Renewable Revolution

Quote from: agelbert on June 23, 2018, 04:26:21 pm

GreenCarReports

Audi CEO arrested in Germany over diesel scandal 

By Eric C. Evarts

Jun 18, 2018

VW's diesel scandal is far from over.

In the latest move on the political chessboard, German authorities arrested the head of VW's luxury division Audi at his home Monday morning according to a Reuters report. German authorities cited concerns that Stadler could obstruct their ongoing investigation into the diesel emissions cheating scandal. A German judge ordered Stadler held in custody to prevent him from obstructing or hindering the diesel investigation, the report said.

Audi and VW confirmed the arrest to Reuters and noted that under German law Stadler is presumed innocent unless proved otherwise.

Audi admitted two months after VW did that it had also installed cheat device software on its cars to fool emissions testing equipment to deliver clean readings on tests even though its cars actually emitted as much as 35 times more pollution than allowed on the road.

Although most of the attention to VW's emissions scandal has been focused on the U.S., where eight company officials have been charged, investigations are also ongoing in Germany, where the cars also failed to meet on-road emissions standards.

CHECK OUT: Audi e-Tron Electric Car To Offer 150-kW Quick Charging Sites

Stadler, the former chief of staff to VW's powerful former chairman Ferdinand Piech, had been handed the post as head of Audi in an effort to promote the automaker's transition to electric-car production. His arrest is likely to throw those restructuring efforts at VW into turmoil.

Audi announced in 2015 that it would develop a new all-electric SUV, the e-tron, and work to build a network of fast chargers around the United States to support the car. As part of a consent decree approved by the court, VW agreed to form a new division, Electrify America, to build a $2 billion network of fast chargers around the United States, and the Audi plan was rolled into that effort. Electrify America has now opened its first locations in the U.S. and laid out its plans for further

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1117271_audi-ceo-arrested-in-germany-over-diesel-scandal

Thanks for the update on diesel-gate.

I'm interested to see what Audi brings to the dance with the H-Tron concept.

You are welcome, Az. You know I have always believed hydrogen powered vehicles are practical and cost effective. I have posted here, years ago,about how a home setup of a solar powered water hydrolyzer has been available for well over a decade.

Many people do not know, but I learned it when I researched it, that most of the hydrogen production in the world is done by the Fossil fuel Industry in a horribly inefficent process that extracts the hydrogen from products of fossil fuel refining. The "inefficiency" claim that fossil fuelers often wail and moan about for the production of hydrogen from electrolysis is hypocritical in the extreme, when their process is even less efficient! They have to refine oil BEFORE they can get the lighter products like methane (CH₄) from the cracking towers to the point where the process of chemically producing hydrogen gas can begin. It is ruinously inefficient. It is ERoEI NEGATIVE! Yet, the fossil fuel industry REFUSES to go for a NON-hydrocarbon (i.e WATER) feedstock. So it goes.

Here's the deal with hydrogen. It's a pain in arse to store. It leaks because it is so tiny. But, that isn't the biggest problem with this massively high energy density gas (even though Hess's "Law", oh so covenient for hydrocarbons, gives it a nominal enthalpy value of zero -  LOL!).

When hydrogen percolates through the metal in the container housing it and through the pipe metal that feeds it to the combustion chamber, this embrittles the daylights out of said metal and deteriorates it. It is an issue, but one that can be dealt with by replacing those parts most affected at specific intervals. Nuclear power plants have a hell of problem with the hydrogen isotope that plays embrittlement hell with all their machinery and pipes.

All that said, the best way to use hydrogen as a fuel is to make it just before you use it. That's where a home hydrolizer comes in. That would threaten the bottom line of the Fossil fuel Industry so it ain't happenin' any time soon, at least for the average Joe or Jane.

These modern hydrogen fuel CELL type vehicles are high tech. They are expensive. They are too expensive, as far as I am concerned. However, if they ever go mainstream, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Fossil Fuel Industry will be front and center in the production and marketing of these high tech vehicles that will need expensive routine maintenance and lots of government subsidy to be "affordable" for the average Joe.

A Ford, off the shelf, engine was modified over 8 years ago to run on hydrogen for the Phantom Eye drone. It was no big deal. It was easy to do. Ford did not have to come up with some new, "specialized for hydrogen combustion",  engine.

They could have done the same for cars. They just did not want to.

The Phantom Eye was an evolution from Boeing's earlier success with the piston-powered Boeing Condor that set several records for altitude and endurance in the late 1980s. Boeing also studied a larger HALE UAV that can fly for over 10 days and carry payloads of 2,000 pounds (900 kg) or more; the company also worked on the Phantom Ray UAV as a flying testbed for advanced technologies.[5]

Phantom Eye's propulsion system successfully completed an 80-hour test in an altitude chamber on March 1, 2010; this cleared the way for the propulsion system and the airframe to be assembled. Boeing worked closely with Ball Aerospace, Aurora Flight Sciences, Ford Motor Co. and MAHLE Powertrain to develop the Phantom Eye.[5] The Phantom Eye was revealed to the press at a ceremony at Boeing's facilities in St Louis, Missouri, on July 12, 2010.[2] The Phantom Eye demonstrator is a 60%-70% scale design of an objective system. According to Darryl Davis, president of Boeing's Phantom Works advanced concepts group, the Phantom Eye demonstrator could lead to an objective system capable of achieving 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week coverage of an area year round with as few as four aircraft.[6]

Propulsion
Each of the two propulsion systems consisted of modified Ford 2.3 liter engines, reduction gearbox, and 4-blade propeller. The engines were originally designed for use with some models of the petrol-burning Ford Fusion car. To be able to run in the oxygen starved atmosphere at 65,000 ft, the engines featured a multiple turbocharger system that compresses that available low density air and reduces the radiated infrared heat signature to increase its stealth properties. The engines, which provided 150 horsepower at sea level, were tuned so as to be able to run on hydrogen. Boeing's marketing department stated that this will make the aircraft economical and "green" to run, as the only by-product would be water.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Phantom_Eye
 

I'll let you know about the H-tron and other hydrogen car developments (They are up to something in South Korea right now. They ordered several thousand hydrogen powered cars, not from Audi.) when I read something substantial about a production model.