Question about 2008+ emissions standards

On page 39 of the latest issue of Automotive Magazine the piece entitled "The squeaky clean diesels" has this statement:

"To sell diesel cars and light trucks in the United States after 2008, manufacturers must reduce exhaust soot (particulates) by 50 percent and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 65 percent from levels achieved by the new, very clean Mercedes Benz E320 BlueTec. So far, only General Motors and Honda have claimed the ability to do that."

On the previous page was an article on the new E320 BlueTec and other MB diesel models coming soon. As we know the 2007 E320 is not 50 state compliant to 2007 standards without AdBlue; this article says that the 2007 GL, R, and M-classes with AdBlue will be fully compliant when they come out next year.

My understanding is that the 2008 TDI will also be 50 state compliant (God-willing) to 2007 standards when it comes out. But the first quote says that after 2008 the emission standards will get even stricter by over 50%! If that's true, then the 2009 TDI will need to be >50% more efficient at reducing emissions than the 2008. Is this really the case?

No; you're reading too much into it. The standards taking effect 1 Jan 2007 remain static for light duty vehicles ... at least until the next time some environmental zealot in either the EPA or CARB decides to justify their continued existence.

stevehecht said:

"To sell diesel cars and light trucks in the United States after 2008, manufacturers must reduce exhaust soot (particulates) by 50 percent and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 65 percent from levels achieved by the new, very clean Mercedes Benz E320 BlueTec. So far, only General Motors and Honda have claimed the ability to do that."

<...>

My understanding is that the 2008 TDI will also be 50 state compliant (God-willing) to 2007 standards when it comes out. But the first quote says that after 2008 the emission standards will get even stricter by over 50%! If that's true, then the 2009 TDI will need to be >50% more efficient at reducing emissions than the 2008. Is this really the case?

Click to expand...

See here. All I read in that is that the E320 needs AdBlue -- but we already knew that.

Originally Posted by stevehecht
"To sell diesel cars and light trucks in the United States after 2008, manufacturers must reduce exhaust soot (particulates) by 50 percent and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 65 percent from levels achieved by the new, very clean Mercedes Benz E320 BlueTec. So far, only General Motors and Honda have claimed the ability to do that."

<...>

My understanding is that the 2008 TDI will also be 50 state compliant (God-willing) to 2007 standards when it comes out. But the first quote says that after 2008 the emission standards will get even stricter by over 50%! If that's true, then the 2009 TDI will need to be >50% more efficient at reducing emissions than the 2008. Is this really the case?

blacka5 said:

See here. All I read in that is that the E320 needs AdBlue -- but we already knew that.

Click to expand...

Well, the first paragraph states that particulates will need to be further reduced by 50%, which has nothing to do with AdBlue. I thought the E320 already was 50-state compliant for particulates, it only failed for NOx.

Also, it was my impression that the E320 barely failed its NOx test in California this year--how does that relate to a further 65% reduction in NOx after 2008 to meet standards?

Is it possible this writer got things bollocksed up here?

Steve,

It appears to me that your first reference was assuming that the current Bluetec emits at the Bin 8 limit for both PM and NOx. MB suggests that the current Bluetec has less than 0.01 g/mile PM (the Bin 5 limit) according to the graphic on slide 13 of this presentation (so actually the only reason it only gets a "Bin 8" designation is because of the NOx emissions).

Actually, your first reference is not factually correct because as the other posts have mentioned, Bin 8 is a permanent bin (at least for now) and vehicles can be sold that only meet Bin 8 (Bins 9 & 10 expired as of MY 2007). The caveat is that the manufacturers' fleets must average Bin 5 for NOx which mean that selling a Bin 8 vehicle would have to be offset by selling a vehicle that would be Bin 3 or something like that.

It also has to be mentioned that although the standards will remain static for the foreseeable future (i.e. until someone changes their mind), the fuel quality situation is not static and the types of technology in use and approved are not static.

For example, ULSD is not available everywhere in the USA yet, and vehicle manufacturers don't want to sell vehicles that their customers can't find fuel for, and which would have their emission warranties voided if they use the wrong fuel. Hence the reluctance by VW and Mercedes to jump right into the fray right now before the fuel availability situation sorts itself out.

And also, the whole AdBlue additive situation hasn't yet been resolved, as far as I know.

re the AdBlue situation: you gotta remember that the EPA has refused to consider ANY pollution control system that requires ANY routine maintenance or action whatever on the part of vehicle owners since the first pollution controls took effect in 1967. It has taken the auto companies 39 years to almost get EPA to change their tune on that score, to thus allow (maybe, still up in the air) the AdBlue system which will require periodic refilling of the urea tank. It may be that EPA has been influenced by the fact that urea is one of the cheapest and most widely available commodities in the market, thus it ought not pose a financial burden on anyone to dump s'more in the tank.

Their reasoning, of course, has been sound. How many times on here have folks asked about using untaxed off-road or jet fuel? There are clearly a fair number of folks who will do almost anything to save a couple bucks on the cost of driving. This is a silly thing, after you've spent tens of thousands of dollars to buy a car, to then skimp on a few pennies a mile on the maintenance. But people do it.

What I do not understand is why is an extra tank to fill any different than any other "normal" PM on a car? Like oil changes, air filters, etc. I mean there are many other things that one could neglect that could increase the emissions output of the car. Or is it simply the time frame, as in, the car must be able to go X number of miles (kms) without any intervention on the owner's part? In which case the tank and its contents may be prohibitively too large and heavy to include with the car.

naturist, I understand what you mean by folks skimping on PM to save a few pennies...and ultimately saving a dime and in the end coming up a dollar short. We have several fleet accounts at work that we regulary service their vehicles. Many of these fleets are finally seeing the light after the gas prices lately and have been getting out of the pump-sucking 12 MPG Ford E-vans and GM G-vans and buying 20+ MPG Sprinters. The fuel savings for a company annually can be huge, especially when you have 20+ vans racking up 100k miles a year or more. However, some fleets do not seem to get the full picture of what a Sprinter can save them; they would easily dump 7 quarts of standard 5w20 oil into the crankcase of an E250 every 5000 miles, yet they cannot see the benefit of putting the [required] 9 quarts of synthetic 5w40 oil into the Sprinter's crankcase and allowing MB's excellent ASSYST+ system to tell them when to change the oil. Which can be in excess of 25k miles in some cases! In other words, they spent $30,000 on a Sprinter instead of $20,000 on an E250, yet deny the Sprinter's superior engineering to work for them to stretch even more from their budget. The fleets that DO use the ASSYST+ with the correct oil reap the benefits of superior fuel economy, much lower operating costs, quieter and cleaner running engines that don't leak oil, less down time, and vans that at 200k miles are still in excellent working order. We have one company that has 7 Sprinters that all have over a half million miles on their original engines! Money well spent, in their books, I'm sure!