this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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Fuck Cars
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Your hub for collection of materials that contribute to a world with less car ownership. Including buses, motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, longboards, scooters, hoverboards, e-scooters, pedestrians, walking, running
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Diesel had the side-benefit of basically being a handicap for European automotive OEMs; the Americans, Koreans and Japanese didn't really have competitive diesels until much later. In markets outside of Europe, CTDI was losing to hybrids badly, so a little plausibly-deniable protectionism with a dash of greenwashing seemed like a great idea.
There's a theory that the only reason the European regulators finally closed the loophole is that Toyota and Hyundai's diesels were finally competitive and, in turn, European hybrids weren't underperforming glitch-ridden pieces of crap, so the sop to Mercedes and VW wasn't worth it any more.