking a bet on a prototype.Tesla simply does not have the resources nor capital to ramp up production to cover those orders before the Model 3 is made obsolete by other manufacturers and changing circumstances. The smart ones will be getting their deposit refunded ASAP.
How about measuring “emissions” by environmental “degradation” per mile driven? Of course, that would take every Tesla and Prius off the road…
Conversely – when testing a “conventional” vehicle, let the manufacturer run their tailpipe one or two hundred miles away, just like the Tesla and Prius get to do.