BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

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BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by spider »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21803635" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Drivers will save £3,300 (€3,800) over the lifetime of their cars if the EU imposes strict new standards on manufacturers, a report claims.
But that extra cost would be offset in less than three years through fuel savings of around £350 (€400) per year.
Read this the other day on 'teletext' (well, what vaguely passes as 'teletext' these days) with interest. :(

Perhaps it would potentially save money however what is the "life" expectancy of modern car for a manufacturer ?

Also more worryingly, my immediate thought was particle filters, EGR and suchlike. These do not last the lifetime of the car, and as those on here know as well as the potential to go wrong and cost a bit fluid for them is not cheap either and probably not factored into the 'savings', high fuel consumption with a slightly stuck open EGR would soon negate any savings and probably cause *more* pollution than if it was not fitted in the first place. :twisted:

Not to mention quite a lot of the "emissions" of a car are made during its birth, aka manufacture.

Andy thinks there will actually be no real saving whatsoever only potentially more complicated emission regulations with more electricky to go astray :D
Andy.

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Re: BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by andy5 »

Apparently there are other innovations in achieving better consumption and emission figures.

Manufacturers have been introducing a series of unhomologated extra modifications especially for consumption testing.

They include extra aerodynamic such as taping up body gaps, special non-retail lubricants, running with the alternator and other electrical items disabled (which I reckon would be even more ironic for stop-start cars as the battery will be flattened even faster) and bald or slick tyres pumped up very hard.

Over the last few years the shortfall between official and real life consumption has diverged from about 7 or 8 per cent to about 23 per cent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21759258" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That might be why you see figures like 76 mpg claimed for certain cars but nobody on spritmonitor seems to have achieved much better than 60.

So if the politicians want to see 95 g/km published, maybe it's not as tall an order as it seems, and when it happens the cars might still be averaging 120 or 130 g/km in real life.
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Re: BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by andy5 »

spider wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21803635
Drivers will save £3,300 (€3,800) over the lifetime of their cars if the EU imposes strict new standards on manufacturers, a report claims.
But that extra cost would be offset in less than three years through fuel savings of around £350 (€400) per year.
I read the article again.

This quote really stands out, and it's got a link from the car name

"The technology is available: cars like the Ford Focus ECOnetic are already achieving the proposed 2020 standard."

http://www.eco-rally.org/ford-focus-eco ... family-car" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But a look at spritmonitor suggests that the claim this version of the car is already achieving something looks a bit tenuous.

There's a little bar icon which compares the achieved figure to the offical consumption, and there is quite a bit of red against the Econetic 88g, which I will assume denotes 88 g/km

The best 88g there so far achieves 4.43 l/100km, which is 63.8 mpg. The second and third best 88g are 38 and 41 per cent worse than the official figure, and manage 60.2 and 59.0 mpg.

Some more economical drivers will join in later, but so far that's only a couple of mpg better than my best Xantia tankful, and only about 15% better than the official Xantia 51 mpg.

So UK owners will be getting free road tax for a vehicle which some owners are using to achieve 60 mpg. A friend's BX was managing that figure on some trips in 1985.
Last edited by andy5 on 20 Mar 2013, 16:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by CitroJim »

andy5 wrote: So UK owners will be getting free road tax for a vehicle which some owners are using to achieve 60 mpg. A friend's BX was managing that figure on some trips in 1985.
A 205D would too so where's the progress? In short there isn't any...

I read the comments on that article. Good points made that once the majority run cars that qualify for free tax and do great mpg the government will move the goal posts and start to charge road tax on these vehicles and tax fuel even more heavily to recoup the lost revenue. Speculation but you just know this is what they'll do :evil:

I'm sad that this really does spell the very end of the big petrol V engines :cry: That is a tragedy.

Better enjoy our V6 powered machines while we still can. They are now just about extinct :(
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Re: BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by spider »

You do raise a good point about progress, a few months ago I thought about a 205D vs a 206D

The 206 is both slower and uses more fuel*, I know its a bit heavier but the engine uses more fuel to meet emission targets I expect, thing is this means more fuel per mile is being consumed so it may well negate any 'green' saving. :-k

*As best as I can tell its about 10% more fuel use possibly more and 10% less power, not sure on torque output although figures are one thing, trying them I find them sluggish to be frank about it, the 205D was always very lively when in good order. There's nothing wrong with the DW8 it just feels very flat even compared to a N/A XUD unit that's all. To be fair it could probably be turned up a little bit to compensate for that.

I've purposely left out safety concerns as the 206 is probably going to be safer in an accident no doubt.

Still, way of the modern world too I guess.
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Re: BBC: Car drivers 'will save cash thanks to CO2 rules'

Post by andy5 »

A big infuence is that cars have got heavier at about the same rate that engines have got more efficient.

That's why the 205 was good, as it was pretty light - kerb weight under 900 kg. I drove a friend's 1.9 GTI a couple of times and it had fairly impressive acceleration even towing a trailer

The VW Lupo and Audi A2 3l (for 3 litres per 100 km, 94 mpg) weigh not a long way over 800 kg and achieve 100 mpg, but building the A2 as a whole never made any money and I assume the 1.2 TDI 3l was losing it.

For 2 or 3 years VW has had the Up lite concept/prototype which does something like 120 mpg, but saving 3 to 5 pence a mile on fuel isn't going to add up to a worthwhile saving if they would have to charge say £25,000 for the car
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