Thanks Nick for your balanced reply - I did just get off the phone with my contacts at the Air Resources Board and the purpose of the study remains the same - to get a better idea of the contribution of older cars to the overall air quality in this state and to possibly take more of the older vehicles out of our Smog Check program as the State has done in the past. Many Smog Check stations in the state are also getting out of the dynamometer emission testing business and will now only test cars with OBD II systems that are model year 2000 and later and are all equipped with OBD II. All cars built before 2000 model year with or without OBDII still have to pass a dynamometer test, and those owners are now having a harder time to even find a station that will do the testing. Those stations don't want the hassle of keeping their dynamometers well maintained and the emission measurement equipment also maintained which means using calibration gasses that are up to date and their emission analyzers also well maintained. They make much more money on 2000 and newer vehicles where all they need is to check the OBD II system for faults and if there are none, they pass and make a $50 or higher profit in just a couple of minutes with no dynamometer emission related use at all in their shops anymore.
The other input I received from the person I talked with that is higher up in the organization is that decisions to implement "No Drive" zones are typically made by cities themselves, not the Air Resources Board and that many times even those decisions might well be targeted at reducing traffic congestion in those zones - for example, the city of Santa Monica was considering such a restriction to reduce the traffic congestion there when beach goers and diners at restaurants on the ocean piers are big draws to that city but such a restriction was never implemented.
Yes, the ARB was the leader in implementing ever increasing improvements in tailpipe emissions from new cars and was able to take that lead because under President Reagan, there was a carve out in vehicle emissions for newer vehicles in California to adopt stricter emission standards than the other states because of their much more polluted cities than the rest of the nation - usually the Federal EPA adopted California tailpipe emissions standards about 4 years after California led the way. The air in California has been very clean such that complaints about smog are virtually non-existent for years now. The ARB technical staff was comprised of top notch engineers that came from the top colleges in the nation and also with ex-auto industry engineers as well. The technology present on today's most modern vehicles has their fingerprints all over them.
What is it about the Dodge Charger and Challenger Hellcats, for example, that you find so terrible wherein the precise fuel control, good efficiency (in terms of miles per gallon) for the power they put out don't you like??? And given these relatively sophisticated technologies now in use that perform so well also are very clean in terms of tailpipe emissions and relatively easy to diagnose with the help of OBDII and standardized vehicle connectors that help technicians to diagnose any problems within those vehicles. OBD II was invented by the ARB alone with no input from EPA and that was not an easy job since the auto industry fought like Hell to not allow it to be implemented but ultimately lost. The auto industry hated that regulation because in order to keep the check engine lights off and not turn customers away, they had to make more durable cars and that cost them some money. But now we have many vehicles that can go 200K miles before being retired and not 100K as was the norm. What is so evil about that?
I find all this hate misplaced towards that agency since their leadership and grasp of engineering technology and staff that used the same modeling sources that the auto industry sources used themselves to develop precise models of engineering improvements before developing and implementing them and setting new vehicle requirements for both emissions and powertrain efficiency and performance.that owners would appreciate as well.
Personally, it seems folks these days find it easy to hate rather than rationalize and study the real facts before making their minds up about matters based on misleading or false information that seems to be thrown at us non stop these days.
Steve Albu
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