I read today that a court in Germany said that cities can ban diesels from operation inside city limits. I don’t think any city called for this, they just decided to act proactively. It’s a European thing, ya know. When we were there, most vehicles were diesels. This would be a significant hardship for most Germans if they were banned from a city because they driving a diesel. It might be on certain bad air days diesels would be kept from running, but it seems weird to me. I’d be angry if I were a German citizen. Whatcha all think?
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If they can meet emission standards I do not see a problem.
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Apparently, even diesels that meet all the standards can stink up the air.
not ALL diesels
It’s diesels certified to old emissions standards
The choice is retrofit to newer and cleaner emissions . . . or stay out of those cities
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Europe’s had big diesel subsidies for decades. So now they’re paying the price for encouraging all the diesel purchases, what a screwup.
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/road-transport-fuel-prices-including-1/image_xlarge
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I can’t say what Germans would do, but if this happened in the U.S., this ban would be in place until the city government sees the economic impact. It would be reversed in short order.
I’ll second @texases comment. The overall switch to gasoline cars from diesels will make a large ripple in Europe’s fuel supply. The refineries that supply Europe use a different process than US refineries. That process creates a larger percentage of diesel than US refineries. Europe will have a glut of diesel and a surplus of gasoline as this transition away from diesel occurs. It may get ugly.
This makes me wonder if, when you buy a clean burning diesel like a Chevy Cruze, what happens if you don’t maintain the emission system by adding urea. Does it start belching out black smoke? Does it harm the vehicle?
I don’t know that it would adversely impact the local economy.
The trucking companies could setup a drop yard outside the city limits. The diesel trucks could drop their loaded trailers at the yard, and then they could be picked up and delivered locally by electric or gasoline-burning tractors.
Trucking companies sometimes operate like this already, where over-the-road drivers can drop off loads at a yard to go home for a few days and the trailers are picked up and delivered by local drivers. Local drivers can be paid less per-mile since they get to go home every night, and this saves the company money. It also keeps the OTR drivers from having to sit and wait for a trailer to be unloaded, and they’re happier when they keep moving.
Your example is a pretty good model of what would happen. That drop-off depot would be outside the city limits denying income and property taxes to the city. If the distribution model was the most efficient, then there would be little effect on the the shipping company. If it wasn’t the most efficient, those higher costs would be passed to the consumers in the city.
Companies do this now to avoid paying generally higher city taxes as well as the difficulty of transport in the city.
But the bigger question; Do the cities really think keeping diesels outside the city will keep diesel emission also outside the city> The wind blows, the air is the same. seems a PR stunt to satisfy a special interest group. No real reduction of pollution will occur.
Dirty diesel is dead. From a recent Green Car Reports Story on the subject: “Porsche said in a statement the Macan S Diesel was ‘taken out of the production program’ as buyer demand shifted to gasoline and plug-in hybrid versions.” Cities in Europe have been trying for the better part of a decade to get rid of the polluting diesels. When it was discovered that the major supplier of diesel vehicles has cheated on emissions to the tune of up to 40 times the allowable limits, it just added more evidence to what everyone already knew - these things are polluters. VW executives in the U.S. are now headed to jail, and the ones in Europe should be too.
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The article is from 2008, but it looks like the vehicle is shut down if it runs out of Urea:
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I’m no expert on diesel emissions controls but I know of at least one manufacturer that won’t allow the engine to start if the DEF tank is low and a regen is needed. So I suppose that problem is a non-issue?
I can see the motivation, but they’d get less kick-back from the public if they made that type of restriction apply only to new cars. Cars already on the road prior to the restriction would get an exemption. Over time most of those exempt diesel vehicles would get junked and their polluting ways taken off the roads.
That’s a 10 year solution. They want immediate results.
That is the opposite of what they are planning. Late model vehicles that meet Euro-6 standards would be allowed to operate, the older diesels would be banned from operating in the cities with high pollution.
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