In their most dynamic move for years, the UK’s biggest sellers of diesel engines came together today - via their uniting body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) - in a bid to stop the recent demonisation of diesel engines.
They tried to explain that, far from being part of the problem, latest Euro 6 designs are part of the solution both to improving air quality and reducing CO2.
At a morning meeting in central London attended by the UK chiefs of Ford, BMW, VW Group, Vauxhall and Jaguar Land Rover, SMMT CEO Mike Hawes presented research showing that three-quarters of UK motorists were against penalties for the country’s cleanest diesels. He also said that a staggering 87% of them had never heard of Euro 6, the clean-air standard due to be implemented later this year (and embraced long ago by many of the majors).
Euro 6 has already all but eliminated particulates from diesel exhausts and put them close to petrol engines as low producers of smog-inducing oxides of nitrogen - while maintaining the diesel’s long-time attraction of producing around 20% less CO2 than equivalent petrol units.
Car manufacturers have become alarmed by what they see as inappropriate parking penalties about to be imposed on diesel cars by London boroughs, by suggestions that Paris may be the first of several European capitals to ban diesels from its centre, and by highly publicised academic research that has failed to acknowledge latest technological advances.
Car makers deserved credit for achieving a fleet target of 130g/km two years early, said Hawes, but legislators needed to acknowledge the role diesels would have in reaching the next, much tougher target, 95g/km by 2020.
Average CO2 output was down 29% since 2000, while NOx output from diesel cars had fallen by 84% in the same period. In any case, cars of all kinds accounted for only 14% of the UK’s NOx emissions - which meant it would take the annual output of a staggering 42 million Euro 6 diesel cars to dump as much NOx in the UK’s atmosphere as just one large coal-fired power station.
It was a bravura performance by a bunch of committed and high-powered people with very good facts to back them up. All agreed this wasn’t the end of the effort - especially since some of the impact in the news media was reduced by competing tales of Jeremy Clarkson allegedly lamping his producer - but it was a very good start. One had the feeling that this was an attractive argument than would only become more effective with time.
Join the debate
Add your comment
Well said, Steve Cropley
Labour's whole policy 1997-2010 revolved around getting us out of our cars regardless (although Prezza was only to quick to use his Jag so that Mrs Prezza didn't ruin her hairdo). Sadly, the Tories gave little respite as they were essentially run by the same biased civil servants and the EU.
London is now run by idiots with social engineering targets for cycling and one Green extremist in the 'charity' CFBT makes no secret of her ambition to ban cars in the capital. Other cities and conurbations are set to get similar powers to TFL.
There is an election coming, so Autocar should throw its weight behind the Alliance of British Drivers who campaign for a fair deal for theb motorist.
If drivers don't unite and fight, the nutters will pick us off, group by group - after diesel drivers who's next? London drivers, performance car drivers, motorway users...?
Diesel was only popular because of poor tax policy
Ultimately putting the cost on the cars is an inefficient way of solving the pollution problem from a tax perspective. Pollution is proportionate to fuel burnt so the most effective way of reducing pollution would be to put all tax on the fuel, maybe with some form of 'discount' if you are running technology which filters nasty pollutants at the tailpipe. The problem isn't the polluting potential of the car, it's the amount of use it gets.
"Pollution is proportionate
Let us take the emotion out of this, especially from mr ‘I hate diesels no matter what 289’. EU6 legislation dictates that a diesel engine cars have to comply with EXACTLY the same PM (particulate Matter) limits as DI Gasoline - 0.0045g/km and 6X10^12 PN (Particulate Number – the particulate size) on the Euro cycle. I cannot make it any clearer!!!! Limits are slightly higher for NOx on diesel, 0.08 verses 0.06 g/km but this is due to the fact that aftertreatment for NOx on gasoline is easier than in diesel. NOx is still produced in high quantities in Gasoline!!!
The PN legislation is new but PM targets have been reduced by a factor of 10 in 15 years – yet we all still want more space, extra performance, satnav, electric windows, airbags and traction control.
Some Gasoline engines will also require a GPF (Gasoline Particulate filter) to meet these targets, just as diesel.
There is so much misinformation out there being spread about by poor non-technical journalists. The CO2 benefits diesel has over petrol will always be present as a diesel engine is far more thermally efficient. Higher compression ratios, lower working speeds therefore less friction and no throttling of the engine at part loads also reap efficiency rewards over gasoline.
The technological knowhow from our clever engineers to reduce tailpipe emissions over the last 15 years will be lost on most readers of this website. The investment in technology by industry is incredible. Meanwhile aircraft, coal fired electricity plants and ropey marine emissions legislation is ignored.
Older diesels are a different story and definitely emit more PM than Gasoline. But consider this, how much CO2, PM, NOx etc…..is produced to make your next shiny new EU6 vehicle before it has even rolled a radial? Every nut and bolt using precious natural resources, requiring energy to extract the raw materials out of the ground and to refined it…producing emissions all the way through manufacture.
My old BMW diesel (EU4) is used to do 600 miles a week on the motorway, it returns 52mpg average and only now emits what it produces while the engine is on, It is meticulously serviced and as it cruises on the motorway is running at its most efficient for emissions production. A petrol powered equivalent would struggle to hit high 30’s mpg. Its initial emission footprint created in production some 10 years ago has not been in vain and in theory is being credited for every extra day the car remains in service.
Tell me this.......