Engineers are clever people. Throw a “mandate” or “regulation” at them and they’ll find a way to comply with it – thus regularly defeating the true purpose of the mandate or regulation, which was issued in the hope it could not be complied with.
Tailpipe emissions standards, for instance, were meant to eliminate engines – not pollution. But the engineers figured out how to make engines emit so little pollution that not only did engines survive, they thrived. By the 1990s, V8 and V12 engines produced lower emissions than the four cylinder engines of the ’70s. And they produced more power (and used less gas, an “emissions control” rarely acknowledged) than most of the V8s of the ’60s and ’70s.
By the early 2000s, no engine in any new vehicle emitted much of anything other than water vapor and carbon dioxide, neither gas worsening or having anything to do with air pollution. So, naturally, the definition of “emissions” was changed – and CO2 became one, just like that. Much in the same way we are told that a man can become a woman, just like that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true. What matters is that such beliefs – relentlessly pushed – can then be used to further an agenda.
All of a sudden, engines that had qualified under the old definitions of “emissions” as partial zero emissions (PZEV) engines – note that you never see those badges anymore – were the new (and “gross”) “polluters” and engines – all of them – were once again in the crosshairs. The only way to comply with the new regulations – and mandates, which now included zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) production quotas – appeared to be to get rid of engines, since no matter how “clean” an engine is, a running engine will necessarily result in the “emissions” of carbon dioxide (and water vapor).
The goal was in sight!
At last, after 50 years of hard work, the regulators – those busy little bees who work in what are innocuously styled “agencies” that operate with impunity as de facto legislatures, without any bother about elections – appeared to be on the verge of achieving that which they’d sought all those decades: The end of engines in cars and – thereby – they end of cars (which they despise). At least, the end of cars for most people, who would no longer be able to afford one or not want to own one. The special people – think John Kerry; think Kamala Harris – would of course continue to enjoy access to and use of the very types of cars “the little people” would not longer drive.
Like what is styled The Beast, as a for-instance.
The reference is to the presidential limo – which is actually a modified SUV made to look like a Cadillac limo. An armored limo that weighs twice as much as a typical car and has a huge and thirsty V8 engine that “emits” probably three or four times as much C02 as the typical car we’re still allowed to buy. It is exempt from the regulations. The special people always exempt themselves from what they impose on us (viz, Obamacare; the little people are required to buy in but the special people are exempted from its requirements).
The hope was that the redefining of “emissions” to encompass C02 would be the end of engines – for good this time.
But engineers are clever people. They figured a way to continue making engines and comply with the redefined regs. They developed hybrids. And – specifically – plug-in hybrids. The latter “emit” no “emissions” of the bogeyman gas when they are operated on their batteries, which power electric motors that propel the vehicle. Most plug-in hybrids can be operated as “zero emissions” electric vehicle for 20-30 miles, burning no gas along the way and also “emitting” no gas.
Voila, compliance!
Genius!
Even more so because it defeats the intent of the regs, which is to push people out of vehicles with engines and into battery powered devices, which most can’t afford and many do not want. So as to achieve the goal of getting most people to stop driving.
But the plug-in hybrid does not have to be plugged in. It can be driven just like any other vehicle with just an engine; the battery/motor part merely along for the ride. More finely, the plug-in hybrid is not tethered to an umbilicus, unlike a battery powered device. It charges itself up – as it is driven – using its engine as a generator. This means it does not force its owner to stop (and wait) for a charge.
And that is precisely why the next move – of the regulatory apparat – will be to out-regulate the plug-in hybrid. Michael Regan, the current head of the EPA – which ceased protecting the environment decades ago and now uses “the environment” as an excuse to regulate us ever-more and ever-harder – has already publicly complained that people who buy plug-in hybrids are not plugging them in often enough. They are just driving them – egads!
You see the intent there. Regan – just one of many busy bees – does not want people (that’s you and me but not him and the other special people) driving. They want us waiting – whether at a not-so-fast charger or for the bus. Ideally, the bus. However long we have to wait for it.
There is a chance – perhaps – that the Orange Man will put a stop to all of this. If he’s for- real and if the coming (s)election isn’t fake, this time. It might turn out to be real – in that it is plausible there are enough of Lenin’s Useful Idiots ready to vote for Kamala Harris; which is to say, for their own (and our) enserfment. Many are young people who have never owned a car and so don’t like or care about them – not understanding they’ve been pushed out of the car market by the very people they keep on voting into power.
Hence Useful Idiots.
But if there are enough who aren’t – and their votes are enough to overcome the pending repeat of what happened in 2020 – there is a chance the special people might be put where they belong for all they’ve done (and plan to do) to the rest of us.
. . .
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Just curious here: what’s your take, Eric, on the recent nullification of the Chevron Deference Supreme Court case as it applies to the EPA/Auto industry collectively? One would hope for a return to automotive glory in record time, but somehow I’m just not optomistic.
Semi hauling lithium batteries catches fire on I-15 N near Barstow halting traffic for over 11 hours. Been on that route many times and it’s hell in the summer. Better have a full tank of fuel, lots of water and something to pee in. Completely negates the legitimacy of BEVs, probably a lot of dead ones out there, hopefully no dead drivers or passengers.
You forgot “BREAKING NEWS!!!!”
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/lithium-battery-fire-sparks-traffic-mayhem-across-california-desert
64 standing ovations from our ‘s-elected’ representatives to our leader from Tel Aviv. All those lives lost to establish a free country only to end up being for nought. Given up for first in line Rapture tickets and other goodies offered by false prophets and fake Jews. The few that don’t buy that BS are waiting for their political savior. One recently got his wings when Jesus saved him from an errant bullet. They will wait until death and disease devours them and their offspring. Never once will saving themselves enter their captured vaccinated minds. Violence is bad so says Corpgov unless of course dished out by them!
All Government is Bad, period.
But especially the (((USA FEDGOV))) of today…
Always remember, (((they))) want us dead, preferably after a lifetime of voluntary slavery for them!!! And the more suffering we get, all the better!!!
With the caption on the bottom of that screenshot at the top of the post, is the Biden Thing’s EPA goon advocating punishment for people who refuse to buy an EV? If so, it would be much like when people like him advocated severe punishment for those who refused to be guinea pigs for Big Pharma & take an experimental pharma product that ultimately turned out NOT to be a “vaccine”. And the ironic thing is, people who pushed COVID vaxx mandates for all tended to also screech “My body, my choice!” when it came to the issue of abortion. However, when it came to COVID jabs, they flipped and it became “My body, the government’s choice!”
Again, the proper response to any of their mandates is of course: FUCK YOU!
Hi ML,
Other potential mandates these authoritarians may try to decree, besides the ones they’ve already decreed the past few years, include mandates for bird flu testing (and bird flu vaccines), mask mandates disguised as “Stopping the spread of CO2”, mandates for people to stop eating MEAT (Disguised as “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaving the planet”), Mandates for people to give up their gas vehicles for an EV, mandates for people to give up any guns they own, mandates for digital identity, mandates for CBDCs, etc.
The largest single polluter in the world is the US military. If “pollution” was a real concern, the military would be forced to adopt non combustion propulsion methods.
Until that happens, this issue should not be taken seriously.
“On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” – Masthead of Zerohedge.com.
All these catastrophes are scheduled to take place long after most of us will be dead, including babies born this year. “If we don’t take action by 2030, in 100 years the planet will be unlivable!” Well, first off… I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure none of us will be around to care. And second, 100 years ago most of the planet was pretty much unlivable. At least without wood, coal, animal skins, grains, buildings, metals and inventive people who were able to exploit these materials. Without all that humans can only live in a very narrow band of latitude, on one continent. This Eden suffered from climate change, forcing man to leave the garden and figure out how to survive. We’ve managed to create a fairly good approximation all over the Earth, and figured out how to compensate for the lack of perfection. We’ve even managed to help a bunch of animals adapt too. But take away the tools that brought us here, and we’re back in the Great Rift Valley. And it ain’t big enough for all of us.
If some hypothetical anthropological climate change is taking place, I have to think on net it will make things better, not worse. And if it does change, life will adapt. Or we’ll figure out how to adapt it. That’s what we do.
Of course all that is a moot point. The fact is, the reds in green sackcloth have decided that All Life Matters™. Not just “Black Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter,” but every strand of DNA has the right to exist. Much like the college freshman presented with peyote and a liberal professor discussing Hopi culture and religion, they bought into the idea that human rights extend to everything. Doesn’t matter that peak Hopi culture was around the time of Rome but looks like Stonehenge. No, they are the truly enlightened.
No wonder they want surrogate parents in the form of regulators and presidents and rich people telling them what to do. Their “young skulls full of mush” never developed beyond grade school.
War on another front:
The local IICs (Idiots In Charge, a.k.a. City Council) just decided it would be a terrific idea to narrow the main east-west thoroughfare (6th St) through the center of town (Corona, CA) from two lanes to one, by restriping it.
Two traffic lanes plus a bike lane, no parking, is being restriped to one traffic lane, a bike lane, plus parking. I wrote my Council Critter to let him know I will henceforth avoid 6th St entirely, because I do not like sitting in traffic jams, which are now guaranteed. He wrote back and attempted to chastise me to “be patient.” WTF?
I guess the next step will be a “regulation” which prohibits streets having more than one vehicular traffic lane each direction. Because, you know, Humans Bad, and Automobiles Evil.
I feel your pain Adi,
They’ve been doing the same thing around here, ruining perfectly decent two lane roads. The People’s Republic of Cambridge is the worst, the bike lane is next to the curb and then a concrete barrier, then the narrow roadway. So if you had to swerve suddenly to avoid a dog/kid that ran in front of your car it’s going to get wrecked. Many of the local businesses have complained that the lack of parking is ruining them but as in your case the city commissars don’t give a rat’s ass.
Hi, Mike,
>The People’s Republic of Cambridge
My teeth hurt just thinking about it. 🙁
As yet, they have not done the concrete barrier thing here.
> Many of the local businesses have complained that the lack of parking is ruining them
Yeah, buddy. Sixth St in Corona was SR-91 before the Riverside Freeway was built. So, guess what? There are many, many automotive related businesses. Did anyone ask the proprietors how they felt about making it more difficult for customers driving automobiles to get to their businesses???
Let’s see…
1. Reduced business means lower gross receipts, which means less tax revenue for the city.
2. Wasted time sitting in traffic jams means increased fuel consumption and increased auto emissions, into the dirtiest air in the country.
3. Guaranteed traffic jams means guaranteed irate citizens. Can you say “road rage?”
What is wrong with this picture???
One of my favorite German verbs is verschlimmbessern, which means to make something worse while trying to make it better (verbessern mean to make something better). Or, in vernacular American English, “Don’t fuck with it. You’re only making it worse.”
Aye, yi yi. [shaking head]
‘Michael Regan has already publicly complained that people who buy plug-in hybrids are not plugging them but just driving them – egads!’ — eric
Yes. And in the thousand-plus pages of his GHG tailpipe emissions regs, he’s substituted an obscure chart from the Society of Automotive Engineers which effectively will punish plug-in hybrids by assuming they run less often in all-electric mode.
Red Guard Regan is yesterday’s news. With the end of ‘Chevron deference’ to fedgov regulatory agencies, Regan will do nothing but vainly defend his existing power grabs, before shuffling off the stage in disgrace next January, to collect his millions as a lobbyist and fixer.
Oh, the rovin’ gambler, he was very bored
Tryin’ to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell on the floor
He said, I never did engage in this kind of thing before, but
Yes, I think it can be very easily done
We need to put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61
— Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
“the special people might be put where they belong”
When the ‘special people’, aka traitors, are tried, found guilty of treason, and impaled on the national mall as an example to potential future traitors, then they will be ‘where they belong’.
D.C. is utterly corrupt and can’t be reformed. NIFO
Never put your hope in “selections.” No matter who is in charge, nothing changes. The only thing that changes societies is non-compliance by each individual.
Indeed Pug.
The founders wrote copious letters to King George and parliament. It didn’t work. So they went with non-compliance, in a forceful way. Of course the “new” government soon became just as bad or worse than the old one. One can hope that the next “revolution” might stick. Maybe requiring a vow of poverty for any and all politicians. Or a strict term limit of just one term.
Agree 100%. Though in fairness to Trump, he addressed a bitcoin group in Nashville yesterday. This is Vivek Ramaswamy’s influence. Hopefully that influence stretches as far as shutting down the three letter agencies that Vivek claims can be done through mass layoffs outside of congress.
Not holding my breath tho.
Also in fairness to Trump, he ended the “individual shared responsibility payment” mandate under Obamacare. That has saved me thousands of dollars! I’m thankful for him feeing me of that government thievery.