Ontario scraps Drive Clean, plans to focus on trucks
TORONTO, Ont. — Ontario scrapped the Drive Clean passenger vehicle program last week.
Starting April 1,2019, drivers will no longer need to get Drive Clean emissions test for their passenger vehicles. The government of Ontario says this move is avoiding taxpayers costs up to $40 million a year.
In lieu of Drive Clean, a new program that will focus on the biggest polluting vehicles like commercial transport trucks will be put place.
The provincial government also said the reason behind this cancellation was that ” auto industry standards have significantly improved since the program was created in 1999 making this program no longer necessary.”
Owners of vehicles will still be required to make sure their vehicle emissions systems are operating properly. The ministry added that it will be strengthening its on-road inspections to ensure owners are properly maintaining their vehicle emissions.
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The question now is, will they drop the price of automobile license plates? They raised the price of license plates to pay for the cost of the e-test. Now that e-tests are no longer required what happens to the money we were charged? In their pockets?
I agree with Derrick Flynn. It is my experience that the diesel pickup market is one of the most emissions tampering markets. Wonder what is happening here.
The move to commercial vehicles is not unexpected, but should include ALL diesels ( as mentioned about pickup trucks ).
While this appears to be a good move environmentally, the technology hasn’t been developed to the extent where operation of these ‘clean’ units is truly viable yet. From being forced to comply, the SCR/DEF equipped units are killing many small companies with downtime and expensive repair.
Many companies have had to increase the fleet to have enough units to use as ‘spare’ trucks due to emissions failures. We recently lost one of our units for 5 weeks – waiting for warranty and repair parts. We have specialized equipment, so we don’t have ‘spares’ in our small fleet. While the repair was largely covered by a warranty, the cost of downtime was as much as the replacement engine was, and we almost lost the operator because he didn’t get his regular level of pay.
What of the small business or the ‘on demand’ business that can’t have downtime? many will go broke. Others are waiting for hours on end for the tow truck. Scheduled deliveries of hospital gases could be delayed because of these poorly deigned technologies, propane for heating -same thing. This is the real world of transportation.
Anecdotal information from even the DOT ( MOT) telling us things like ” traffic jams at rush hour in major cities, because of a forced ‘Regen’ where the unit has to be parked, in traffic lane, to do the regen.
Why is it the end user who pays the price for rushed government policy???
If heavy-duty trucks moved to clean burning, cheap (about 1/2 the price of diesel) natural gas:
1. Truckers would save A LOT of money;
2. We would clean up the environment;
3. The DEF/DPF systems go away, so maintenance is less.
Clean Energy and Union Energy Solutions are building 3 new CNG stations at Windsor Husky (hwy 401 exit 14), London Flying J (exit 189) and Napanee Flying J (exit 579). US Gain also has a station at Dixie/Britannia (401 & Dixie) so it’s easy to get from Windsor to Quebec on CNG.
Hopefully the new Ontario government will come forward with some of the $2 billion in Cap and Trade $$ collected and help truckers get into new natural gas trucks. Everyone wins.
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I had an NG truck you need a truck to follow with fuel there isnt the energy in NG to keep a 6l engine running for more than a 150 km
The MOE should also not lose sight of TTC buses, which, ironically, are some of the most polluting vehicles on the road. I am an avid walker and I can’t tell you the number of times my air rights have been consumed by the emissions billowing from man TTC buses.
The MOE should also not lose sight of TTC buses, which, ironically, are some of the most polluting vehicles on the road. I am an avid walker and I can’t tell you the number of times my air rights have been consumed by the emissions billowing from many TTC buses.
The MOE has finally taken the delete and tampering market seriously.
The proliferation of the tampering and emissions system delete market in Ontario and the rest of North America is out of control. Expect lots of enforcement activity for all diesel trucks moving forward in Ontario at least.