Green Cars You Can't Buy 528
Geoffrey.landis writes "Auto industry blogger Lawrence Ulrich notes that Honda is now making a "Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle" (or PZEV for short) version of the 2008 Accord, an all-new vehicle that is redesigned to meet California emission standards. He notes "So, just how green is a PZEV machine? Well, if you just cut your lawn with a gas mower, congratulations, you just put out more pollution in one hour than these cars do in 2,000 miles of driving."
But the irony is that it's actually illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states they were designed for! Apparently, anybody selling one of these ultra-green vehicles out of the correctly-designated venue — which means either California, or seven northeast-states with similar pollution laws — "could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.""
Partially Zero? (Score:5, Insightful)
From-the-WTF-Dept. (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, you Uh-mericans need to get rid of Bush, quick fast and in a hurry! Ron Paul might give you half a chance to get your freedom & economy back... and perhaps environment... Good luck!
Why are they illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
What?! What do you mean? (Score:2, Insightful)
Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be unfair competition (Score:5, Insightful)
If they let Honda sell near zero emissions automobiles in states where it's not mandated, that might put pressure on everybody else to also make near zero emissions cars, and that's just not fair!
So we should all thank our friends in the Government, for helping ot insure that competition in the marketplace does not create unfair competition.
Sometimes you can't tell spoof from reality.
Something doesn't seem right. (Score:3, Insightful)
So... Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Zero is absolute (Score:2, Insightful)
You are right! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, lets not discuss the assinine laws that prevent green vehicles from being sold in all locales. Let's, instead, get picky over a term. That's more important, isn't it?
Re:These are hybrid vehicles (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It would be unfair competition (Score:5, Insightful)
So you have to maintain a pure capitalist model for health-care even though it's really inefficient, but if you try to do that for cars you get punished? I know cognitive dissonance in government is common, but this is mental.
Does anybody else wonder whether the US government has been taken over by somebody (possibly giant alien lizards [wikipedia.org]) who are deliberately trying to ruin the country? I honestly can't see how they could do a worse job if they tried. It's even more amazing how much congress and the senate sit back and watch them piss all over 50 years of dominating the world, pushing the nox button on the hand-basket heading towards hell.
As a Brit, I feel grateful that our Empire went out in a blaze of glory. Yours is just imploding. My sympathies.
Peter
Re:It would be unfair competition (Score:3, Insightful)
Poorly-written article (Score:4, Insightful)
No Less CO2 (Score:4, Insightful)
But also:
This is quite telling. If the PZEV cars get the same fuel efficiency as conventional vehicles, then they are consuming the same amount of carbon and putting the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.
So how can they be less polluting than a lawn mower? The article must NOT be including CO2 as a pollutant (the same view the Bush administration took of the Clean Air Act). So these vehicles probably emit less sulfur and nitrogen compounds and particulates, but the same amount of CO2.
Re:Zero is absolute (Score:5, Insightful)
now take California's "normal" driving conditions of sitting on the freeway STOPPED for hours. An Ultra low is making it's small amount of emissions sitting there... A PZ is making NOTHING.
It makes perfect sense why california would be crazy about them. A prius makes as much pollution as a camry in Texas, but a prius makes much less than a camry(ulev) in california, because in california, pollution is a function of TIME, not MILES like most other places.
Re:very simple reason for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Logics like this makes me wonder if the whole world has gone mad or just me.
The R&D is done. The money is gone. Whether the car is sold outside the state or not it wouldn't cost more tax dollars. Instead of setting such stupid prohibiting fines, they really should have just made an agreement to tax each and every out of state sale in a reasonable manner and recover some of that R&D cost back for the tax payers.
Carbon Dioxide is the most important pollutant (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway - pretty pointless concentrating on the less important pollutants rather than on those that may irreversibly change the earth's climate through global warming...
You may now waste lots of time trying to convince me that global warming doesn't exist or is not caused by human activity. (FX: rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.)
Re:Why are they illegal? (Score:2, Insightful)
He also dangles "pollution free" and "zero emissions" in front of us without explaining that burning gas will always produce byproducts, no matter what filter you put on. Sure, you're filtering particulate material, but that doesn't mean you have zero emissions! It's a terrible article, instead of learning anything, I think it actually added extra noise to my head.
Total SHENANIGANS on this article. (Score:4, Insightful)
That last quote's the big bell-ringer. OK, a car that puts out less emissions by turning off the engine part of the time. And you expect me to believe that it gets the same gas mileage? How, by dribbling fuel out on the road through a hose?
Re:Am I right in assuming... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m (Score:5, Insightful)
Might be valid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:very simple reason for it (Score:5, Insightful)
It starts from this innocent sounding premise: you can't charge the government more for something than you do the private sector.
Oddly enough, this is why the government pays more for things than the private sector. Private sector purchasers don't think this way. They don't care how much you charge other people, so long as they are paying as little as possible. This means they can buy from anybody, not just vendors who are willing to do the accounting to prove they are charging you the same as everybody else. The government, on the other hand, often finds itself dealing with vendors who specialize in providing things to the government, or provide special versions of products and services that they sell only to the government.
While this case is not exactly parallel, the logic is the same. On the surface, making the sale of these vehicle "fair" to CA consumers would seem to imply making them available at the lowest possible price. It just happens to turn out that "fair" and "as inexpensive as possible" are two somewhat different things. They can't both be the highest priority. So when government money is involved, you don't get the lowest possible price, you get the lowest possible price that is consistent with documentable "fairness".
So, it is probable that in the long term that CA residents pay more for their cars by making sure other states' residents don't "freeload".
Re:Zero is absolute (Score:3, Insightful)
PZEV is a super-set of SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emissions). a PZEV meets SULEV standards, has zero evaporative emissions, and has a long (15 years/150,000 mile) warranty on the emissions control systems.
Re:It would be unfair competition (Score:2, Insightful)
And there is the rub. The Republican party has underfunded, demoralized and stretched the military to the breaking point. Only the CEOs of contractors and private "security" forces are well funded and organized.
Gov'ts dont want fuel efficient cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It would be unfair competition (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, most people would say our system is inefficient because it's nothing close to a "pure capitalist model." Not even remotely close to one; the government interferes on every level.
As a Brit, I feel grateful that our Empire went out in a blaze of glory. Yours is just imploding. My sympathies.
Dude, you guys were beat by Ghandi. GHANDI!
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m (Score:3, Insightful)
Perfect article... for yellow journalism (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the article is lame because of WHY they didn't give any details. After admitting the fault is the government's the author uses most of the article to IMPLY that it is all some sort of conspiracy of the automakers. Had the author gave a clear explanation of what sort of government stupidity was preventing 'out of area sales' on these green cars he would have looked pretty daft trying to lay the blame on the auto industry. But because he did actually mention there being a law being against it and didn't outright put on his tinfoil hat he won't be called to account for his yellow journalism. J school students should study this one as a canonical example of how to do agenda journalism. (And since modern journalism is overtly agenda journalism, out to 'make the world a better place' instead of old fashioned 'just the facts'......)
Dude, that's by design (Score:3, Insightful)
If healthcare was purely capitalist, the doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies and so on would be acting for the benefit of the consumer.
But that means curing people. There's more money to be made in treating symptoms. And don't you dare try to change that! You'll be called anti-business for trying to cut into their profits.
Re:Imploding? Hardly.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If those sites are what you've been reading then it's no wonder you're worried about the U.S. declining. If find the anti-Bush site [bordergate...otocol.net] particularly interesting. There's a lot of good sound bites in there and there's a grain of truth in every one of them but the author is insinuating a number of cause-effect relationships where there is only correlation. Please, let's not forget about reason. Correlation does not prove causation. It's not just something you use when doing science, it's a foundation of any sound reasoning.
I'm not going to go through everything you posted and rebut each one but I can at least cherry pick a few as examples. For instance, "I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period." Or how about, "I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market. " The government does not control the stock market last I checked although they do regulate it. Let's also not forget that when Bush took office we had a highly inflated stock market due to several investors speculating on companies with no serious business plan. But I'm not going to turn around and blame Clinton for that even though that occurred on his watch. Anyone who puts his money into a company with no sound plan is taking a huge risk. Sometimes it pays off. I find it odd that anyone would hold the government responsible for this at all.
Sayers discussed this quite a bit in her excellent book The Mind of the Maker. Why is it that people look to politicians to solve their problems? That is simply not their job. Their job is to keep the government running as in protect the country from invasion and to allow the people in the country to live their lives with as little interference as possible. That's it. If you haven't read The Mind of the Maker you should. It unfortunately gets shoehorned into the theology category so you may find it over in that section of your local bookstore. You can also find various copies of it online since the copyright has long expired. The online copies all have varied levels of transcription errors.
Anyway, getting back to the point, some of the criticisms of Bush are valid. For instance, "I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States, called the "Bureau of Homeland Security " Yeah, he did do that, and I'm not particularly happy about it although I'm not sure that what existed before with various government agencies fulfilling overlapping niches was necessarily better.
Then there's the Olbermann piece [crooksandliars.com]. Frankly, I find Olbermann to be as much of a journalist as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. He's an opinion maker and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that except for that he tries to pass off his opinion pieces as hard news which in my book makes him a hack.
NBC regularly puts Olbermann on the Nightly News identifying him as a reporter. Every segment he does is absolutely loaded with opinion. Again, there's nothing wrong with being an opinionated journalist but please don't pass it off as hard news reporting. It would be like FNC putting O'Reilly or Hannity on the Fox Report. Not that the Fox Report is unbiased but it is intended to be a hard news pure reporting program, not an opinion/entertainment program. I'm very wary of anyone claiming to do a hard news program. It's impossible for any normal human not to have some level of bias. Better to disclose your bias than to try to keep it in the closet. Sooner or later anyone with half a brain can clearly see what's going on.
Smells like sucker (Score:3, Insightful)
This discussion has over 300 posts and yet no one has found a single law to explain that stupid and statement in the article that is made without even a shred of citation. When a few thousand Slashdotters can't FTFL (find the fucking law), it probably doesn't exist and this is just a case of shitty/sensational/biased journalism.
Far more likely? California provides some sort of subsidy or mandate for selling the cars and other states don't. The brain dead journalist in question probably couldn't wrap his small mind around the difference between a subsidy in California, and a law BANNING ALL GREEN CARS IN THE US EXCEPT CALIFORNIA!!1!!!!111!
Please, read the crap you dredge off the internet with a critical eye instead of gobbling up every piece of sensationalist crap you run across.