Nikola has smelled like BS vaporware to me for a while... turns out there might be something to that.
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
GM making moves...
Collapse
X
-
If you can see soot coming out of it, it’s not a clean diesel.
VW cheated in really weird ways that are hard to explain but basically they did it more to be able to sell the quietest most responsive highest specific output diesels. I have all the updates to my 2014 that bring it to the law and the only difference is the noise level when it’s cold. I know that sounds stupid but I’m pretty sure that’s it. They wanted to have a more refined seeming engine than the Vauxhall, Peugeot, Merc. The car makes more NOx when it makes more power or burns super lean so that should be tuned out. They didn’t because those running conditions are sometimes rough or loud and they didn’t want that. Was it worth paying the biggest fine in corporate history and sending multiple people to jail while torpedoing the entire diesel passenger car market that they already owned most of? No! It sure wasn’t! What a moronic move.
Comment
-
My understanding from limited reading is that they designed the urea injection to only inject at specific RPM/load ranges that the EPA and other agencies tested at. The reason being is that the engines needed a urea injection but the body size limited tank size so if the injection was running full time it would deplete the tank very quickly.
Again, very light reading on the subject. Not sure if this was the actual reason or not.
Comment
-
Wonder if they just didn't have the same tech back when the cars came out or they were trying to save a buck and not use it. I read that part of the fix was a new nitrogen oxide cat and the rest was software - but that the cars that didn't use DEF were harder to fix so wasn't part of first wave.
Seems like the cars that used DEF just use more of it now so that fix seems easier.
Originally posted by SignOfZeta View PostIf you can see soot coming out of it, it’s not a clean diesel.
VW cheated in really weird ways that are hard to explain but basically they did it more to be able to sell the quietest most responsive highest specific output diesels. I have all the updates to my 2014 that bring it to the law and the only difference is the noise level when it’s cold. I know that sounds stupid but I’m pretty sure that’s it. They wanted to have a more refined seeming engine than the Vauxhall, Peugeot, Merc. The car makes more NOx when it makes more power or burns super lean so that should be tuned out. They didn’t because those running conditions are sometimes rough or loud and they didn’t want that. Was it worth paying the biggest fine in corporate history and sending multiple people to jail while torpedoing the entire diesel passenger car market that they already owned most of? No! It sure wasn’t! What a moronic move.
Comment
-
To be honest I’ve been wondering about the details of the scandal for years. So many things about it just don’t make sense. At this point several books exist but it doesn’t seem like they care about the technical explanation. I can’t understand German, I sort of assume there are 100 books about Dieselgate from Lower Saxony but in English it’s all about people and fines and biographies and crap like that. Every explanation I’ve heard seems off. I was very surprised when they fixed it with software and a new set of bricks. I thought they’d be plumbing for urea. Why didn’t they just make it like this to begin with? Noise? Adblu intervals? Really? I guess so...
Comment
-
To me it all boiled down to marketing and profits for VW, advertise as cleaner, more powerful along with fantastic economy without the emissions equipment hassles to attract more customers. I've worked in the automotive oe design and manufacture for the last 25 years, it can be just plain nuts which is probably why I prefer the plain rugged simplicity of both of my 80's mercedes diesels.
-
-
That explains nothing. I own one of these cars. VW paid billions in fines, they paid me over $7000 as part as dieselgate and they had to spend billions designing and implementing the fix. The car didn’t lack emmisons controls to begin with by any means. It has a DPF, NOX storage catalyst, high and low pressure EGR, and for some reason they designed it to run off a secret set of maps when it knew it wasn’t in dyno mode. What *exactly* was the point of it?
Knowing that all that junk is still on the car (some bricks have changed but they were all there to begin with). It still makes the same power, the same fuel economy. Why didn’t they build this way in the first place when they obviously could? That’s the question that I feel like I’m the only person in the world asking.
Comment
-
I would like a car with a lower cowl and body line so that the driver is able to see out of the car, which would make the car more safe.
- Likes 1
Comment
-
Or taller seats...
If you have ever been under the hood of anything from 1985-2015, that cowl cannot possibly get any closer to the engine. Try stick a performance intake in a 4th gen F-body. Lol.
I get what you are saying, though. Corvettes have terrible vision.
-
I agree totally. The A pillars are MASSIVE and the hood line on a new Taurus is higher than a 2WD F-150 used to be. It’s ridiculous...but...see my post about getting rammed by F-250s and never being able to buy an ‘89 Civic again. It’s all part of the same problem; many Americans want to take up as much space as they possibly can at all times and they ruin it for everyone else.
-
I feel this. The A pillars in my Nissan Titan are like a foot wide at the base and fall directly where you need to see when making a low speed turn to the left. Auto makers really need to think about visibility. I get that they also have to pass rollover tests but damn, it would be nice to see where you're going too.
-
Yeah, and the wipers dont go all the way to the edge of the window. That pisses me off to no end. So in the winter, the snow builds up and you really cant see.
all this has a reason though (the A pillars at least). Cars have to support their weight in the event of a roll over. Thats why the pillars are so big as well as housing airbags.
Comment
-
The big a pillars are %100 for crash protection. The “one box” design of the early 2000s (shock towers at or even behind the a pillars) slowly started to do this. Rollover honestly isn’t that big of a focus for government standards since rolling over your vehicle is rare and the results are widely unpredictable. Most people hurt in accidents are hitting something head on or from behind or both.
And yes, it does have a reason. Other bigger trucks and SUVs. You won’t have to built Honda Fits like brick bleep houses if they were only running into each other. They need to be Dodge Journey-resistant, which makes for the death of the small car and the not-so small cars all get ugly and hard to see out of.
-
Comment