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.""
These are hybrid vehicles (Score:5, Interesting)
very simple reason for it (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not saying it's right, but it is not 100% rediculious.
Re:What?! What do you mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Partially Zero? (Score:5, Interesting)
But the article is lame because it doesn't give any of the reasons why these cars may be illegal outside these few states; my understanding is that Californian laws are be definition stricter than US EPA regulations because no matter what, the US EPA regs apply too. Most makers gave up building a special "California Car" ages ago and just make 1 clean model to keep mass market efficiencies. It does hint that these cars cost a premium that is being absorbed by the makers, which is why they might want to restrict sales, but thast not the claim of the article. Keep in mind PZEV has nothing to do w/ economy or CO2, it has to do with byproducts like CO & NO2.
Re:Partially Zero? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m (Score:4, Interesting)
Could be true, but there are many more 50mpg diesels than 50mpg petrol cars. And a 125g/km diesel emits less CO2 than a 150g/km petrol car. And at the same time, the Diesel engine gives you much more power at lower speed (that is, everything up to the speed limit
But waitaminute... (Score:5, Interesting)
But how does letting other people buy the same kind of car in other states hurt their investment? The people of California would
Now I could see California saying they will only pay a subsidy for cars sold IN California, which would mean they would cost more in other states that don't subsidize. But I don't see why they would care.
Re:Partially Zero? (Score:2, Interesting)
Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, May 2 2007, 16:56:35)
[GCC 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> (1/4)*0
0
Yup. Still zero. And, no, no Pentium bug here...I run AMD.
So, I'm guessing here, no.
Re:very simple reason for it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:These are hybrid vehicles (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note: The LEV/ULEV vehicles have a higher-than-normal level of platinum in their mufflers, thus making them extremely expensive compared to normal mufflers, ~$1,700 for a retail replacement. My 3rd-party replacement was still ~$650! When looking at these low emission vehicles, keep that in mind. My muffler currently retails at >50% trade-in value of my entire car!
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why are they illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)
But since the author of the article decided that citing the specific statute wasn't necessary it's hard to say for sure.
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m (Score:0, Interesting)
Remember CA is also the state that initially *failed* the GM Impact electric car because it didn't have a tailpipe. So they couldn't take emissions testing, and it failed, until GM had a fake tailpipe welded on.
But we can't go blaming the Blue States for the majority of the problems they cause, now can we?
Re:very simple reason for it (Score:3, Interesting)
There are 2 things going on here:
We have environemntalists who are pushing for cleaner cars. This can be met by gas powered cars that maybe are no more efficient, but run cleaner.
Then you have people trying to reduce our reliance on gas. A car that runs on gas and not only does not produce polution, but by some magical process removes existing polution from the air would would not be seen as an improvement from this light.
I suspect this law is driven by the folks who want to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. To that group, releasing cars which run cleaner would hurt the movement to get cars that use less gas.
Re:Imploding? Hardly.. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely right that the President does not control every minutiae of the economy, but it is worrying that the US economy seems to be struggling. I read recently that the Chinese have so many US treasury bonds now that if they cash them in it would devalue the dollar. I know these things are always true to some extent, but it's still not something you would have said in the 50s. Your foreign commitments are, in many ways laudable but they're very expensive and the new Asian economies are threatening in all areas.
As for Olbermann, you're quite right that he's biased but I find that worrying too. The US media seems to be so partisan now - either one way or the other - that almost all debates descend into a slanging match. Olbermann's rants are well put together (and I think they carry more of a factual basis than those others you mention), but it's frighteningly agenda driven. How are people supposed to make up their own minds when they're being brain-washed like this?
I'm sure the dangers have been exaggerated, I just think that the planet will suffer without strong leadership from an exemplary democratic nation.
Peter