German police raid Daimler offices

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40010111

German police raid Daimler offices

23 May 2017

From the section Business

German police have searched 11 offices of carmaker Daimler as part of their investigation into possible fraudulent emissions data by employees. A total of 23 prosecutors and 230 police officers took part in the search in the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Berlin, Lower Saxony and Saxony,

Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, said it was co-operating with authorities. It added "known and unknown employees" were being sought over suspicion of fraud and misleading advertising.

This is worrying news for Daimler. Earlier this year, it admitted that some of its employees were the target of a criminal investigation, suspected of fraud and false advertising linked to the manipulation of diesel exhaust emissions. Today's searches show that prosecutors are taking that inquiry very seriously indeed.

The company is also concerned about the US authorities. Earlier this year, they accused rival manufacturer FiatChrysler of fitting unauthorised emissions control software to its vehicles; they are reportedly planning to launch legal action against FCA within the next few days.

That could be bad news for Daimler, which is also coming under scrutiny in the US. In fact, it says the possibility that the authorities might decide its own vehicles are fitted with "impermissible" software cannot be ruled out.
(snip)

[DetlefK]

1. No carmaker is fulfilling the emissions-standards. Nobody. Because it's impossible.

It's an open secret among everybody in the upper levels of carmaker-companies. You simply cannot reduce the emissions to the demanded level while keeping the motor-power at the level that we are used to.

The only way to reduce the emissions would be to use weaker motors. And then people won't buy your cars.

[Not Ruth]

2. Tesla is reducing emissions

And their vehicles are fast.

[DetlefK]

3. Aaaaaaaaaaand there's a similar problem with electric cars.

Cars are among the biggest drain of energy in humanity's society. If we replace combustion-cars with electric cars, we will simply shift the energy-need from chemical energy to electric energy.

The problem:
With nowaday's electricity-grid, it's impossible to supply a fleet of electric cars. We would need:
* an infrastructure where you can exchange an empty battery for a full battery (similar to a gas-station)
* a completely refurbished and revised electricity-grid that has the capacity and flexibility to get the electric power to where it's supposed to go
* more nuclear reactors

You simply cannot supply the energy-demand of a whole fleet of electric cars by wind and solar alone. A large-scale switch away from nuclear power is only possible if we reduce our consumption of electric energy. But with electric cars, we would INCREASE the consumption of electric energy.




The choice is simple:
More nuclear reactors
or
more public transportation and less cars.