Diesel cars banned in Frankfurt

[Krieg 14,927]

2 hours ago, keith2011 said:

The obvious solution to this would be to simply ban all diesel non commercial vehicles from low emission zones. That would imo be a good thing!

 

That would be a bit unfair because for a very long time they were pushing diesel and telling people (read: lying) that diesel was better for the environment than petrol.   And at the end the result would be even more cars on the streets.

 

To be honest, I always support everything that is better for the environment, but this is very bad timing, and by now it is probably a moot point, just give time for EVs to spread more.

 

[Dembo 496]

1 hour ago, Krieg said:

 

That would be a bit unfair because for a very long time they were pushing diesel and telling people (read: lying) that diesel was better for the environment than petrol.   

 

 

Yes, but diesel owners have benefited from spending less on fuel for years/decades while polluting more. 

[Krieg 14,927]

7 minutes ago, Dembo said:

 

Yes, but diesel owners have benefited from spending less on fuel for years/decades while polluting more. 

 

Diesel drivers have been punished with much higher road tax.  So you had financial gains only if you drove crazy amount of kilometers per year.  The polluting part, again, it is unfair, blame the government who lied, not the citizen who trust them.

[yesterday 1,979]

Not only that

 

The city solution is to ban private diesel cars, while the city still keeps the very high polluting buses that run around the city, why do they not replace them  with EV or hydrogen Buses, because it will cost too much  ???  But. no its the poor old private diesel cars that are to blame

 

Its a scam anyway, the city only tests in one part of the city near the donnerberg bridge, most of the other parts of Munich do not have a pollution problem !, or have been tested and found there is never a problem.

 

Look at this map https://waqi.info/#/c/48.123/11.519/12z for Munich,  its normally very clean, you have to find a very specail set of circumstances for it to Orange, I have never seen it RED either

[fraufruit 41,951]

37 minutes ago, yesterday said:

Its a scam anyway, the city only tests in one part of the city near the donnerberg bridge, most of the other parts of Munich do not have a pollution problem !, or have been tested and found there is never a problem.

 

I don't live very close to that area yet I have to wipe down my balcony every 2 or 3 days because of pollution. My cleaning rags are black after that.

[Dembo 496]

28 minutes ago, yesterday said:

Not only that

 

The city solution is to ban private diesel cars, while the city still keeps the very high polluting buses that run around the city, why do they not replace them  with EV or hydrogen Buses, because it will cost too much  ???  But. no its the poor old private diesel cars that are to blame

 

Its a scam anyway, the city only tests in one part of the city near the donnerberg bridge, most of the other parts of Munich do not have a pollution problem !, or have been tested and found there is never a problem.

 

Depends on your definition of problem. Is there an amount of diesel fumes you want to breathe in? I think most people would say the lower the better. It's probably some way off, but can you imagine how much nicer city centres would be if all the vehicles were electric? Not just the fumes gone but the noise as well.

 

As for busses, of course busses are far less polluting per person-journey than cars (though perhaps not if nobody uses them), not to mention the presumably large fortune that was already invested in the trams, U-Bahn and S-Bahn that are actually replacing most of the journeys that would otherwise be done by bus or car. 

[Krieg 14,927]

11 minutes ago, Dembo said:

 

Depends on your definition of problem. Is there an amount of diesel fumes you want to breathe in? I think most people would say the lower the better. It's probably some way off, but can you imagine how much nicer city centres would be if all the vehicles were electric? Not just the fumes gone but the noise as well.

 

Of course that would be nice, but one thing is being idealistic an another thing realistic and fair.   The problem is between 2000 and 2015 the use of diesel cars was heavily promoted in Europe and the result is that there are some car segments where mostly only diesel versions were made.  The obvious example are small vans, which for plenty of people is the ultimate family car, and they are beloved as well by independent contractors.    When you ban those cars you are taking away that option for plenty of people and there is no replacement, because during those days 90% of them were diesel.   The solution would be a newish car, which many can't afford.

 

Another thing is that the emissions from plenty of those diesel cars are way below the allowed limits.   A well maintained diesel private car normally shows around 60% to 70% of the allowed emissions in their HU test.

 

 

19 minutes ago, fraufruit said:

 

I don't live very close to that area yet I have to wipe down my balcony every 2 or 3 days because of pollution. My cleaning rags are black after that.

 

Diesel contamination problem is mostly with non-CO2 particles.   Diesel CO2 contamination is probably lower than petrol if you consider they are more efficient.

 

[Eric7 538]

7 minutes ago, Krieg said:

Another thing is that the emissions from plenty of those diesel cars are way below the allowed limits.   A well maintained diesel private car normally shows around 60% to 70% of the allowed emissions in their HU test.

 

Exactly this.

A modern, properly maintained diesel vehicle doesn't produce substantially more pollution than the equivalent petrol vehicle. If we are talking about banning diesel cars then we need to ban petrol ones as well otherwise it's just a political statement.
I'd agree with banning older diesel cars without a DPF but the owners should be given an incentive to replace their cars - maybe an revival of the Umweltprämie/Abwrackprämie?

[yesterday 1,979]

25 minutes ago, Dembo said:

 

Depends on your definition of problem. Is there an amount of diesel fumes you want to breathe in? I think most people would say the lower the better. It's probably some way off, but can you imagine how much nicer city centres would be if all the vehicles were electric? Not just the fumes gone but the noise as well.

Sure I would like to live in a clean environment as well, who would not.

 

We know that all forms of traffic create pollution, we should remember the prime reason we went to diesel was that petrol cars were shown to have a major effect on climate change. While there are not enough EV cars around, this ban on diesel will push more people to buy petrol cars, so we get into the climate change problems. In Germany, they are ripping small villages so they can access the brown coal, that is burned to make the electricity we would put in to an EV and many other things.

 

Part of the problem, is that I cannot find anywhere, how many Euro 4 diesel cars are in Munich, after such a time, I would imagine its rather small. But Euro 5 came out in 2009, so a Euro 4 car would be 14 years old by now, how many cars do you think will still be around after that time ???. The city will not say how many Euro 4 cars there are around, but I find it very difficult believe that there are enough to make any difference to anything, I would also like to know if any work has been done to look at running Munich busses less often to reduce pollution - as I think most of the pollution comes from those big buses.

 

So I suppose it really does depend on the definition of problem, the city will not enplane why they think its the Diesel cars thats are the problem.

 

 

25 minutes ago, Dembo said:

As for busses, of course busses are far less polluting per person-journey than cars (though perhaps not if nobody uses them), not to mention the presumably large fortune that was already invested in the trams, U-Bahn and S-Bahn that are actually replacing most of the journeys that would otherwise be done by bus or car. 

 

You should take a holiday in Munich one day, I often see busses with only 2 or 3 people in them, if travelling late. 

 

Btw balconies often get dirty everywhere, why do you think its from the diesel ?

 

 

 

 

 

[snowingagain 5,202]

I remember black snot from London.  Washing hair, washing/rinsing black.  OK I was a street worker (ha) and rode a bike a lot.  But even when using the tube and buses.  All filthy.  Black dirty hands when getting back home.  Hopefully better?

[fraufruit 41,951]

1 hour ago, yesterday said:

Btw balconies often get dirty everywhere, why do you think its from the diesel ?

 

I think it's from pollution in general. You know, unclean air. Whatever is on my balcony, I am breathing as we all are.

 

A lot of construction and road dust in the mix.

[snowingagain 5,202]

Soot and other fine diesel particles travel a long way though.

[Dembo 496]

2 hours ago, yesterday said:

So I suppose it really does depend on the definition of problem, the city will not explain why they think its the Diesel cars thats are the problem.

 

Not exactly the city, but:

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/sieben-fragen-antworten-diesel

TL;DR: Most Nitrous Oxide is from diesel PKWs (busses only 4%). Euro 5 and 6 cars may even be worse than older diesels, and thanks to SUVs typically being diesels your average diesel now produces more CO2 than your average petrol - although that's a slightly unfair comparison.

 

Quote

You should take a holiday in Munich one day, I often see busses with only 2 or 3 people in them, if travelling late. 

 

Plenty of capacity on public transport then for all the people who will now be unable to drive into the city. I always wonder who all the people are that feel the need to sit in their cars for an hour when I whizz past them on the Stadtbahn on the way into Stuttgart. 

[Krieg 14,927]

29 minutes ago, Dembo said:

Euro 5 and 6 cars may even be worse than older diesels,

 

I don't think that's what the link says.   It says that Diesels have been improving less in NOx emissions when compared to petrol NOx emmisions.   It is a very strange comparison.    Diesel NOx emissions have been getting lower and lower, EURO6 produces almost half NOx compared to EURO4.   But in order to make it look bad there are some strange mental gymnastics there, they compare it with NOx emissions from petrol cars and because those have been improved more then the conclusion is that Diesel is getting worse.   Pretty weird argument.   And of course they chose NOx emissions because it is the well known weakness of diesel engines.

 

29 minutes ago, Dembo said:

and thanks to SUVs typically being diesels

 

Eating the cake and having the cake.   Most SUVs were diesel because they said diesel was better for the environment.   If you try to find a BMW X3 from 2005 - 2016 in Germany you will see that most of them were diesel.

 

 

Government is now telling as electric cars are better for the environment.  Imagine in 15 years they decide that so many batteries is bad for the environment and then ban all the EVs and say we all have to move to hydrogen.  Sounds crazy?  Well, that's what they did with diesel.

[snowingagain 5,202]

3 minutes ago, Krieg said:

 Most SUVs were diesel because they said diesel was better for the environment. 

I think that at the time diesel was cheaper might have been influenced people.  Heck in 1980 even I knew about particulate shit in diesel. But different priorities I guess.  Also no SUV drivers I know are really into doing "green" stuff.

[keith2011 2,579]

3 hours ago, Krieg said:

 

Another thing is that the emissions from plenty of those diesel cars are way below the allowed limits.   A well maintained diesel private car normally shows around 60% to 70% of the allowed emissions in their HU test.

 

 

 

Diesel contamination problem is mostly with non-CO2 particles.   Diesel CO2 contamination is probably lower than petrol if you consider they are more efficient.

 

All I can say is there must be a lot of poorly maintained diesel cars around because when I go out to the street in the morning it stinks of diesel fumes and the situation seems to have worsened since they reduced the speed limit to 30kmh. On top of that whilst CO2 pollution maybe lower on diesels that is not a poisonous gas but the NOX gases from diesel vehicles are. I also believe fine particulate pollution from diesel vehicles is far worse than petrol engines.

 

5 hours ago, yesterday said:

 

The city solution is to ban private diesel cars, while the city still keeps the very high polluting buses that run around the city, why do they not replace them  with EV or hydrogen Buses, because it will cost too much  ???  But. no its the poor old private diesel cars that are to blame

 

Most of the buses round here these days are either hybrid or full EVs and anyway commercial diesel vehicles, e.g. buses and LKVs are subject to much higher standards than cars, I read somewhere that a diesel bus actually produces less pollution than a diesel SUV!

So don't blame public transport and don't forget the trains and trams are also electric.

[Krieg 14,927]

15 minutes ago, snowingagain said:

I think that at the time diesel was cheaper might have been influenced people.  Heck in 1980 even I knew about particulate shit in diesel. But different priorities I guess.  Also no SUV drivers I know are really into doing "green" stuff.

 

While it is true that SUV from the early 2000s were crap, they have improved a lot, nowadays an SUV has slightly worse mileage than a sedan, the 15l per 100 km days are long gone.   And in Europe the most popular SUVs have been the mid size ones, not like in the USA that they love the full size ones.

 

And it is a good idea to see the whole picture, quality cars last much longer, specially the diesel ones because the engine is much more reliable.   Small compact cars die somewhere around 60.000 - 120.000 km.    If you check the average life of cars it is surprisingly low in first world countries, something around 11 years, that in my opinion is really bad, once a car is built the best for the environment is to use it the longest time possible.  

 

5 minutes ago, keith2011 said:

the situation seems to have worsened since they reduced the speed limit to 30kmh.

 

This was another stupid change pushed by the greens.    They actually wanted to make the whole Berlin a 30-zone.

[HEM 11,074]

1 hour ago, keith2011 said:

... the situation seems to have worsened since they reduced the speed limit to 30kmh.

 

Reducing speed limits to 30 kph "für den Klima" is like closing atomic power stations & using coal to reduce CO2!

[yesterday 1,979]

It seems there will be a legal challenge to this ban, which will be submitted the day before the ban comes into force or next week Wednesday

 

Diesel driving ban in Munich: Politicians file a lawsuit on January 31 – “Air is already getting better” - The Limited Times (newsrnd.com)

 

FROM the ABOVE LINK

The main argument will probably be that the diesel decree is disproportionate.

"The air in Munich is already getting better," says Brannekamper.

In the third quarter of last year, the critical nitrogen oxide values were not exceeded at any measuring point in the city.

Previously, only Tegernseer Landstraße and Landshuter Allee had exceeded the limit of 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air set at European level, albeit marginally.

Brannekämper also argues that the air quality during the lockdown hardly improved significantly when there were demonstrably fewer cars in the city.

This shows that cars do not cause the bad values per se.

[GoBike 140]

My house requires 3000l of heating oil a year. I could never use that amount in my car. How much red Diesel is sold each year in Frankfurt? Then pop over to the airport and calculate the Diesel they use on take-off. Only the legal aspects of Tax stop you from using Jet fuel or heating oil in the car. Thats why the Zoll checks what's in your tank.