GM suit digs deeper grave for diesel as dirty accusations mount - Houston Chronicle
If you look into the enormous amount of money being brought against the manufacturers on the suit it appears the lawyers who represent the United States govt is the only winners here.The same Lawyer Firm who dealt VW A HEAVY HIT IS THE SAME ONE RAMPING UP AGAINST GM NOW ,a real witch hunt.I smell lawsuit political pie,cut your own piece.Lawyers are killing this country with wiping out companies when its not proportionate to the violation.Theyve become the judge and jury when a misconduct on a product is misrepresented, in VWs case a computer value was allowing heavier carbons to not be burned ,run any diesel hard enough and you will get some extra exhaust fumes ,I feel theyve designed this lawsuit from the beginning ,putting up rediculous regulations then watched carefully as manufactureres didnt meet their exact regulator rules .I smell some real sneeks and their wearing lawyere clothes.

Oh, the days of the diesel are numbered for sure. But that goes for the internal combustion engine as a whole. It's going to be over soon, and you can't stop it.

Internal combustion is going the same way as external combustion did a hundred years ago and it will happen sooner than you think.

Also, VW knowingly, and willingly cheated. There was no accident there. It was very purposely done. I have no pity or empathy.

__________________
"The MB W123 is so bulletproof, you can drive them forever. Which is a good thing as it takes that long to get anywhere."
Betsie: 1984 W123 300D (hobby, 280k miles)
Myrla: 2001 Mazda Protege 2.0 ES 5spd (daily driver, 130k miles)
The Turd: 2007 Toyota Camry (wife's car, 118k miles)

ICE are going away in general. It'll be up to enthusiasts to keep them alive until they get regulated out of existence.

__________________
2010 Mercedes E350 4Matic - 77k miles
1986.5 Nissan D21 V6 4x4 - 276k miles
1987 Mercedes 190D 2.5 Turbo - 3??k miles
1983 Mercedes 300SD turbo parts car
2017 Honda CBR500R - 15k miles
2016 Suzuki GSX S1000 - 9k miles

Here is my take.

VW did it to themselves big time. They cheated, that is it.

They wanted to rush their clean diesel technology out to the market and couldn't fix fast enough what they created. So they continued on this path until they got caught by a group at West Virginia University and that is when the EPA was alerted.
So far only newer 2015 models are cleared for the fix with phase 1 software update completed and later hardware upgrade. The older vehicles are harder to deal with and the bought back vehicles will be scrapped.

Now with GM, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they did take a page out of VW's book. There was an article quoting Bob Lutz a former vice chairman at General Motors in which he wanted to bring diesels cars in GM's portfolio. They studied and recreated VW's hardware, but they could not figure out how it passed emissions with the same performance. Lutz was like, "Are their people were just smarter than ours?"

With the trucks, horsepower and torque wars rule the industry. Come on, a Duramax puts out 445 horsepower and 910 lb ft of torque! How in the world are you going to get that power and not have heavy emissions and have great fuel economy at the same time? But all the truck manufactures offer at least 900 lb ft of torque and around 400 hp, so you have to compete.

If you want to be the best selling truck, you better get in the game. It's the manufacturers who are killing of the diesels. If they kept to what the engine was capable of doing, instead of overstating it’s abilities, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

__________________
1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

The diesel car market should be sustained due to the known fact of durability.Most Gassers dont fair to well under what a diesel vehicle has in spades ,effective power and long life for the owner.The electric car will break most owners hearts ,replacing the electric motor every x amt of miles sounds like a gadget car to me.Size that fact together with what the avg diesel car can produce for mileage and what may sound like the future is another salesman brainwashing tactic.VW may indeed have followed all the regulations ,its how those regulations were interpted .I dont have all the facts but if money,govt and lawyers are involved then their is most definately a fox .in the hen house .

It'll be allright.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Donald will save us!

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Good.

__________________
CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Donald has the smile of a fox ,right from the hen house.

I have seriously mixed feelings about electric cars but it's hard to deny that they are the ultimate external combustion machines. Combustion done at a large stationary plant is just going to be more efficient and easily scrubbed than in a fast moving ICE.

If battery tech advances sufficient for large trucks to operate electric at less cost, it might be game over. Or perhaps they will go a route something like the Volt: large batteries that can be charged at stations with a smallish, highly efficient engine running at constant speed charging batteries as they drive. Electric motors have massive torque, hence their effectiveness at moving trains. No clutch to beat up.

A couple of years ago I was in a hardware store parking lot, I was trying to find something in the back seat that I needed to take in to match. At one point I knelt down to rummage on the floor. At that instant the car next to me began to silently pull out (Prius). I freaked, pulling my foot in - for all I knew it was in the path of one of it's tires. It's weird, you'd think silent would be a good thing ...

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

well, yeah, unless he runs over your toe!

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Electric cars aren't the answer either. In over 100 years, they can't go a mile further on a charge than they did in the late 1800s.

When you go to plug that car in to charge, where does the power come from? It isn't magic. It comes from your friendly local gas or coal power plant. Guess what, you just transferred your pollution from the car to the utility company.

Now comes the fun part: How loaded is your municipality's electricity grid right now? 90%? 95%? 100%? Can it handle every household in the district sucking down an extra 20KW at night to charge their electric cars? For reference a 4 ton electric furnace pulls ~20KW. Not likely.

Move on to the battery and it's waste during manufacture and recycling.

It isn't a panacea and nothing is perfect. Just because the car isn't directly polluting doesn't mean that it isn't still causing pollution.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

Here is the deal, the car industry has changed forever. The idea of driving the majority of today's cars for 20 plus years are over.

These cars are so loaded with electronic devices regardless of it having a diesel, gas or electric powerplant. What sells are creature comforts like, blue tooth, online media connections, computer climate controls, driver assistance packages, navigation packages, etc. All these accessories will be easily outdated in a span of 5-10 years and nobody will be willing to tackle the job to fix them when problems arise. And if someone is willing, you can bet it's going to be a heck of a lot of money to do so. So when the warranty is up on these cars, you throw it away. Then get the newest and greatest, and do it all over again.


.

__________________
1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

I don't even agree that VW, Chrysler/Fiat, or GM cheated. The EPA set rules for emissions testing and the companies designed to those. Many manufacturers design products to game the product testing. High-end PC's have long done this, designing the chips and motherboards to perform best on certain known benchmark tests. The Australians won the Olympics breast-stroke competitions in the early 1960's by throwing their arms forward over the water, which still followed the requirements of the stroke. The rules were changed and their new stroke became the Butterfly. Similarly, back-strokers started swimming the full length under-water via dolphin kick until the rules were changed. Various engines have been dis-ruled is auto racing, usually from GM/Ford ganging against Mopar. Business is a fair game as long as you follow the rules. Blame the EPA for not being pro-active.

Stranger are EPA rules that allow minivans to pollute more, since classified as "trucks" and heavy trucks like the F-350 to pollute even more. Blame Congress for that, they were afraid of causing economic harm to companies and threatening jobs.

__________________
1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

I was more worried about a ruined ankle ...

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K