The Volkswagen of electricity


Nice Find linux-swat.

Now which path provides the better security against false-readings? Trust in a central authority (statism, socialism)? Or ability to switch service providers (market competition)?

*PS Volkswagen only cheated on emissions because the standards were impossible.
 
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But the standards were impossible because VW (and others) kept passing the previous standards easily.

On topic, I saw this story on the register a few days ago. I'm sticking with my mechanical meter for as long as possible, although up until this last week only because nobody's proven smart meters are at all secure.
 
It suggests that these smart meters sensor could be fooled by manipulating the current... Which might be much easier to do undetected than tamper with the old meters.
We might soon see some meter-fooling devices.
 
Big Clive has a rather good video explaining how to cheat old-fashioned meters. It's only slightly lethal...

 
But the standards were impossible because VW (and others) kept passing the previous standards easily.
Yeah, but it involved pricey additions to the engines, which were hurtful to performance and reliability. Exhaust Gas Recirculation they call it. Basically, it smothers the engine with its own gases. Feasibility isn't taken enough into account when it comes to environmental goals.
 
Thanks to .de the European NOx limits are about to be raised, so that's all good, right? You only need to adjust your standards to make all the cars environmentally safe.

Mobility is dirty, be it petrol, diesel or e. And almost all manufacturers swindle in some way or other, no just VW. BTW I lost my last job because America had to make VW pay fines. So thanks for that, too!
 
That's sad. I'm a car nut myself, so I don't really want petrol engines to totally go extinct, but I'm all for EVs for the masses who don't care besides going from A to B. I still worry about Mazda not releasing a Wankel sports car anytime soon (they're still trying to fit it to mileage and pollution standards), so talk about swapping all supercars with auto-pilot hybrids.
 
Loud pipes save lives ;)

I heard somewhere that there is not enough Lithium in the world to equip a significant number of vehicles with batteries.
 
I believe the answer lies in external combustion, ala steam engines.

A more complete burn means less emissions. However I also don't believe the earth contains enough material to safely allow all humans to have their own transportation. So we need a massive population decline, or people need to get used to the idea that only like, 5% of people should be allowed to have a car.

One thing is for sure, we can't just keep going the way we are now.
 
I say the idea of personal motorcars for all should be abandoned completely.
That said, the the last 50-odd years of insane city planning needs to be undone first.

Sprawling suburbs are pretty much impossible to serve well with public transport, as are these housing estates they keep building out in the villages.

Electric motorcars should be owned by hire companies, taxi operators, and people who live in remote areas.
ICE-powered motorcars should become a curiosity for hobbyists perhaps the way steam engines are today.
 
Some of us, though, actually enjoy driving.

On unleaded gas engines:
The Exhaust Gas Recycler systems on most modern cars DO make the net exhaust output at idle or any given RPM cleaner than it would be on the same system without them. The standards measure at the tailpipe. But, they do so at a performance cost - which means that the engine has to run harder to maintain adequate power - which burns more fuel to overcome the power lost to the EGR system.

This is in addition to vehicles having catalytic converters that finish burning the carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide. Although those do rob the engine of some power, they actually do their job fairly well.

On diesel engines:
Where VW got into trouble was on their diesel emissions - and that they had software designed to specifically alter the vehicle's emissions output during testing cycles. There are ways to make a diesel engine emissions compliant, but that usually involves complicated post combustion scrubbers to catch and process the soot. Those are expensive to install, maintain and require energy (power loss). VW avoided this simply by having their vehicles run in a lower power mode producing less exhaust during testing. Genius in a bad way. So, they got good on-road performance while spewing soot then would down-power while testing.

On emissions testing:
Current testing measures the ratio of pollutants per liter of exhaust gases coming out the tailpipe. So, manufacturers recycle emissions gases back through the engine and add air pumps into the exhaust system to increase the amounts of net gas coming out of the tailpipe which in turn decreases the pollution per liter of exhaust - even though it actually increases the pollution per operating mile.

Personally, I think it's time to change the whole emissions testing paradigm. Instead of net emissions per liter of exhaust gasses, I think it should be net emissions per unit of generated power at the wheels. This is easy enough to test/verify on a dyno hooked up to an exhaust chromatograph. This should be a measure of engine fuel to power combustion efficiency instead of a measure of devices engineered to, "pass the test".

Changing this mindset could make a modern engine design 15-20% more powerful. That translates into the same power with a lighter engine which translates to a lighter car which translates to less energy needed to accelerate which translates into greater distances traveled on less fuel while producing the same or less actual pollution.

The concept of using testing and goals for cleaner vehicles isn't a bad thing. The testing standards written into place by politicians with little to no concept of what actually defines 'pollution' and 'efficiency' are simply perpetuating a cycle of automotive engine designs made to fool the test.
 
trains. we need more trains. they're pretty cool, and the drivers aren't into illegal races or trying to impress random passer-bys with their vehicle :D

on topic: the meters we have are old af (the basement they're in looks like something you'd see in a horror movie about an abandoned house), but the landlord is so busy with other stuff all the time, so they'll probably resolve that bs before we get new ones :D it's weird that they didn't do an extended test with real households and a side-by-side comparison with conventional meters. i guess the costs would've been too high xD
 
The concept of using testing and goals for cleaner vehicles isn't a bad thing. The testing standards written into place by politicians with little to no concept of what actually defines 'pollution' and 'efficiency' are simply perpetuating a cycle of automotive engine designs made to fool the test.
Seeing how politicians continue to sign off on tests that are totally removed from reality I don't attribute this behaviour to a lack of knowledge, rather to criminal energy.

NEFZ the new European test cycle e.g. has "accelerate to 50Kph over 20(!) seconds"
Or taping of air gaps on the car body for better CW values is also allowed

I wonder where the much lauded German engineering comes into play when all they manage is making cars heavier and giving them more horsepower.

Driving on the Autobahn is a constant headshake for me because of how many e.g. X5 or Cayenne SUVs are speeding along at 180+ Kph. Going just 130 you get treated like a hindrance by everything that's not a lorry. Driving Autobahn in the Netherlands was the most relaxed thing I've ever done. Cross the border to Germany and you're on the racing track again. Combine that with work/business stress and you get motor hell.
 
Some of us, though, actually enjoy driving.
There are video games for those people, I believe.

Regarding city planning, I've found most european cities are quite amenable to being cycled around, once you've learned the specific spots to avoid (hyde park corner roundabout on a pushbike is a particular biting point for me)

Regarding train drivers not trying to impress people, that's generally true unless they're a specific spanish driver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derailment
 
Given the amount of industrial action going on in the UK at the moment around train guards no longer having to press a button to unlock the doors in a station (the driver can do that instead), leaving them free to check tickets and provide assistance, I'd suggest that while AI driven trains would be a good step forward in terms of technology and safety (and ideally should happen before self-driving AI cars become a real thing), it's unlikely to happen any time soon. Although in some senses it would be a blast from the past, given London's had the DLR since the late 1980s.
 
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