WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The VW Scandal 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.880 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.640 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.119 and how the tech are you? So it is time 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.400 for a classic episode. This episode originally published back on 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:30.640 October two thousand fifteen, and it's called the VW Scandal. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:35.000 So we're talking about the Volkswagen scandal, specifically the scandal 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:40.760 involving Volkswagen installing a system on their cars to cheat 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:46.360 emissions tests. Scott Benjamin joined me for this episode and 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.839 as always, you know it was it was a pleasure 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.280 having Scott on the show. His knowledge of the vehicular 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:57.960 world that was incredibly helpful, and I hope you enjoy 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:04.760 this discussion about the very risky and ultimately catastrophic decision 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.200 that Volkswagen made when it came to trying to trick 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.880 emissions tests. We are going to talk about the Volkswagen scandal. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:19.200 What happened, Uh, what the actual technical details are. Maybe 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.840 get some information about diesel versus gasoline cars, you know, 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.120 kind of get an understanding of what exactly happened and 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.280 what will what what the fallout is looking like so 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:34.280 far and spoiler alert, folks, this is an ongoing story. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:36.720 It's not like we have an end where we can 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.679 say and then they were charged this much money and 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.160 find no exactly because even now with the fixed information 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:44.840 that we we now have that we just got a 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.160 few days ago, there are still some unanswered questions in 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.440 this In this fixed plan, they say they've got the plan, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.240 but they're not quite exactly telling us what they're gonna 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.480 do with it. And only that, but they've also recently 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:04.240 announced a a different missions possible subterfuge trick thing that's 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.160 going to be in the two thousands, or was supposed 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.000 to be in the two thousand sixteen models, which currently 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.120 are not available here in the United States. They're quarantined 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.960 at US ports. Right there's a hold on all sales 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.680 of Volkswagen diesel vehicles from twenty sixteen, So while year 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.280 twenty sixteens are being held back, you can't get one 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.680 right now exactly. And I'll talk about what that particular 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.040 possibly shady technology does. But before we get into that, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.680 one of the things I wanted to do is kind 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.679 of lay the groundwork. I usually take the first part 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.400 of any episode to kind of talk about what what 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.200 were the conditions that led up to this point? And 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:45.800 really to look at this one, I wanted to go 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.760 way way way back, all right, because I wanted to 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.360 talk about the conditions that led up to things like 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.680 the Clean Air Act. So in order to do that, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.720 you have to look at the dependence upon the internal 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:05.600 Austrian engine as the primary means of powering vehicles. Now, Scott, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.400 I know you are very well aware that electric vehicles 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:15.160 proceeded internal combustion vehicles. Their electric cars were around before 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.440 we had and internal combustion cars. Yes, yes, that's right. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.520 They were in fact very prevalent. I mean taxi taxi 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.120 companies operated on all electric platforms in a certain point 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:29.359 in history. You can look at photographs of New York 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:30.880 and I don't know, we're talking to turn of the 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.920 century stuff, the turn of the twentieth century, where you know, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:36.920 it's all every car that you see in the shot 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.280 is all electric. Um. Yeah, there was a point when 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.200 there were far more electric vehicles on the road than 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.000 there were gasoline vehicles. And they were efficient, they were fast. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.920 One thing they were not was they didn't have incredibly 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.120 long driving ranges. But at first that didn't really matter. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.560 And the reason it didn't matter is because with the 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.560 development of the automobile also came the development of the 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.560 road system in the United States. So here in the US, 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.360 at least, the place you were most likely to encounter 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.200 roads that were suitable for driving on were in cities, 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:09.640 which meant that your driving range didn't have to be 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.320 that far. You weren't doing miles and miles of driving 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.080 every single day. You might be doing a few miles 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.760 of driving, which was important for electric vehicles because there 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.640 was no real way to recharge once you hit the road. Yeah. 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.839 In fact, they had the uh, the the original idea. 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:25.840 I guess you know where Tesla is getting his battery 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.799 swap idea from. I'm sorry, Musca, I guess I always 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:31.920 refer to him as Tesla, but that's not correct. Of course, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.039 I'm sure he would love that. Actually, while the Tesla, 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.039 the Tesla models that are proposing that, you know, they'll 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.920 be these battery swap situations where you can drive up 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.880 and leave your old battery, pick up a brand new one. 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.120 So that's a quick change, a relative quick change, and 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.000 then you're on your way and you have to return 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.320 for that battery. Uh, you know, it's like a rental 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.000 almost you have to come back and get it. But uh, 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.800 that idea is nothing brand new. Of course, these these 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:58.800 old taxis that I'm talking about would drive into a 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.600 station and they would swap the batter rasing their back 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.600 out on the road to collect the next fair. It 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.719 had as little downtime as possible, and they ran constantly 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.039 around the clock. But you know they were constantly getting 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.920 new batteries as well. Right, And if you look at 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:12.839 the development of the roads. Once we got to a 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.640 point where roads were being built out beyond the cities, 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.919 where they were connecting different cities together, a lot of 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.800 people had the desire to travel those roads. The roads 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.000 were there by necessity, but now people were like, I 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.800 have an opportunity to go places I couldn't go before. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.840 But the problem was the electric vehicles weren't the vehicles 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.119 that could get them there, because if there was further 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.479 away than say eighteen miles, you weren't going to reach 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.840 your destination. So the internal combustion engine had an advantage 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.000 over that, and that you could have fueling stations along 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.320 the way. And the other huge advantage was because Henry 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.960 Ford figured out how to do mass production and through 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.560 mass production, they were able to dramatically reduce the price 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.039 of a vehicle. So a an internal combustion engine car 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.920 cost about a third of what an electric vehicle did. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.760 So you have this mass adoption of the internal combustion engine. Now, 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.120 this is why the reason why I even lay that 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.080 groundwork is as the United States in particular becomes a 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:13.120 car culture, and as more and more people start driving 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.080 vehicles that use internal combustion, you have more and more 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:22.000 emissions from those vehicles, and it begins to accumulate over time. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.720 And depending upon the type of fuel you're using, if 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.480 it's diesel, you get a lot of emissions that contribute 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.400 to smog. And then we start seeing super smoggy cities 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.760 in different parts of the country. And by the nineteen 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.600 fifties and nineteen sixties, you had people concerned about the 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.880 quality of air. True, and the cities are inherently bad 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.000 about this because they containue, they capture all this, they 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.599 get it all in place. And not only that, but 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.720 you've also got some cities that geographically kind of hold 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.280 on to that material it's expelled from these vehicles. Los 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.320 Angeles is the classic example here in the United States, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.000 exactly right. Can look at some old photographs of smog 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.960 in Los Angeles and you can't even see buildings. So yeah, 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.400 it's it's like a heavy, heavy fog that hung over 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.520 the city and eventually blow away. It would it would 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.680 go away, but um not long you know, not long 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:15.440 after it blows out of there, it would come right 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.400 back again because there are so many vehicles that were 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.720 emitting so many um uh you know, bad things for 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.080 the environment, but the noxious gases, right, yeah, stuff that 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.480 was bad for the environment. It could cause health issues 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.560 if if it was really like if it's a really 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.880 smoggy day to this day, in certain cities, when it's 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.600 really smoggy, you will hear warnings on the news like 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.880 limit your amount of time outdoors, especially on hot days 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.800 where it can be aggravated, because it can end up 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.120 either causing or aggravating health issues. Sure, and you can 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.840 see examples of this in China today it's really really heavy. 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.920 I mean there's still um and in parts of Europe too, 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.680 you know, exactly right, Yeah, there's you can look at 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.840 modern day Beijing and see what you know, Los Angeles 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.280 looked like several decades ago here in the States, right, 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.800 so by the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, different regions 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.840 in the US we're looking at ways of improving air 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.440 quality and limiting pollution. And it was really patchwork, you know, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.840 for a long time until about nineteen sixty seven. That's 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.720 when the US Congress passed the Air Quality Act. Now 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.520 this was the predecessor to the Clean Air Act. The 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.200 Air Quality Act had a disadvantage in that it was 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:34.200 meant to have kind of a centralized organization headed by 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.040 the Secretary Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, to designate 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:43.199 air quality regions around the United States, and then the 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.240 states that those air quality regions were within, we're supposed 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.840 to come up with a plan for pollution control. So, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.080 in other words, the federal government was saying, here are 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:59.520 the areas we have to be worried about, all right, Georgia, California, Texas. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.400 You I take care of those places. And this lack 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.880 of a cohesive approach meant that it was pretty much 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.360 doomed to not meet its its goals. And in fact, 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.520 after three years by they had fewer than thirty six 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.319 regions defined, less than three dozen of the had had 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.760 been defined at all, and no state had any sort 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.040 of pollution control uh comprehensive plan. And so the solution 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:29.960 then was to bring it all under the control of 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.640 the U. S. Congress. Right, Yes, that was when the 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.880 Congress ray convened and started to say, all right, well, 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.400 this this plan was noble in its intention. We wanted 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.320 to make sure we weren't imposing the federal will on 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.120 the states. But it's not working. So that's where the 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.720 Clean Air Acts to tie all this together so that 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.680 you understand what's happening at that particular time. This is 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.800 this is well, well you know the I guess the 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:56.600 terment we're gonna throw around here a little bit today 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.840 maybe as the cafe standards and cafe standards were an 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.920 act did somewhere around nineteen seventy five. I think the 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.000 regulations these are set of regulations that were enacted by Congress. 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.040 And nineteen seventy five you're you're talking about like the 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.240 tail end of the Arab oil embargo, so you know 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.600 the fuel crisis. You know where um you see the 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.600 lines of people and you know the no gas today 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.440 ration ing and all the rationing with the odd even 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.640 system and all that. Um, that is that's the environment 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.480 that we're talking about. Yeah, so this was, um, you know, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.240 this was a serious situation for multiple reasons. Also in 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.640 nineteen seventy, that's when uh, you know, you had the 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.280 introduction of Earth Day, so you had this growing support 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:41.400 for a conservation and uh and and concern about the environment. Uh. 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.120 In at the same time where you have things like 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.080 the oil crisis. I mean, all this stuff is coming 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.120 to a head. So it's all fueling this. And we were, well, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.360 we were starting to understand the effects on the human body, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.959 just just exactly what that that smog was doing to 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.760 people that are walking around in the next cloud of 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.600 of you know, just awful stock x in there and saying, hey, 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.120 you know, it's weird. We're seeing a lot more people 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.400 with asthma these days, that kind of stuff, or or 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.480 bronchitis or things of that nature. Respiratory illnesses. We can't 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.920 quite put our finger on exactly what's causing it, but 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.880 it's happening frequently, and and and even if you were 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.680 to argue that the pollution may not cause it, it it 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:22.280 certainly exacerbated it. So uh. This ended up creating the 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.400 Cleaner Act, which set the national standards for pollution emissions 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.240 eventually and created a timeline for it, which had to 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.280 be adjusted multiple times because, as it turned out, the 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.560 standards were uh. The standards to make the engines operate 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.439 in what had been determined to be a safe uh 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:44.200 set of parameters meant that manufacturers couldn't find a way 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.400 to meet that and also make a car that worked. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.920 So so those those UM, those goals kept getting pushed. 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.680 There was there were UH they they started to look 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.360 at pushing the deadline back in seven. They pushed it 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.760 back again in um mainly because the technology to create 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:08.600 something that was able to operate under these standards and 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.600 do its job was not really an achievable goal for 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.440 something that wouldn't cost an astronomical amount of money. And 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:16.840 you know one thing that I don't think we've even 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.480 mentioned yet is we say cafe standards. That means corporate 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.840 average fuel economy, and that's across the line of vehicles, 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.040 across the whole fleet of vehicles. It's not like one 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.719 particular vehicle has to meet the standard. It has to 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.600 be an average of all vehicles produced. And I know 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.800 there's other there's other stuff that goes into this. There's 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.200 there's a big vinn diagram that makes this all work. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.080 But um, the standards are very very, uh tough to meet. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.080 I mean they're they're they're a strict set of stet 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.199 of standards. That especially the latest round, which was I'm 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.640 announced and I think it was two thousand eight, all 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:52.160 the way through the model year. And when manufacturers see 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.240 the list of what they have to meet, the goals 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:55.840 that they have to meet in order to be in 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.400 compliance with this agreement to sign this agreement and say, yeah, 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.960 we agreed to sell vehicles in the United States, we 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.760 have to meet these goals. Uh, it is a steep 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.600 set of standards. And I find it interesting that looking 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.560 back now you know the agreement, the initial agreement in 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.040 two thou eight, um, all those it was very stringent, 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:20.320 very's very tough. Um. Thirteen major auto manufacturers signed that agreement, 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.079 you know, a bit begrudgingly. You know that they say, well, okay, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.120 we can probably meet these but there's a lot of 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.160 back and forth. Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz had the biggest 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.679 objection to it. And I don't know if Volkswagen ever 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.880 signed that agreement. I I don't know how. I've been 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:37.880 looking all day trying to find out if they actually 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.560 signed the agreement. But I can only find information that 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.160 goes back into two two thousand eight where they say 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.440 Volkswagen has as of now not signed this agree. Interesting. Yeah, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.920 one of those things where you can't find any definitive 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.400 update about whether they did or did not sign up. Yeah, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.240 And the reason was they said that it's UM and 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.480 i'll just paraphrase this is because they said that UM 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:02.480 it places an unfair fairly high burden on passenger cars well, 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.520 allowing a greater flexibility to let's say a heavier light truck. 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.040 So we're saying it's not exactly uh, the way that 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.480 we'd like to see it happen. And it's penalizing to 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.880 involve things, penalizing people that make UM passenger vehicles with 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:21.000 diesel engines. It's not quite fair to them. It's white 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.280 Mercedes and Volkswagen said, I don't know about this agreement. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.600 I don't think we're gonna sign it. And I will 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.920 still dig into that and see if they actually ever did. 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.600 But around two that was kind of the talk around 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.320 the circles was why is not why is b W 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.840 not signing this? And you know it's we'll get more 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.920 into the diesel stuff in a minute to explain, you know, 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:44.040 some of the issues that manufacturers run into. Scott Benjamin 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:45.960 and I will be back to talk a bit more 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:58.840 about the Volkswagen scandal after this quick break. The scandal 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:03.600 is pretty awful. That being said, I also have at 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:09.160 least some sympathy for the difficulty that engineers space to 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.880 make things that are satisfying to drive, that operate within 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:19.040 the the fuel economy and efficiency that is dictated by 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.240 the government, as well as work within the emission standards. Okay, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.680 you just said the magic three there. That's the three things. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.800 It's it's fuel economy, performance and emissions and you can 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.600 it's have you ever heard the phrase you can have 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.520 it done quickly, you can have it done well, or 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.400 you could have it done cheaply. You can pick two 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.160 out of the three. Yeah, yeah, and you're never gonna 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.440 find all three. R Well, somehow folks like I can 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.600 managed to do all three with their diesel engines back 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.160 in two thousand. Oh wow, it was magical too, as 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.880 it turns out. But before we jump ahead to that 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.200 a little bit more, just to kind of cover our bases, uh, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.040 the Environmental Protection Agency has given been given a lot 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.280 of control as well. When it comes to the emission standards, 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.600 they were able to establish the National Ambient air Quality 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.640 Standards or in a a Q snacks. I gotta say, 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.320 that's a new one to me. Yeah, that's the one 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.640 that where the deadline had been extended a couple of times, 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.800 like where where it was clear the states could not 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.440 meet that deadline. So I mean, what do you do, Like, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.080 do you what's the well? I guess what's the fine? 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.360 And how do you define how much each place pays? 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.600 I mean based on what the offense is. Yeah, you 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.520 measure that again. And and you know, because pollution also 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.160 doesn't doesn't necessarily obeyed geography, right. You could have pollution 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.880 that is produced in one place, but it's another place 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.840 that's dealing with it. Uh. And in states where you 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.000 have big cities that are close to the border, it 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.720 may be that one city is actually producing the pollution, 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.440 but the other city is the one that's really suffering 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.440 from it. Dumping into rivers is a great example. You know, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.240 it's stuff like that where it flows downstream, Yeah exactly, 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.920 or trucked into a different region. Just simple air pattern exactly. 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.440 You know, weather patterns can push it so, uh, you know, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:01.880 they put the deadlines a couple of times. It made 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:03.680 me think of like if you're if you're a parent 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:05.320 of a kid and you say, I need you to 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.760 pick up all these toys before five o'clock and you're 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:09.719 coming there and it's all the toys aren't picked up, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.440 and you're thinking, well, all right, you need to pick 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.480 up all these toys before six o'clock because you're like, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.840 I don't really want to punish you, but I really 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.000 do want you to pick up these toys where it's done. 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.520 But they've just thrown them in their brother's closet. Yeah, see, 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.840 pushing it down the road. Yeah, for me, it was 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.120 it was all just shoving it into the closet like 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.360 that's that. If it's out of sight, that means it's clean. Um. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.080 So one of the things about the Clean Air Act 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.520 is that it it did have standards for what kinds 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.240 of emissions and how much how many you know, types 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.760 of emissions could be created by a car. Carbon dioxide, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.760 by the way, non that list carbon dioxide, didn't. You know? 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.440 That's the greenhouse gas and it's something that we're concerned about, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.840 but not on the list of the emissions that the 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.040 Clean Air Act was concerned with. Instead, it was things 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:03.120 like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and hydrocarbon emissions greenhouse gasses. Yeah, 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.080 except for carbon dioxide. That was the only one that 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:06.760 was kind of left out. But yeah, these are all 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:11.240 greenhouse gasses. Yeah. And and diesel in particular is pretty 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.320 bad about um nitrogen oxides, and that's the kind of 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.240 stuff that contributes to smog uh formation. Yeah. You often 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.680 see it written as like n O X or yes 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:25.359 and people yea, yeah, hard knocks in that case. Uh 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.879 So the standards of the emission centers themselves. When I 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.480 say standard, it sounds like I could easily quote you, 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:36.400 you know, here's how much uh nitrogen oxide the car 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.560 is allowed to emit over a given amount of time. 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.560 Not that simple. It all depends on the type of vehicle, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.160 like you were saying, between light trucks and passenger cars 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.640 for example, or the age of the vehicle that that 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.760 plays a factor as well. Um So, and also whether 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.240 it's a gasoline powered vehicle or a diesel powered vehicle, 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:00.520 because the emissions will be different depending upon those. So 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.560 it's a little complicated, and I'm not going to be 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.560 you know, spouting off specific numbers because it's just not 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.359 there's no point to it. A different podcast. Yeah, that's 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.479 that's the that's the the incredibly tiny standards podcast. I'm 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.199 not going to get down to that, but play to 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.560 go to sleep, yes evening, and I don't mind if 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.439 you guys fall asleep to me. I don't do the 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.600 listener mail thing anymore, so at least you're not gonna 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.920 be woken up by a clason. Um So, like we said, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.520 the performance, the energy efficiency or fuel efficiency, I should say, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.439 and the emissions are those three things, and it is 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.560 very hard to meet the expectations of all three of 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.120 those at the same time because um As it turns out, 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.320 a lot of the emissions control mechanisms have an effect 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.800 on performance. Um they have an effect on and they 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:54.160 can have an effect on fuel efficiency. For example, it's 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.639 correlation is kind of a weird word, but there's an 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:02.480 association between a very fuel efficient diesel engine and high 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:08.600 production of nitrogen oxide. So you if you're an auto manufacturer, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:10.919 you have to make an engine to make your cargo, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:12.879 and you're using you know you want it to be 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.040 a diesel powered engine. You have specific standards, you have 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.480 to meet for fuel efficiency, that's one of the things 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.159 you've got to you know, one of the boxes you 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.000 have to check off. But you also have standards you 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:26.919 have to meet for emissions. That's the other box you've 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.840 got to check off. And in this relationship, as one 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.480 goes up, the other goes down in the in the 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.280 bad way, right Like, as one improves, the other one 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:41.160 is getting worse. So how do you balance that out? 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.879 Plus make sure that the car performs in such a 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.679 way that it's not just drivable, but people want to 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.639 drive that a consumer would actually want to drive that vehicle. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.520 Because when you start playing around with these three things 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:58.359 that you've mentioned, Um, I'll argue that consumers are and 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.199 I know that this is I guess maybe controversial, and 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:04.040 that you know, some people say, no, that's what I 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.239 care about most. He's always gonna be someone like that. 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.000 But um I would say that most people care less 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.560 about the actual emissions of the vehicle than they do 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.600 about the fuel economy and the way that the car performs. 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.480 Are fuels and dry, right, because the fuel efficiency is 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.760 going to impact your wallet, right, you know, it's it's 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:22.520 how much fuel you're gonna have to buy to get 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.600 your car to go from place to place and performance 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.080 obviously the way the car feels emissions. I would argue 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.040 for most people, they want the emissions to be at 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.240 a level that is acceptable for the region therein Well 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:36.680 what I mean by that, and I don't I don't 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.000 mean to you know, spark any kind of big controversy 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.080 or anything. But what I'm saying is that when you 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.080 buy a new vehicle off the lot, you assume that 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.200 it's going to be compliant with current CAFE or not CAFE, 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.480 but rather emission standards in that area and in the 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:51.560 U S in general. It's going to pass. It's going 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.359