Recent study shows new diesels are still very dirty

wxman

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Location
East TN, USA
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A report released by CARB in 2016 ( "Measuring Real-World Emissions from the On-Road Passenger Fleet") used remote sensing to measure NOx emissions from traffic (in 2013 in West Los Angeles) similar to the True Initiative study.

CARB found that gasoline cars averaged 0.53 g NOx/kg fuel, while hybrids averaged 0.3 g NOx/kg fuel. VW diesel cars averaged ~18 g NOx/kg fuel, but BMW diesels averaged 0.4 g NOx/kg fuel.

BMW has been able to reduce exhaust NOx emissions to near hybrid levels for several years. Why diesel vehicles are having such a difficult time reducing NOx emissions in Europe seems rather strange.

By the way, more than just NOx emissions need to be measured. NOx is not the most problematic car emission from an ambient air pollution perspective.
 

tadawson

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TDI
2013 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Passat TDI SEL
Certainly! It's a lot harder to flog the dead horse if you actually look at all the data . . . .
 

wxman

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Location
East TN, USA
TDI
Other Diesel
How does this remote sensor know what kind of car it's looking at?
Assuming this study used the same methodology, here is how cars are identified in remote sensing studies:


"...A video image of the license plate of each vehicle is recorded, and the transcribed plate is used to obtain non-personal vehicle information, including make, model year, vehicle identification number, and fuel type from the state registration records..."

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.6b00717
 

tikal

Veteran Member
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Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
TDI
2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
A report released by CARB in 2016 ( "Measuring Real-World Emissions from the On-Road Passenger Fleet") used remote sensing to measure NOx emissions from traffic (in 2013 in West Los Angeles) similar to the True Initiative study.

CARB found that gasoline cars averaged 0.53 g NOx/kg fuel, while hybrids averaged 0.3 g NOx/kg fuel. VW diesel cars averaged ~18 g NOx/kg fuel, but BMW diesels averaged 0.4 g NOx/kg fuel.

BMW has been able to reduce exhaust NOx emissions to near hybrid levels for several years. Why diesel vehicles are having such a difficult time reducing NOx emissions in Europe seems rather strange.

By the way, more than just NOx emissions need to be measured. NOx is not the most problematic car emission from an ambient air pollution perspective.
Great points wxman, thanks for 'clearing the air' on this topic that needs for education by the general public. In North America the '800 pound gorilla' are the millions and millions of gasoline cars averaging not better than mid to low 20s MPG and spewing lots of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants which combined are a much worse toxic formula than light duty diesel vehicles emit.
 

showdown 42

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naples,FL
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2016 TDI touareg
How do pickup trucks with 5.0 diesels get to sell them? They are surely not in complying with NOX regs???
 

wxman

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Oct 26, 1999
Location
East TN, USA
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How do pickup trucks with 5.0 diesels get to sell them? They are surely not in complying with NOX regs???
Larger pickup trucks and vans have a less strict emission standard that LD vehicles.

For example, the Nissan Titan XD with the 5.0 Cummins diesel is certified (in California) as LEV 3 ULEV340 ( https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/onroad/cert/pcldtmdv/2018/cummins_mdv_a0210671_5d0_u3-340_diesel.pdf ). These vehicles are classified as "Medium Duty Vehicles" (MDV). MDVs include GVWs of 8501 lbs - 10,000 lbs (MDV4), and 10,0001 lbs - 14,000 lbs (MDV5 - https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/ld_ca.php#leviii ).

LEV3 LEV160 (Tier 3 Bin 160 federal) is the least strict category for LD vehicles.
 

bhtooefr

TDIClub Enthusiast, ToofTek Inventor
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Location
Newark, OH
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BMW is able to get their emissions down through the application of lots of expensive emissions control hardware. This isn't cost effective unless you have lots of profit to hide the cost in, or you can sell it for a significant premium.

Basically, it only works for luxury cars.
 

wxman

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Location
East TN, USA
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I agree, BMW is using a combination of LNT and SCR in its U.S.-spec diesel vehicles for NOx emission control, which is expensive. But they don't have high-end diesel cars in Europe?
 

bhtooefr

TDIClub Enthusiast, ToofTek Inventor
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Location
Newark, OH
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They clearly don't want to spend the money on those. And they've got lower-end ones, too.
 

crazyrunner33

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Location
NC
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'10 Golf(bought back)
How do pickup trucks with 5.0 diesels get to sell them? They are surely not in complying with NOX regs???
Cummins actually knows a thing or two about after treatment solutions. For starters, the 5.0 Cummins drinks DEF like I drink my whiskey. The 6.7 Cummins uses zero EGR after warmup, but drinks DEF as if there's no tomorrow when towing. Other engines in the same class sip DEF, but experience a lot more DPF failures and sticking VGT turbos.
 

TDI-WNC

Well-known member
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Jun 26, 2018
Location
Asheville, NC
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2000 Jetta TDI 5-speed
Paywalls can often be bypassed by Googling the title of the article.

I'm guessing it just jumps you into the site beyond the paywall.
Paste the following with quotes into Google.. should work

"All new diesel cars fail EU emissions standards, says study"
 

crazyrunner33

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Location
NC
TDI
'10 Golf(bought back)
Paywalls can often be bypassed by Googling the title of the article.

I'm guessing it just jumps you into the site beyond the paywall.
Paste the following with quotes into Google.. should work

"All new diesel cars fail EU emissions standards, says study"
The study claims that Euro 6 diesels in Europe do not meet the European emissions, but it did not test Euro 6d diesels which is what's referenced by wxman's recent post.
 

hajes

Active member
Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Location
Earth
TDI
Skoda "Hilda" Octavia HR I
if they meassured average tuner that believes AFR below 18:1 makes more power and doesn't smoke - no wonder TDi has got bad reputation :-D
 
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