Dieselgate: The GM version

It's GM, so....

GM spokesman Tony Cervone said the lawsuit is without merit.

- I believe him.

No detailed information given-therefor null

Someone filed a lawsuit against GM...

This article fails to go into any detail on the lawsuit itself. NOTHING.

By the way, The case is Fenner v. General Motors LLC, 17-cv-11661, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit).

"The complaint raises fresh questions about the credibility of diesel technology"

The credibility of diesel technology? THIS IS JUST ATTACKING DIESEL ENGINES THATS IT!


Whole bunch of nothing if you ask me..

After reading the allegations, I believe there is something to this.

https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/cas...2017-05-25gmemissionsclassactioncomplaint.pdf

How they did the test starts around page 37.

Testing confirmed that the vehicle complies with emissions standards at the temperature windows where the emissions test is performed for certification.

But the NOx emissions increase significantly when the temperature is below 68ºF or above 86ºF. This means that GM, using software supplied by Bosch, employs a “defeat device” that allows the vehicle to meet emissions standards in the testtemperature range. At all other times, NOx is allowed to be emitted in a much greater amount.

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I don't understand why there now seems to be an expectation that vehicles will meet their certified emissions in all possible driving and ambient conditions.

EPA has far higher NOx emission factors for diesel passenger trucks than the regulatory limits. For example, the emission factor used in their MOVES model for a 2013 model year diesel truck is almost 1 gram/mile (0.95 g/mile or 950 mg/mile to be exact). That's almost 5 times the regulated FTP limit. Based on that, it doesn't appear the overall average of the Duramax truck tested in the lawsuit is dramatically different from that value.

Whether a "defeat device" is actually found is unknown at this time, but it doesn't appear the GM diesel trucks are really producing dramatically excessive NOx emissions beyond what EPA expects as implicated in the lawsuit.

I don't understand why people hate diesels so much. Here you have an incredibly efficient internal combustion technology and it's all everyone can do to try and eliminate it. Where does the money trail lead? Who benefits from running diesel engines out of the US?

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From the Lawsuit itself online...

Testing reveals​

2:17-cv-11661-GCS-APP Doc # 1 Filed 05/25/17 Pg 9 of 191 Pg ID 9​

- 3 -​

010611-12 959897 V1​

that at temperatures below 68°F (the lower limit of the certification test​

temperature), stop and go emissions are 2.1 times the emissions standard at​

428 mg/mile (the standard is 200 mg/mile). At temperatures above 86°F, stop and​

go emissions are an average of 2.4 times the standard with some emissions as high​

as 5.8 times the standard. Based on temperatures in the top 30 metropolitan areas.

Just sharing... From the lawsuit itself.

\/\/0J0 said:

I don't understand why people hate diesels so much. Here you have an incredibly efficient internal combustion technology and it's all everyone can do to try and eliminate it. Where does the money trail lead? Who benefits from running diesel engines out of the US?

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Its all politics and agendas unfortunately. I have said it since day 1, the whole VW thing was driven by politics and lawyers, not people wanting to keep the air clean.

turbocharged798 said:

Its all politics and agendas unfortunately. I have said it since day 1, the whole VW thing was driven by politics and lawyers, not people wanting to keep the air clean.

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Yep, exactly.

\/\/0J0 said:

I don't understand why people hate diesels so much. Here you have an incredibly efficient internal combustion technology and it's all everyone can do to try and eliminate it. Where does the money trail lead? Who benefits from running diesel engines out of the US?

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Pretty sure it's these jerks....

Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate and support environmental causes, but there has to be balance. Going after a relatively small group of cars that pollute negligibly while ignoring the biggest polluters and allowing them to buy their way out of it, is incredibly irresponsible as well as hypocritical

peterdaniel said:

Going after a relatively small group of cars

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??? These standards apply to ALL new cars. Not just diesels.

Gassers have no PM restriction. DI gassers smoke worse that pre-dpf diesels.

turbocharged798 said:

Gassers have no PM restriction. DI gassers smoke worse that pre-dpf diesels.

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I was unaware of that... that IS wrong. Gassers should be held to the same standard.

But if I'm reading this correctly... a gasoline engine would have to have a defect (oil leak) to have PM emissions... so it likely wouldn't pass an inspection anyway...

So, will there be a stop sale on all GM diesel products, like there was for VW?

Buybacks too.

It's only fair.

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

So, will there be a stop sale on all GM diesel products, like there was for VW?

Buybacks too.

It's only fair.

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I sure hope the political pressure gets GM in a situation where the stock price drops significantly so I can load up again at $25/share or less. Plus, if truck inventory gets slammed, I can buy that diesel Colorado I want.

Go lawyers, go!!!

nwdiver said:

Pretty sure it's these jerks....

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Damage to your lungs and the rest of your body beyond tailpipe emissions only below courtesy of the GREET model (Argonne National Labs). Notice the real world life cycle environmental health damage from the BMW X5 diesel engine vs the gasoline hybrid vehicles ('Diesel @X5' vs SI HEV and PHEV categories)!

wxman said:

You're welcome, tikal.

Thanks to a comment by bhtooefr, I searched for, and was able to find, a document that provided damage cost factors for both urban and rural emission scenarios, albeit it is calculated for Ireland ("Air Pollutant Marginal Damage Values Guidebook for Ireland 2015"). I'm still not able to run the APEEP model, which would still probably provide the best estimate of each vehicle technology/fuel pathway.

GREET provides total and urban emissions for both WTW and vehicle manufacturing. Thus, urban and rural damages can be calculated individually (rural emissions calculated by subtracting the urban emissions from the total emissions), and a "composite" damage derived from combining the urban and rural damages.

Using that methodology, here is a graphic of the results I get:

This shows EV in a better light, especially if it's a very clean grid like California (virtually no coal generation), since a higher percentage of emissions are generated in rural locations.

Edit: The "Diesel @X5" uses the average overall "real world" exhaust emission profile of the BMW X5 35d measured by WVU in the ICCT report.

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Guilty until proven innocent in the media.

nwdiver said:

I was unaware of that... that IS wrong. Gassers should be held to the same standard.

But if I'm reading this correctly... a gasoline engine would have to have a defect (oil leak) to have PM emissions... so it likely wouldn't pass an inspection anyway...

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Gassers emit a ton of PM, wipe you finger inside any gas car tailpipe and you will find plenty of soot. If anyone believes than gas engines don't emit PM then they are poorly misinformed. They also emit ultrafine PM which is much more damaging to the human lungs than diesel PM.

turbocharged798 said:

Gassers emit a ton of PM, wipe you finger inside any gas car tailpipe and you will find plenty of soot. If anyone believes than gas engines don't emit PM then they are poorly misinformed. They also emit ultrafine PM which is much more damaging to the human lungs than diesel PM.

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I'd say they've been misinformed quite well.

\/\/0J0 said:

I don't understand why people hate diesels so much. Here you have an incredibly efficient internal combustion technology and it's all everyone can do to try and eliminate it. Where does the money trail lead? Who benefits from running diesel engines out of the US?

Sent from my mobile look-at device

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I don' think many people actually harbor a hatred for the diesel engine. I think people harbor a hatred for corporations who will seemingly stop at nothing to turn a profit.

Wankel7 said:

I don' think many people actually harbor a hatred for the diesel engine. I think people harbor a hatred for corporations who will seemingly stop at nothing to turn a profit.

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This goes back years beyond the most recent shenanigans from vw. There have been decades of opportunity to bring diesel passenger vehicles to the US but it has not happened. The whole cheat device was just the catalyst needed to start the reaction that will push an emerging market back out of the States, possibly for good this time. Last time it was GM's sorry excuse for a diesel engine that turned people off to the idea of diesel passenger cars. This time it was the attempt of a corporation to put into the hands of the American people a product that was still reasonably affordable, fun to drive and still was cleaner than the vehicles the majority on this forum are driving. The green-at-all-cost model does not sit well with me. What's the point of buying a vehicle to save on fuel when all the savings are eaten up by having to have more expensive emissions equipment (that breaks) AND reduces the fuel economy to boot? I find it terribly strange that the lynch mob has its sights set on such a small portion of the market/component of daily traffic. Do people really think that gasoline vehicles are perfectly well behaved in all diving conditions? The EPA documents that came up when I searched showed more relaxed standards for gassers than diesels, right down to the sulfur content in the fuel. Is that not biased?
Please note: most of the questions posed in this post are rhetorical, meant to inspire thought and not necessarily to elicit a reaction.

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Good post \/\/0J0. Thanks.

I do not see an issue of either to blame the government solely or VW corporate greed. Both made the 'alignment of planets' to weaken the already fragile North America diesel passenger vehicle growth.

RallySport said:

Testing reveals​

2:17-cv-11661-GCS-APP Doc # 1 Filed 05/25/17 Pg 9 of 191 Pg ID 9​

- 3 -​

010611-12 959897 V1​

that at temperatures below 68°F (the lower limit of the certification test​

temperature), stop and go emissions are 2.1 times the emissions standard at​

428 mg/mile (the standard is 200 mg/mile). At temperatures above 86°F, stop and​

go emissions are an average of 2.4 times the standard with some emissions as high​

as 5.8 times the standard. Based on temperatures in the top 30 metropolitan areas.

Just sharing... From the lawsuit itself.

Click to expand...

Bear in mind that if this strategy were declared by GM as an AECD for whatever reason, and EPA and CARB agreed with it, then this is legal.

The contents of AECD are confidential, so we don't know if that's the case or not.

It is not possible to make emission control systems that are equally effective under all conceivable circumstances. The things that you do to help with cold start emissions (e.g. close-coupling of catalyst to engine) can run counter to what needs to be done at full load, for example.

IMO lawyers are throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks. Chrysler's situation seems to involve undeclared AECDs, so that's a bit different. These vehicles (GM and Chrysler) all have DPF and SCR, it's just calibration that possibly needs to be addressed, so it is a far different situation from VW, which built hundreds of thousands of cars that have inadequate hardware and are incapable of being fully compliant - hence the buybacks.

I'm gated out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_"-gate"_suffix

Oberkanone said:

I'm gated out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_"-gate"_suffix

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I'm with ya there! I think it's absolutely retarded that our society feels compelled to add "gate" to any scandal. Watergate had nothing to do with water yet, following the recent trend in nomenclature of scandals, one would think it refers to the flint Michigan atrocity, or perhaps the Animas River spill, caused by contractors hired by the EPA. Just status quo in the dumbing down of our once-great nation.

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\/\/0J0 said:

I'm with ya there! I think it's absolutely retarded that our society feels compelled to add "gate" to any scandal. Watergate had nothing to do with water yet, following the recent trend in nomenclature of scandals, one would think it refers to the flint Michigan atrocity, or perhaps the Animas River spill, caused by contractors hired by the EPA. Just status quo in the dumbing down of our once-great nation.

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Hmmm....Dumbingdowngate??

\/\/0J0 said:

I'm with ya there! I think it's absolutely retarded that our society feels compelled to add "gate" to any scandal. Watergate had nothing to do with water yet, following the recent trend in nomenclature of scandals, one would think it refers to the flint Michigan atrocity, or perhaps the Animas River spill, caused by contractors hired by the EPA. Just status quo in the dumbing down of our once-great nation.

Sent from my mobile look-at device

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Watergate is a hotel.

Mike_04GolfTDI said:

It's GM, so....

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That is so funny.