Guest Post by Eric Peters
Toyota will probably be the next target. The first was VW.
VW was targeted because it was selling too many vehicles that made electric vehicles look ridiculous at the very critical moment when EVs were just beginning to be pushed seriously.
You may remember the so-called “cheating” – on federal emissions certification tests – imbroglio that resulted in VW pulling off the market its very successful (because very popular) TDI diesel engines, which had been available in practically every model vehicle VW sold until about 2015, right around the time the EV push really began in earnest.
VW’s TDI engines not only delivered 50-plus MPG – and 600-plus miles of driving range – they They were also available in low-cost vehicles such as the Jetta sedan, Golf hatchback and New Beetle, which were all cars almost anyone could afford to buy.
And that could not stand.
Who, after all, would want to buy a $50,000 electric vehicle with a putative (not actual) driving range of maybe 250 or so miles that effectively forced the person who bought it to plan their life around recharging it – assuming they could afford it – when they could buy a $23k diesel-powered Jetta or Golf that could be driven more than twice as far before it was necessary to stop for less than five minutes to refuel it?
The answer is – very few people.
More finely – many more people would have continued to buy VW’s low-cost, long-range diesel-powered cars and that would have made it clear that most people either didn’t want an EV or couldn’t afford one. It would have made it much harder for other automakers to justify making more EVs rather than more vehicles like VW’s TDI-powered vehicles.
It was not accidental that VW was singled out – rather than Mercedes or BMW or Audi, all of which also sold diesel engines.
The “cheating” VW was accused of was incidental because – in the first place – every vehicle manufacturer programs their vehicles to produce the lowest emissions (and highest gas mileage) on the tests. In real-world driving, the emissions are always a little higher and the gas mileage lower – because people will drive them in such a way as to override the programming. The government knows this. Everyone in the car business knows it. It has never been cause for a crusade – until VW.
In the second place, the emissions were in fact incidental.
As in fractions of a fraction’s difference. You have probably heard that VW’s diesel produced “up to 40 times” more than the allowable quantity of oxides of nitrogen. Note the mendacious “up to” (which should always be translated as much less than). And it was almost never explained that the “40 times” more was in reference to a fraction, not a whole number.
What mattered was the VW was selling affordable diesels, which meant it was selling a lot of them. The high-end brands – Mercedes, BMW, Audi – sold a few to the affluent and it didn’t matter because those diesel-powered vehicles were as expensive as EVs.
So VW had to be nailed to the cross for its sins.
Will Toyota be next?
Toyota sells a number of low-cost, high-mileage, long-range vehicles that also make EVs look ridiculous. Models like the ’24 Corolla hybrid I just finished test driving (you can read the full review here). This Tesla Model 3 sized sedan stickers for $23,300 and goes 53 highway miles on a gallon of gas. It goes 600 highway miles on 11 gallons of gas – a full tank – which takes about three minutes to fully replenish.
The ’24 Tesla Model 3 stickers for $38,990 with its standard-range battery that might allow you to drive 270 miles in the city. If you take it on the highway – or out in the cold – it will go a lot less far than that. And regardless, when it runs low on charge you will have to wait at least 20-30 minutes at a “fast” charger (which is only “fast” in relation to how slow it is to charge at home, where it takes hours to recover a partial charge).
The whole thing’s absurd. More finely, hybrids like the Corolla – and the new hybrid Camry – make EVs look absurd. Just like VW’s TDI-powered affordable, long-range vehicles made EVs look absurd.
And that will not be allowed to stand.
The EV pushers – who aren’t really pushing EVs, per se, but rather using EVs to push most of us out of driving – will find an excuse to go after Toyota. Just as they found one to go after VW. The cretinous EPA apparatchik Michael Regan has already hinted at what it will be. Hybrids – especially the ones that have the ability to recharge by plugging in – aren’t being plugged in often enough. They are running on engine power too much. Their emissions are thus too much – even though (as in the case of VW’s TDI diesels) they amount to nothing much.
The dirty little secret the EPA doesn’t want people to know is that “emissions” have been a non-issue for decades, since the late 1990s – by which time almost all (as in better than 98 percent) of the meaningfully harmful emissions had been eliminated by then. Which is now 30-plus years ago. To admit this would be to concede that further emissions regulations were unjustified because unnecessary. And that would imply the EPA, itself, is no longer necessary.
And that will never be allowed to stand.
So, “emissions” were reframed – to encompass carbon dioxide, which was never before regarded as an emission in the regulatory sense because C02 has nothing to do with air pollution. Or – for that matter – with “climate change.” You have to believe that increasing the 0.04 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere that’s C02 by a fraction of that fraction causes it to believe that – which is as silly as believing that “up to 40 times” as much of something is actually 40 times as much – and that it’s not a fraction of a fraction’s difference and so meaningless.
Never mind. It’s the politics that have meaning. And Toyota is running very politically incorrect at the moment.
Hopefully, Toyota won’t cave and beg forgiveness – as VW did. And if it doesn’t, it will have an effect similar to Florida’s taking off the Face Diapers, which gave courage to other states to do the same.
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With Biden’s climate emergency, I’m sure he’ll just outlaw all cars. For our safety of course.
Well then, let the rebellion begin.
It should have started with the election fraud.
I love the two Toyotas I own. 2017 Camry for wife and 2005 Corolla.for me.
I keep a Silverado quad at work for hauling the boat and long trips.
Both Toyotas have been flawless.
See my rant above. Hopefully they’re older. Had a 1973 Corolla, 130K w/ no problems. Then, a 2016 4Runner, 90K, no problems.
Toyata is going backwards in the US. Sides of the truck bed are aluminum. $1750 to repair a 10″ scratch.
When our diesel fleet, one is a VW Passat, reaches the end of life we will probably get a hybrid.
EV are a long way from being ready for market. They are like the late 80’s GM diesel cars that were rushed to get to market and turned out to be loud, slow, and smelly. Buyers are starting to see through the hype with EVs as well.
When I lived in Atlanta my next door neighbor had a 2014 diesel Jetta that got 52 mpg. That was just over 600 miles per tank of fuel of 12 gallons and 2 unused reserve gallons. When the EPA story hit, that same day my neighbor found a 60k mile 2013 Jetta Station Wagon diesel and bought it. He would drive the station wagon once a week just to keep it operational. His wife’s sedan Jetta has over 240k miles as of last November and is running strong. The wagon has not hit 70k miles and looks showroom fresh. He is going to run the sedan until it dies and then switch over to the station wagon.
My 20 yr. old grandson still drives my old 2014 Jetta TDI Wagon that has 360K on it. 40 MPG. Sold my 2016 Cayenne Diesel but should have spent the $4K to fix it.
My 2022 Tundra 1794 Edition is a POS, but Toyota agreed to fix the intermittent wipers (never worked), the broken bracket on the driver’s side visor, and the cracked, cheap plastic below the driver’s seat. The last two before 35K. Oh…as for that 10″ crack, I’m not fat – 165 lbs.
I believe the whole EV/Green agenda is about change. There’s lots of money in change, especially when you make the rules and therefore can front run those change.
Back in the 1980’s I had an Audi 4000 with a VW diesel engine and with the manual 5 speed it got 50 MPG. It had been a corporate lease and when it was put back on the car lot you could pick up it for $10,000.
Just did a road trip in the wife’s 2021 camry 4cyl. avg. right at 40mpg.
Just ran into a woman at the store the other day who had a ’14 VW TDI … said she loved it … it gets great mileage … and she’ll drive it until the mechanics can no longer fix it. She said she’s already got more than 180K on it …
The ‘clerks’ at the EPA that made up the story that became ‘diesel gate’ need to be publicly flogged — every Friday at 4 p.m. — on national TV … for 5 years.
Eric missed a few parts.
Already in 2008 IIRC, it was impossible to buy a new TDI car in California – due to ’emission regulations’ or some shit. But you could still drive a TDI in California, after you bought a used one that had been registered in a different state first (one day sufficed).
Also, in Germany Bosch, a manufacturer of many direct injection system parts, has entirely shut down some of their former production facilities.
If you want to know how all that will end, look to Russia:
The sales numbers of Chinese car makers are skyrocketing.
Nothing is ever as it seems.