EPA to crack down on imported small engines

Sigh - what passes as Journalism the last 20 yrs never ceases to rankle me.

Of course "some of these small engines pollute 20 - 30 times for than your (POST 1967/POST CARBORATOR) typical car.

Motorcycles ONLY within the last 10 yr have begun offering Fuel injection --- the majorty are still carborated. Polution laws for motorcycles are equivalent to the old 960's ones for cars.

why? - I can only assume to keep cost down. does this matter? - since the ration of motorcycle riders to car drivers is 1 to 100 - no it does not matter.

goKarts/buggies? - prob. have differing - higher pollution laws - more toward tha tof cars (I have no idea).

2-cycle engine on gopeds and bicycles? - IMO since their marted share is so small and they pollute a lot more than even regular motocycles - their days are numbered. I'd bet within 5-10 years they will no longer be sold here.

as for the rest of the cheap Chinese motocycles/scooters/buggies - folks are wising up and seeing that the main motocycle companies are over pricing their product as a boutique toy instead of a vehicle, and some are no longer willing to pay the price of a new cheap car to get a new name brand motorcycle.

I think the $$$ and volume increase I expect to see with Chinese scotter/bikes with silence the EPA soon enough.
$$ talks.

forgive above spelling - 1/2 myself/1/2 my shiet 10-buck keyboard with dead keys.

Note the last line of the article, though. Something along the lines of "Only a small percentage of the containers are inspected."

In an era of shrinking budgets for regulators of all kinds, this is a paper tiger. They don't have the manpower to truly ramp up inspections.

Though I can picture the day when our lovely little two-strokes are simply banned. I'll bet it's inevitable, though it might take a while.

It'll be a shame. But I'll go electric and I won't be all that sorry to do it.

there's another thread going on about this sort of thing, i posted a long winded reply there. the gist of it is this: how much does it cost to inspect these containers? because I did a little math, and I am positive they could give away free emissions control systems (i.e. a muffler) to every person who had their motor confiscated instead for a massive savings.
this is ignoring any actual emissions numbers about the motors to begin with. because I could talk all day about how small displacement motors emit fewer pollutants over the lifetime of the engine due to the smaller amount of air displaced compared to a larger "less polluting" motor.
you could further break down the emission numbers by looking at fuel economy. it's not just a matter of pollutants per cubic inch of exhaust gas, it is also a matter of pollutants per unit of exhaust gas BY DISTANCE TRAVELED.
assuming I have a car that produced a third of the emissions per minute while running than an MB but it uses twice the gasoline to do it, that car polluted MORE during a given commute than the bike would.

also all the gas-engines in the world don't hold a candle to the greenhouse gas emissions of international shipping vessels, which do not produce even half the emission of the American cattle population.

this is tax dollars being burnt.
also I can't help but laugh at EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld for holding a remote controlled truck up to a crowd and declaring that "we need every single pound of pollution reduced that we can find" standing in front of a container ship.
the fact is there is no "moped owners lobby" and that is why the epa is doing this, nobody will fight them in court for trying, and god forbid they admit that their Agency is unable to effectively Protect the Environment.


[fake edit] oops, this reply got long winded too...

EPA regs have more than just emission standards, there is the non-contained fuel vapor from the tank and carb, and even lame things like heat shields.

It is not hard to make a 2-stroke more efficient, an expansion chamber exhaust does that, a little cat on the end to help pollution and noise is no big deal.

Fuel vapors are a different story to deal with but one of the main greenhouse gasses too.

You know, the frigg'n wild changes in climate we have been warned about for a decade and seeing first hand the last couple years?

We know these thing can be disgusting polluting beats and why we call them 2-smokers.
China is where they are made and look at China's air.
They are all illegal there now.

Hey I won't live enough to see the US like China, but I can't help but shake my head at the younger guys that think everyone saving a couple bucks now won't matter when they just want to breath and can't.

Just a different view, and there are other forms of power assist for an MB that you would never start in your house even for a minute.