Reader Question: “Compliant” Diesels?

Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!

Mike asks: I can’t help but think German engineers could make air cooled engines that “comply” and are quieter, cooler etc . Just look at what they did with diesel engines, and now you can’t distinguish them from gasoline engines. Don’t you think the technical issues could be over come ? (Notwithstanding the political bullshit.)

Thanks for all you do as I love cars and freedom too.

My reply: Just look at what they (the government, I mean) did to diesel engines – via political bullshit! As you note, they were made quiet, smooth – and very clean (by any sane standard, which means excluding any characterization of the non-reactive gas, carbon dioxide, as “dirty”) yet got curb-stomped off the road for just that reason – in my opinion.  They were too good – especially as regards cost – and that meant they were a threat to the electric car agenda, which aims at forcing us all into electric cars (the better to control us as well as to mulct us).

I think the same rule-of-thumb applies to air-cooled engines. They’re simpler and so inherently cheaper than water-cooled engines. They can be made very DIY serviceable as well. That’s strike two. And – yes – they can be made “clean” – by any sane standard. The proof of this is the last air-cooled car available for sale in this country, the ’98 911. It complied with every federal emissions reg in effect that year – and that means it was very, very “clean.”

The difference in objectionable emissions (not C02) between a ’98 model car and a 2018 model car is – literally – fractional. It is made to seem like much more by deliberate legerdemain – such as talking about “50 percent” reductions… of .05 percent NOx (as an example).

All cars – water cooled and air-cooled – made after about 1992 are “clean.” But this fact is kept from the public by omission and misrepresentation, in order to justify the continued existence and expansion of the federal regulatory apparat.

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