Proposal to ban 15 year old vehicles. EDIT: Concept paper released on page 18

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

who estimates, "fully one-third of the total environmental damage caused by automobiles occurred before they were sold and driven." He also cites a study that estimated that fabricating one car, produced 29 tonnes of waste and 1,207 million cubic yards of polluted air.

I don't deny that a lot of pollution happens during automobile manufacturing, but situation might not be as scary as it appears from the above numbers. My reasons for the doubt are :

1. These numbers try to encapsulate every aspect right from iron ore extraction to final product. This method is theoretically correct but extremely difficult practically and therefore might have many wide estimations.

2. These numbers were published in 1981, "From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation, 1900–1940. By Mark S. Foster. Philadelphia: Temple University Press". I could link to this article but couldn't get the full text.

I do agree that situation might have been (I am inclined to say 'it was') that bad during those years, till 1981 when this study was published. But in recent years, with the focus on environmental issues, the situation has improved a lot and the trend is continuing for leaner and cleaner manufacturing. Recycling and life cycle management of production facilities has much improved.

3. Also, comparing the annual sales number across all manufacturers in all regions, the production volumes have increased multi-fold. Therefore, pollution (during production) per car will be much lower than in 1980s.

However, this must not be a reason to defend the manufacturing process as source of pollution and further enabling measures must be implemented.

Originally Posted by KiloAlpha

this policy could be the thin edge of a wedge. In what ways could this policy evolve over time?
... - Refusal to renew registration for certain classes of vehicles
- Stricter (and environmental) criteria for renewing registration at the 15-year mark could benefit the environment and/or the RTO officer(s) bank balance...

Currently, the Fitness Certificate regime is a bit of a joke. I would bet my bottom dollar that a majority of the 15+ year old vehicles on the road today don't have FC...

True. Not only Fitness certificate, PUC is has also become cash cow for the corrupt officials to receive kick back from PUC centers . I feel if the PUC & FC regime was strictly and honestly implemented, the situation might not be as bad as it is today.

[MHG]

There are chassis and body shell designs that have been around for a really long time without changing. Maruti Alto/800, Maruti Omni and Tata Indica are classic examples. Why not encourage manufacturers to sell powertrain replacement kits alone for such cars ? A 1999 Indica Diesel can be upgraded with an eV2 engine and the newer 800cc Alto engine can be offered as an upgrade for the older Alto/800/Omni.

This way the environment isn't screwed as much as by manufacturing a completely new car.

I blame the lack of such options on the planned obsoletion mantra manufacturers world wide seem to be having - be it automobiles or electronics.

[ankitahuja]

After all said and done in the conversations over the last 2 days, sorry I'm confused and I still have a question.

Can I take my 15+ year car for renewing it's fitness certificate in Delhi now or is the scrapping rule still implied?

Secondly, what all do I need to carry and what all shall be renewed?

[amitk26]

Originally Posted by MHG

There are chassis and body shell designs that have been around for a really long time without changing. Maruti Alto/800, Maruti Omni and Tata Indica are classic examples. Why not encourage manufacturers to sell powertrain replacement kits alone for such cars ? s.

There is a DIY fad in many countries to convert classics to Electric Vehicals and kits are available. The main problem in western countries is labour costs.

If there can be some policy clarity on registering the converted EV I am sure lots of people will go EV way instead of overhauling the engines.

Small lightweight cars such as Matiz , Maruti - 800 / Alto and first generation Nano could be perfect doners for converted electric car projects.

[pganapathy]

So many other countries have a simple solution to this problem. Do a Fitness Test and if the car is fit and meets current norms, they let you use it. Use FC and PUC (unfortunately there is too much corruption in this) properly and there will be no need to come up with half baked ideas that make no sense

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by pganapathy

So many other countries have a simple solution to this problem. Do a Fitness Test and if the car is fit and meets current norms, they let you use it. Use FC and PUC (unfortunately there is too much corruption in this) properly and there will be no need to come up with half baked ideas that make no sense

Well, yes and no. Many if not all western European countries have a Fitness test. E.g. The UK MOT, the Dutch APK, the German TUV etc.

But that doesn't mean i can drive my cars anywhere in those respective countries. More and more countries are implementing "environmental zones" which restrict cars even if they have a Fitness certificate.

For instance in my home country the Netherlands, the city of Rotterdam has just introduced a environmental zone. Diesel car older then 15 years and petrol cars older then 24 years can not enter the city anymore. Despite having a fitness certificate or APK as we call it.

Germany has had a similar scheme in place for dozens of its cities, England has its London environmental zone. Even with a valid MOT you will, automatically, get a huge fine if you drive into these zones.

My eldest son lives in Rotterdam and he had to sell his Classic Mercedes W123 as even for classic cars no exception are given.
Jeroen

[pganapathy]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

But that doesn't mean i can drive my cars anywhere in those respective countries. More and more countries are implementing "environmental zones" which restrict cars even if they have a Fitness certificate.

For instance in my home country the Netherlands, the city of Rotterdam has just introduced a environmental zone. Diesel car older then 15 years and petrol cars older then 24 years can not enter the city anymore. Despite having a fitness certificate or APK as we call it.

Germany has had a similar scheme in place for dozens of its cities, England has its London environmental zone. Even with a valid MOT you will, automatically, get a huge fine if you drive into these zones.
Jeroen

This as a concept does not make sense to me. So you can drive a newer car there, but not an older one. Either a car is fit to drive there or is not. I understand if they want to set stricter emission norms for an environmental zone, but that should be based on your PUC, not age of car. A 14 year and 15 year old car of the same model will probably have exactly the same emissions, but one can enter and one can't

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by pganapathy

This as a concept does not make sense to me. So you can drive a newer car there, but not an older one. Either a car is fit to drive there or is not. I understand if they want to set stricter emission norms for an environmental zone, but that should be based on your PUC, not age of car. A 14 year and 15 year old car of the same model will probably have exactly the same emissions, but one can enter and one can't

The German system is actually based more on emission then on age perse I believe, but the system in Rotterdam is purely age based

http://www.gezonderelucht.nl/healthier-air-rotterdam

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by MHG

There are chassis and body shell designs that have been around for a really long time without changing. Maruti Alto/800, Maruti Omni and Tata Indica are classic examples. Why not encourage manufacturers to sell powertrain replacement kits alone for such cars ? A 1999 Indica Diesel can be upgraded with an eV2 engine and the newer 800cc Alto engine can be offered as an upgrade for the older Alto/800/Omni.

Truck and Bus makers have a provision of engine replacement. Tata gives a 3 Year 5 lakh km warranty on truck engines, after that a user can pay and get his engine replaced with a company overhauled engine by paying a certain amount. Replaced engines have a 2 year 3 lakh km warranty.
both Tata and Al wanted to upgrade engines to current pollution limits at the time of replacement, but the RTO's had refused to accept and register the upgradations. So a Euro II engine has to be replaced by a Euro II only and not as Euro III or EuroIV.
Actually components like Block, Crankshaft, Pistons etc are the same Euro I onwards, only the fuel pumps Ecu's nozzels etc have changed.

Rahul

[ringoism]

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

Truck and Bus makers have a provision of engine replacement. Tata gives a 3 Year 5 lakh km warranty on truck engines, after that a user can pay and get his engine replaced with a company overhauled engine by paying a certain amount. Replaced engines have a 2 year 3 lakh km warranty.
both Tata and Al wanted to upgrade engines to current pollution limits at the time of replacement, but the RTO's had refused to accept and register the upgradations. So a Euro II engine has to be replaced by a Euro II only and not as Euro III or EuroIV.
Actually components like Block, Crankshaft, Pistons etc are the same Euro I onwards, only the fuel pumps Ecu's nozzels etc have changed.

Rahul

Please name one BS-I vehicle that even had an ECU...! Never mind the RTO's, I'd think this sort of upgrade would only rarely be possible at all. In SOME cases (not as many as we might think) basic engine components would be the same / similar across EU/BS standards, but in general, many peripherals (which is where a lot of the cost / complexity come in) will be different enough to make "replacements" nearly impossible for anyone but a few experts in high-end modification shops, etc - or perhaps for heavy-vehicle makers who've deliberately designed in that upgradability. Sounds like a good idea, but I don't know a carmaker in the world who's done it. They make more money selling new vehicles than they ever could upgrading old ones.

-Eric

[ringoism]

Anyone really interested in the issue of vehicular pollution control might do well to read a couple summary pages of analysis put forth by journalist Malcolm Gladwell, published in section four of a chapter entitled, "Million Dollar Murray" in his book "What the Dog Saw".

The context in that case was one where (similar to many other parts of the world), around five percent of the vehicles, due to poor maintenance or unauthorized modifications, were creating over half the pollution on the roads.

As much as we may complain about the corruption at our PUC centers here in India, it was the case that even there in Denver, Colorado, "there was little evidence that the city's regime of inspections made any difference in air quality."

There was a much simpler, cheaper solution suggested, with a proposed capability of reducing pollution by an estimated 35-40% over a few years... But sadly, governments everywhere have had the same tendency to embrace "sweeping reforms" that in the end are much less effective than some simpler, if novel, approaches that would actually be nearer a solution.

"The challenge of controlling air pollution isn't so much about the laws as it is about compliance with them. It's a policing problem, rather than a policy problem", he writes. "We put together blue-ribbon panels when we're faced with problems that seem too large for the normal mechanisms of bureaucratic repair...[but such problems are] not of policy but compliance... [there is a need to] adhere to the rules already in place".

Here in Manali, I'd thought long ago of a solution far simpler, cheaper, and more effective than the one being attempted at present:

1. Have a single police officer stand just out of town armed with a handycam, recording images of vehicles beginning their ascent towards Rohtang, his assistant taking note of the number plates of those which are "grossly polluting".
2. Station another officer or two at a checkpoint/barrier a half-kilometer ahead, who simply receive alerts by walkie-talkie and hand out challans to those driving vehicles obviously polluting with large amounts of tailpipe smoke, and/or banning them from proceeding beyond that point. That's it. Hard evidence is there on video for anyone who wants to protest, and the pollution issue will largely fix itself, because owners of highly polluting vehicles will make sure their mechanical issues are solved before trying again. No taxi-wallah wants to lose a day's work / a few thousand rupees and bear the wrath of his passengers for being turned back in the midst of someone's dream holiday.

So forget about the age of the car. Forget about questions of overloading. Forget about driver skill or accelerator pedal modulation. Forget about the corruptions of the PUC centers. If there's clouds of smoke coming out the pipe, the car is dirty, contributing far more than its share of pollutants - and it shouldn't be going to Rohtang. Full stop.

As it stands, that dirty car and many others like it will be taken to the private PUC center south of town and be issued a certificate without even putting the test probe in the pipe. It will then head up to Rohtang (or Solang, or Hamta) emitting the pollutants of five, or ten, or twenty vehicles. A concerned authority, in an elaborate study, will note the general pollution problem up there and effectively ban 19 clean-running vehicles (i.e., a daily cap, or ban of 10-year-olds or of diesels, etc), when they could have got rid of just that one, and left 95% of the vacationers and the local economy unscathed.

Would that have been too easy?

We can make it even easier: Use a remote, infra-red analyzer as the one mentioned in Gladwell's essay, and an automatically-triggered camera (or radio tagging) to record the registration numbers of offending vehicles that pass by. And send the owners challans in the mail. Non-payers will not be able to renew their insurance or (for taxi/commercial) to remit their road / token tax. The technology exists and is very cheap in comparison to stationing dozens of officers at Bahang/Palchan/Gulaba/Mardi (purportedly) for "enforcement".

A similar scheme would probably also work in the major metros better than anything else yet proposed / implemented. As might an incentive-based citizen reporting system as is being done in Delhi re: the burning of rubbish.

Food for thought.

-Eric

[ringoism]

Originally Posted by commonman

Current PUC check is a farce.I am giving an example of the PUC check I had done on my 2014 TB350, some days back. (Please see the image attached). I did the check twice in 5 minutes. The values were different each time. The Carbon Monoxide and Carbon dioxide level increased in the second time and the Hydro Carbon and Oxygen level decreased. Now, my question is how much we can rely on these road side Pollution check centres ? This also means the pollution certificates can be manipulated ?

Mods: If this doesn't fit in here, kindly move or remove.

The figures recorded in your two tests IMO represent a predictable range of variation, which often will not make a difference between pass/fail. Hot engines (vehicles just coming off the highway, for example) will give cleaner numbers than ones given a little cooling time; slight variations in idle speed, etc, also have their effects. And true, there's a question of the calibration / maintenance / proper use of test equipment as well.

But to answer one question, yes, results can be manipulated, even when really measured. Old trick: rev a petrol vehicle's engine a bit high in neutral for a minute before starting the test protocol. Combustion chambers and especially catalytic converter being well-heated up, even a dirty-running engine has a good chance of passing: this being only one of the problems with PUC's, and the reason that something like remote, random monitoring for cars actually being driven would be more effective (even VW's little scandal this past year would've been caught a lot earlier).

-Eric

[Rahul Rao]

@ringoism.
Euro I and Euro II vehicles did not have ECU's at all. Euro III onwards some have them but not all, while all vehicles confirming to Euro IV standard have them.
The trucking industry world wide follows the norm of upgrading to as high a standard viable without compromizing on economy whenever engine needs overhaul.
I have trucks getting material from my suppliers in Gurgaon to Pune, and what I have observed is that the Tata 3516 or 3518 trailer which does the long run are prestinely maintained, tyres are never more than 70% worn, and all maintenance is preventive. These trucks usually run about 7.5 lakh km in 5.5 years when the transporter is getting a engine replacement even if not necessary, he says reduced oil and fuel consumption pays back. He uses the truck another 3.5 years before selling off. Trailers are allowed a 15 Yrs usable life for up country registration, while it is 9 years in cities where Euro IV norms are applied. Now the trucks that are going in for replacement in July are Euro II non ECU. If they are replaced with an Euro III Ecu engine, they sure will pollute far less on their entire operating route.
Now the same transporter uses smaller Tata 709 or 4 wheeled Eichers for in town delivery. They usually have remoulded tyres, smoke at start, and have 'n' no of problems. They have not even run 3 Lakh km in 8-9 years, but are polution monsters. Due to in city use in congested places are dented all over. In my opinion these smaller trucks should not be sold in current form in the future. Instead of Camary going Hybrid, these monstors along with municipal vans and city buses should become Hybrid.

Rahul

[Ricky_63]

IMHO - changing (upgrading the engine) should be an option. Like said before, the Indica V2 could run the quadrajet & that takes care of the BS4 or whatever regulation. Why scrap a car (IF) it is in good shape ? Just allow an engine upgrade.

Firstly anyone using a car for 15 years maybe doing it for a reason (personal attachment or financial reasons) why should we not have the option of transplanting a new engine ?

Is production of millions of cars per year not polluting ? Ofcourse it is - but the govt makes a lot of money off of a new car. Excise, VAT, registration, surcharge etc. So I think it is a vicious circle. Suffers ? You & I - period

I had restored a 1992 E 250D a few years ago. The car was like one out of the showroom. The engine did not "smoke" & it DID pass the mandatory PUC test. The car was a tank in the guise of a car :-) BUT if we go by the rule book - I would not be able to drive it today coz it has "aged" !!

I see heavily polluting vehicles EVERY day on the roads. Belching dense black smoke & these are not over 2 years old - point is these are not maintained but running only to make money or doing "government duty" - I could go on and on - but I think we all know what I am saying here....

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

Quoting historian Mark Foster who estimates, ............sheer amount of waste and air pollution incurred in manufacturing a single new car as opposed to driving your existing one which may be a couple of euro emission standards down, is a statement in itself.

Mark Foster's prognostications reminds me of the tongue in cheek statistics quoted a years ago about the no. of tons of rust and assorted metallic debris collected annually from the cleaning & sweeping of the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge! I'm always a bit cautious about swallowing statistics, remembering that old chestnut about "lies, damn lies and statistics!"