DOJ sues eBay for selling coal-rolling devices/software. Possible $2 billion in fines

Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:

While not a fan of coal rolling, we car people need to stick together. The EPA wants us all gone and this just gives them another reason to punish everyone. 

Sorry, not 'sticking with' anyone rolling coal.  They can get berkeleyed.  As alfadriver pointed out, EPA has been pretty lenient for some time.  Those guys took a big dump in our punchbowl.

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

So your town doesn't want clean air or water?  Curious. 
 

But don't assume that the other sources are not being looked at. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

A very high percentage of trucks have had emissions components removed, and they have an outsized impact on fleet emissions. The numbers have been published if you need me to pull them up for you. It was the bad behavior of the coal rollers that created the political pressure for the crackdown, but there are good reasons for it beyond that.

alfadriver said:

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

So your town doesn't want clean air or water?  Curious. 

We think of modern vehicles as pretty clean but when a lot of transportation (cars, trucks, etc) ground to a halt in the spring of 2020, the view of Manhattan from a local spot of mine about 10 miles south was remarkable.  

I am ok with this.

mfennell said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

So your town doesn't want clean air or water?  Curious. 

We think of modern vehicles as pretty clean but when a lot of transportation (cars, trucks, etc) ground to a halt in the spring of 2020, the view of Manhattan from a local spot of mine about 10 miles south was remarkable.  

Side note- oems can be cleaner. I know that. And I wanted to make it a competitive advantage to tighten the rules. Took almost a decade for that to end up at the top. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Keith Tanner said:

I have to say I didn't see that coming. But the big online markets like ebay and Amazon don't do a lot of gatekeeping with regards to legality or intellectual property. This will likely cause set precedents. 

I've been following it for this interesting piece..  Beyond shipping and warehousing an item safely, most online marketplaces push or have historically pushed the compliance responsibilities onto the actual seller.  The marketplaces put a lot of effort to ensure that items can be warehoused and shipped safely.    The companies also try to ensure that its are legitimate and not counterfeit for reputational means only...  

Forcing companies to make sure all items sold on their platform are legal would be an interesting trick.

 

 

I kinda wonder where the edge is.  Will eBay have to ensure that anything with a UL label is actually UL certified?

In reply to alfadriver :

Avoiding talk about local politics, the point was that in a town where the vast majority don't care what the rules are, it just doesn't seem that a very large percentage are modifying their trucks. Certainly less now than ten or 15 years ago. Similar to fart-cannon civics. It's a dying breed. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

 Not all emissions deletes cause the truck to roll coal. That's just visible particulate emissions, you can't see the others. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

Apparently, eBay sells enough to matter. I would not extrapolate local anything to national experience. 
Sorry about being flippant, but even though people say they don't care, I don't know anyone who intentionally wants polluted air and water. 

John Welsh said:

In reply to porschenut :

I've driven Prius almost exclusively since 2016 and can not think of a time that I was "rolled."  But, I can agree that Prius-agression is a real thing.  I have had multiple people "just have to" get around me because there perception is that a Prius will be slow going down the road. 

I've been driving a Prius much less than you have, and it's happened to me several times here. 

BERK the coal rolling Berk-tards.

Diesel (deleted) emissions are far more toxic than gasoline (deleted) emissions.

When I am driving the old mini the lifted jackass trucks will weave through traffic to pull up next to me to fill my open window with soot. I have to keep an eye open for it and drive defensively (moreso than just driving a mini requires)

Something about a small car just flips a switch for those folks. I don't get it.

Indy-guy said:

Diesel (deleted) emissions are far more toxic than gasoline (deleted) emissions.

I don't think that is correct. Everything I have read says the opposite. 
 

id be interested in more info

I don't get the hate. I'm pretty sure there are a large number of people here who have modified emissions components on their vehicles.

Its not ok. And it's not a matter of scale, or that trucks are worse. 
 

How many folks are driving around right now with CELs on, knowing that they are emission related, and doing nothing about it?

I think arguing in favor of clean air and water is a good thing, and that we ALL should get on board. The coal rollers got caught. We should all take that as a warning and reconsider what we are doing.

From Hickory Valley going South on TN 18/MS 7 just before getting to TN HWY 72, there is a long wide bottom with no entrances. You can see a long way. I was in the Prius V just after Thanksgiving last year and started to pass a lifted bubba truck when he floored it (loud and smokey) and out accelerated me. The second time I tried I noticed it cut off a little over 100. The third time I drove around him.  Speedo said 104 but I think it's limited to 102.  There was another bubba truck behind him, his bubba buddy, I presume, got to see the whole thing. It made my day and then some. I'm too old to be doing that but I hate those mother berkers with a passion. Stupid, ignorant, low life mother berkers.  Too berking stupid to tune it right. We're that much closer to Idiocracy./ Rant over.

Trent said:

When I am driving the old mini the lifted jackass trucks will weave through traffic to pull up next to me to fill my open window with soot. I have to keep an eye open for it and drive defensively (moreso than just driving a mini requires)

 

Something about a small car just flips a switch for those folks. I don't get it.

You're not obviously compensating for anything, and that gives brodozer drivers envy

GameboyRMH said:

Trent said:

When I am driving the old mini the lifted jackass trucks will weave through traffic to pull up next to me to fill my open window with soot. I have to keep an eye open for it and drive defensively (moreso than just driving a mini requires)

 

Something about a small car just flips a switch for those folks. I don't get it.

You're not obviously compensating for anything, and that gives brodozer drivers envy

"lack of"

Trent said:

When I am driving the old mini the lifted jackass trucks will weave through traffic to pull up next to me to fill my open window with soot. I have to keep an eye open for it and drive defensively (moreso than just driving a mini requires)

 

Something about a small car just flips a switch for those folks. I don't get it.

I've experienced the same in my ND, especially with the top down.

I just put it down to FloridaMan bullE36 M3.

SV reX said:

I don't get the hate. I'm pretty sure there are a large number of people here who have modified emissions components on their vehicles.

Its not ok. And it's not a matter of scale, or that trucks are worse. 
 

How many folks are driving around right now with CELs on, knowing that they are emission related, and doing nothing about it?

I think arguing in favor of clean air and water is a good thing, and that we ALL should get on board. The coal rollers got caught. We should all take that as a warning and reconsider what we are doing.

Strongly disagree, there's a huge difference between a person whose car is emitting a little more because it doesn't make sense to replace the entire gas tank assembly to correct a slightly low evap system pressure (real problem on my family beater van) or it's a lightly-driven sports car tuned for performance, and a person who goes out of their way to spend extra money on their (likely daily-driven) vehicle to make it spew huge amounts of unburned fuel out the exhaust ultimately just for the sake of being a public nuisance. Coal rollers are several leagues worse than anyone else who is out of emissions compliance with a non-commercial vehicle and they've earned every ounce of the hate they get.

On the topic of commercial vehicles, from an actual pollution reduction standpoint I'd like to see the EPA & foreign equivalents do something about the commercial trucking industry exploiting old semi frames that are legally grandfathered in to being exempt from modern emissions controls. Absolutely ancient semis are getting rebuilt over and over to exploit this loophole. They're the only people who come close to the coal rollers in terms of horrible intent and exceed the coal rollers in terms of emissions.

SV reX said:

Indy-guy said:

Diesel (deleted) emissions are far more toxic than gasoline (deleted) emissions.

I don't think that is correct. Everything I have read says the opposite. 
 

id be interested in more info

 

link

In reply to Indy - Guy :

That's vs what is allowed. A gas engine w/o a catalyst is about 95x dirtier than allowed. Or 99x depending on the regulations. So the engine out for diesel is less than gas. It's just so easy to reduce gas engine emissions that people forget that. 

Btw, a CEL isn't anything like a catalyst removed- it triggers at 1.5x the standard for that vehicle. Which is still a pretty small fraction compared to engine out emissions. 
 

And while cat removed gas engines are bad, if you barely use them, well, they don't do much. Aka, why gas engines were given some leeway up until the coal rollers ruined it. 

In reply to SV reX :

Depends on what is the danger.  Diesel soot is proven to travel from the lungs to the heart causing heart attacks among other things.