[cool_dude85]

>Wild - whoever did this should lose their job.

Why's that? Because a guy who's apparently friends with the owner of the company that produces these things told you that it saves emissions? Doesn't it seem reasonable to verify these claims?

[some_random]

No that doesn't seem reasonable at all if it's been proven to work _really well_ in several configurations and there's no particular reason to expect that the results would be drastically different in other very similar configurations.

[cool_dude85]

Who proved it works really well in several configurations?

[squigz]

And how do you codify the threshold for what "very similar" configurations don't need to be tested and those that do?

[XorNot]

That's what regulatory exemption procedures exist for, and it would be the logical next step if you had convincing hard data.

Every single regulatory process has them, so the fact that this very ranty article omits any mention of an attempt to use them is highly suspect.

I've worked with plenty of systems where for all sorts of reasons exemptions are granted for the express purpose of promoting innovation or recognizing a special circumstance.

[appreciatorBus]

Of course we should verify such claims.

Just as we should also verify claims that every regulation that has ever been written into law is by definition Good (tm) and can never be questioned.

It's possible for the friend of the company owner to astroturf an online form to get a good regulation eliminated, just because it didn't benefit him.

It's also possible for the such wealthy individuals to astrotruf in favour of bad regulations, just because it would benefit him.

[samdoesnothing]

The null hypothesis is that interventions are just as if not more likely to cause harm than do good.

[aidenn0]

Aren't regulations a form of intervention?

[samdoesnothing]

Yeah thats my point.

[aidenn0]

Ah, I read it backwards, since companies selling things to make trucks "better" is also an intervention.

[Dylan16807]

Verifying is great!

How many types of truck engine do you reasonably need to test with? The number should fit on one hand. And really you should only need to do the full test with one model and limited verifications with others. That'll get it down from $27M to $200k, which would be a far more reasonable requirement.

[shortrounddev2]

Some kind of testing should be required but 27mil seems egregious

[ehnto]

Yeah why does the certification process cost so much is one question I have. Would this be a conversation if the cost of the test were more reasonable?

[etothepii]

Most likely it costs a lot because there isn't enough frequency of demand for it for more than one company to offer the service thus there is no supply. However, as it is a regulatory requirement the severity of demand when it appears is near infinite.

[Workaccount2]

Having done UL certification before, this is exactly how it is.

During the process we forgot/missed that the product serial needed a single letter appended to the end to denote that it was the UL compliant version. We caught this after paying $15k for just recertification with new parts, no testing, only paperwork.

We went back to UL and told them about the mistake. They charged us $5k to open a new case just to append a "-5" to the name of the product on a handful of documents.

It's a total fucking racket.