For many years, the aim of the Government and the motor industry has been to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions which are recognised as a primary cause of global warming and damage to the ozone layer; these harmful emissions have been in decline. However, the average figure for 2017 shows that for the first time since this realisation, levels of CO2 from new cars has actually risen.
The underlying cause of this rise is drivers are trading in their old diesel cars, and while only a tiny percentage are buying electric or hybrid cars, the vast majority are buying petrol driven cars with larger engines that emit more CO2 than earlier models.
Worrying emissions figures
According to figures, emissions from new vehicles sold in the UK have risen for the first time since records were started. The Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT) figures show that the CO2 emissions from new cars rose in 2017, as more buyers move away from diesel vehicles, for fear of higher taxes and running costs as well as the steep depreciation in their value.
The results were not a complete surprise as figures towards the end of 2017 predicted that there would be a rise in emissions for the first time in 19 years, but the confirmation still caused shock. The report highlights the cost of the “anti-diesel crusade”, which includes new surcharges for new cars, and councils being allowed to implement punitive measures against diesel cars entering cities or even parking are planned across the UK.
The average emissions emitted from new vehicles sold last year was 121 g/km. This is only a small 0.8% rise on the previous figures, but it is the first upward movement in two decades.
Missing EU emissions targets
According to the figures, the stalled progress on the climate change means that the UK may face missing out on the CO2 targets for 2021. EU restrictions say that the industry needs to reduce the average vehicle emissions to 95 g/km by 2021, requiring that each year the output declines by 5.9%. This means that the slight increase is a much bigger problem when taking into account the decrease goal.
The main reason behind this changing figure is the decline in the number of diesel vehicles being bought. Diesel sales are down by 8% across Europe, and there’s a 17% decline in new diesel registrations in the UK. This decline means that manufacturers are starting to pull diesel as an option in their ranges.
Porsche announced that it is stopping all diesel variants in its range with immediate effect. FCA who own Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jeep and Maserati, are also expected to announce a similar move this week that will take effect from 2022.
Part of this is the new emission tests that were introduced last year. These have made it more difficult to get vehicles to reach the required Euro 6 standard. It also means that the chances of diesel remaining an option in the future are looking increasingly unlikely.
Large switch to petrol SUVs
Environmental action group, Greenpeace, was quick to release a statement highlighting the UK motor industry was to blame for the negative CO2 results. Clean air campaigner for the group, Paul Morozzo, said that the ‘SMMT was trying to shift blame’ and that the industry had failed to table the carbon emissions from cars.’
Part of the problem is that there is a large shift from diesel to SUVs, and this had a negative impact on CO2 levels as these vehicles often release more of this pollution. Greenpeace also disputes the idea of ‘clean diesel’, and they believe that there’s no better alternative. According to them, there should be a focus on making clean electric vehicles that are ‘affordable and accessible for all.’
The switch from diesel to petrol, which typically emits more CO2, shows that people are not yet seriously considering electric cars as an option. One survey from Auto Trader showed that 59% of diesel and petrol car buyers in the last six months did not opt for electric because of the upfront costs and no increase in grants from the government, to reduce premiums associated with zero emissions models.
This shows that if the Government is serious about the switch to electric, more needs to be done to make it appealing to drivers, rather than just telling them about the perils of CO2 emissions.
What do you think about the first increase in CO2 emissions in 19 years? Do you think that the Government is to blame for this supported by local councils or is the car makers for lying about diesel in the first place? Let us know in the comments below.
I feel that sufiicient information on CO2 emissions should be part of the overall information package that comes with every car at each stage of its life. The initial CO2 that is released during the manufacture and distribution of the vehicle. The amount of CO2 released over the lifetime of the vehicle and finally the amount of CO2 released.to recycle the vehicle. With information, informed desicions can be made rather than the blinkered approach of onlly looking at part of the cycle. I feel people will be surprised when all the evidence is presented concerning CO2.
Prius is a good example, Why just for motor vehicles? Most human endeavour had a CO2 ‘footprint”. Add methane emissions both from animals, humans and the ground. But overpopulation, longer living humans, large populations in countries emerging from Communist (UK to go the other way?) rule wanting the ‘good things in life’ is a major driver along with stupid headline driven politicians.
CO2 is an entirely different problem to pollution. CO2 levels are rising primarily because populations are rising and burning more carbon based material. At the same time, forests, which remove CO2, are being cut down. This will lead to global warming.
Pollution in towns and cities is made worse by vehicles, which emit poisonous gases (CO, NO2, NO3) and small particles that can cause breathing problems. The pollution problem is localised, and is worst in the morning and evening rush hours.
Part of the problem is the typical knee-jerk reaction from various organisations and particularly the Government. Your average politician is a complete idiot where technology and engineering are concerned and do not understand what they are legislating on so they take ‘advice’ from so called consultants and experts with vested interested. With the car industry as a particular example they also set targets to be achieved by a certain date despite having no idea whether those targets were actually technologically achievable hence the VAG group debacle. The push for electric vehicles is gathering pace but the biggest question here is where is all the required energy ultimately from? I worked in the water industry for many years and in more recent years there was a hughe push to install MWatts of standby generating plant which could also be used for highly lucrative power export. Guess what, most of the generating plant comprises diesel powered static generating sets the engines of which are NOT required to meet any emission standards whatsoever!
Yes, and wherever such planning applications are submitted in urban locations they are generally refused as there is zero acceptance of the air and noise pollution. Fortunately electricity consumption has fallen significantly over the years as more energy economical appliances have come into use. Other advances involve the success of certain genuine renewables in the UK, particularly wind so far with solar and smart systems developing as well. No problems then.
As somebody who is appropriately well qualified and works in Social Care, I earn only a few pence more than than the National Minimum Wage. Violins please …..
Why on earth should I be subsidising people to buy electric cars? I can’t afford one but those who can afford them need tax breaks from everybody else to make them cheaper?
Mind you, this is the same debate as to all taxpayers subsidising rich people to travel from London to Birmingham, twenty minutes faster, that will cost all of us at least £55bn. I despair.
Disclosure. I voted for Mrs May.
hs2 is a truly appalling decision – a 19th century technology that can’t go around corners (5 mile turning circle) at a rolls royce price.
The HS2 company that recommended this got the HS1 usage figures 50% wrong !! usage is half what they predicted and we gave the £100m to mislead us again.
corrupt and incompetent government.
My diesel SUV has an engine 3/4 the size of its petrol equivalent and often delivers 45+ mpg, whereas my previous petrol version was lucky to deliver 35 mpg. I must be far less polluting than I used to be. The government guidelines just don’t add up for me. Hence the rise in CO2 in the switch to petrol seems inevitable. I will stay with diesel.
Never mind CO2. What are your NOx emissions?
I have made a quick check on the nissan.co.uk website for nox emissions. As far as I can tell, these figures are not even measured or published for UK vehicles.
I have read anecdotally that Nissan Qashqai Petrol engines emit up to SIXTEEN times more nox than their diesel equivalents. This was from a man who was curious and used as much technical equipment that he could get his hands on. He tested three petrol vehicles I think. His data was handed over to testing specialists but they were not able to analyse all the results but the Nissan petrol engines were very bad.
If these results are true then there is no way that they will ever be “officially” published. The Government’s anti diesel policy would be ridiculed.
Disclosure: I drive a petrol engined Peugeot.
Here it is, I found t article I was referring to ….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/how_toxic_is_your_car_exhaust
Hello. You miss the point, Co2 destroys the planet, concentrated Nox in cities may affect health., solution restrict older dirty diesels from city centres and encourage diesel elsewhere and remember diesel uses significantly less fuel than petrol thus saving our global resources. The end
Politicians yet again. They never look at the Law of Unintended consequences and this was an obvious one (even I saw it coming!) Battery raw material (Cobalt will be the big problem) will impede battery production (EV’s are not the only Users) and maybe cause wars – like over oil. Through use of ACCT and much lower exhaust temperature DEF application Diesel can be cleaned a lot more. Also work on the fuel itself can and will help. Note modern DI petrol engines have a Particulate issue that WILL require GPF’s. Next stage and effect of Greenpeace’s strident demands is growing unemployment in UK so that should cut vehicle use and please them. Germany is at least trying to make a structured approach to this even if they are host to deliberately cheating VAG.
Awaiting fall out…
Increase the tax on fuel and the problem will be solved. People won’t want silly thirsty 4×4 SUVs when they can have cars that do double the mpg.
Yes, I will. I’m tall, have a family, and travel extensively. I also have rheumatoid arthritis, which means small cars are uncomfortable for moderately long journeys, and ordinary large saloons are uncomfortable to get in and out of due to my height. I’ll not be changing my MPV any time soon, unless it is for an even bigger van-derived vehicle. Leaving aside my particular set of circumstances there are many people who prefer the improved vision in an MPV/SUV. I don’t see many people going from e.g. a Qashquai to a Micra any time soon, and there is no reason they should, despite your self-centred comment.
The result of this ‘anti-diesel’ charade has been exactly as predicted, although the move to large conjestion creating CO2 pumping SUV’s wasn’t. It would be interesting to see if the rise of those were inherently connected to a rise in female ownership or useage as is the case with the even larger ‘Chelsea Tractor’ 4×4’s.
To be honest, any urban registered 4×4 should pay a road useage premium for reasons far too obvious for me to take the time to explain.
I can’t see it being that long before some Government ‘expert’ prompt a Minister of London Mayor to start a push for an anti-urban SUV+4×4 campaign.
I hope so. Charge them more for blocking sunlight. Low mileage premium. Charge more for low occupancy rates. More for causing accidents by obscuring views of other traffic, Spoiling the view for pedestrians. Using an engine bigger than the required 600cc. Added premium for lack of imagination in body style.
To say a diesel wont meet Euro 6 emissions is absolute garbage, just look at the trucks, they’ve been running at Euro 6 regs since at least two years ago when i worked for a DAF commercial dealer. majority of regs, safety gimmicks etc all get tried out on heavy trucks years before cars get them. This is just about the EU making money and penalising diesel drivers.
You see plenty of old buses still in regular use and there aren’t the routes that there used to be, lots of villages only have a couple of buses a day some only have a bus once a week or even none at all, we need better buses but they don’t run when we want them to and don’t go where we want to go. You go to B&Q or Wickes and try and get a bundle of 2.4 bundle of wood or 2 kitchen units on a bus
Why blame Brussel? It’s the current anti diesel crusade driven by the usual suspects who are pressing for this banning zeal. Politicians never look at the subtleties of science but run with the crowd. Politically correctness require electric cars (and elecrtic toothbrushes)
As far as the UK goes, I’d say that the Mayor of London has been the most voracious anti diesel proponent.
Cobby, if what you say is true (I haven’t verified it, so I’ll take your word for it) then “heavier vehicles prove that diesel can meet Euro 6” is what you’re saying. The logical progression of that is to suggest that it should therefore be much easier for light vehicles such as cars to also meet these standards, contrary to the article – I think that’s what I infer.
Then we have to assume what the article means by cars not being able to meet Euro 6, is the change in the test process late last year such that cars don’t use the same test that cheat devices exploited for dieselgate, but are not held against more ‘real world’ scenarios.
If all this is taken into account, where is the blame? It’s not the legislation, that’s been known to be coming for ages. It’s the car manufacturers who have known what standards they needed to meet and decided it was cheaper to cheat than investing in R&D. They also know the writing is on the wall for diesel because the regulations will – at some time soon – make it impossible for diesel to be compliant. Either way they basically couldn’t be bothered to fight the regulations any longer as evidenced by those manufacturers who are mentioned as dropping diesel from their car lineups.
I think you will find that Euro6 standards for heavy vehicles are different to those for cars. For cars, the limits are per Km regardless of size, so smaller vehicles find it easier to comply; whereas for trucks etc. the limits are expressed per Kwh, so more powerful engines are not penalised. A large truck meeting Euro6 (Euro VI) will still produce more emissions than a car that does not!
cost is a bigger issue for [inexpensive] cars than the huge cost of big trucks.
The environmental cost of scrapping all those diesels, and the co2 emission necessary to manufacture all the SUV petrol replacements can’t be environmentally positive? Electric cars don’t need subsidy, they will reach saturation in all the detached homes, terraced housing without drives and flats have a great deal of difficulty in terms of how to charge electric cars , street infrastructure needs building to make wider adoption of electric possible, hybrid suvs are probably the best compromise, me I’ll stick with my 2004 jazz till the wheels fall off, probably the most environmental choice considering my yearly mileage.
Not keeping it long then.
(VW) 1.9TDI Sport Driver
Love my Diesel
Why on earth are so called “SUV”s a good idea? The average car carries something like 1.5 people. A small car is fine, not an overweight piece of metal which makes accidents more likely and consumes more fuel. “SUV”, a “Sports Utility Vehicle”, it’s just an overweight hatchback that’s much taller than it needs to be. I say we should tax them more than anything else (slight tongue in cheek).
The government has caused a real shambles. Can’t Adblue be installed to older cars?
See the government are at it again, now petrol is not good for the planet don’t they realise that electric cars are only passing the pollution on from the vehicles to the power stations, so they aren’t good for the planet either. We all can’t afford hybrid or electric cars There are still millions of terraced houses about that we live in because we all can’t afford houses with driveways and garages to plug our electrics cars in to and nor can we all afford the increase on our electric bills to fill these cars up every night which is a real turn off especially in the rain or can’t we do that in the rain.
How about going too horse drawn transport, hmmm, wait they also put out co2, what to do ? This is quite the a problem!
All politicians and bosses are greedy lying turds who the average person has still not learned DO NOT TRUST YOUR LEADERS!!!!
Power stations are more easily controlled than individual cars.
My car, it only runs when I need it, I don’t run it in my driveway in anticipation when I don’t and coal and gas fired power stations don’t give instant electricity they run 24 hours a day this is why wind turbines are good, you can turn them off.
I was looking at changing my car for a SUV but the boots weren’t big enough and the mpg not high enough and road tax too much, I even looked at the same car with a petrol engine but no, the road tax is over £150 more, the fuel figures say 40 mpg so that in reality is in the lower 30’s as my present car is returning 51 mpg, the book says 60 mpg
Doesn’t Greenpeace run “DIESEL” ships?
Obviously a case of “Don’t do as I do, DO as I say”
Hypocrites!
Certainly! and pretty old ones at that.
A few little ships are insignificant.
So is my car!
no, they are not, but they do not pollute locally ie in congested areas, which is the health issue driving the anti-diesel problem.
I own a diesel car and like many, feel both mislead and as though there is a target on my back for driving a ‘polluting’ vehicle.
Given the efficiency of modern diesels and their low emissions hasn’t the argument about their effect on the environment changed to one focussing on ‘particulates’? It seems no matter how many justifications have to be dreamed up the diesel is to be hunted into extinction.
So electric cars with their limited travel range, limited life batteries and indeed their own environmental impact issues ……..where does the electricity come from, what materials and processes are used in manufacture of the batteries?? …………are to be the solution to all our pollution and premature urban death problems, a bit like diesels before them.
Apart from the simplicity of thought involved right from the point where we motorists were persuaded to buy diesel cars, isn’t there also a real issue of shortsightedness in the ‘logic’ behind championing electric vehicles?
While infrastructure for charging electric cars is still relatively limited shouldn’t the Government and car manufacturers look towards the real future of reducing emissions and invest in the promotion of vehicles run on hydrogen???? The technology exists, the cars exist but it seems that the myopic politicians are struggling again from a lack of foresight.
this government is so out of tune about the environment. I have a 2016 tiguan diesel that has euro 6 compliant. are the new petrol cars the same. this government wants to get their act together fast or they will cripple the automotive industry.
I, along with thousands of other caravanners won’t be ditching the diesel. Electric doesn’t YET have the distance a lot of caravanners require and what will happen to the caravan/camping industry if people where to give up on diesels. I have the latest Euro 6 engine.
As numerous people have already commented on, how many of these politicians, do goodies, environmentalists have pure electric cars. Even if they don’t have diesel, bet the vast majority have petrol but don’t see they’re doing ANY harm as diesel is the culprit at mo. My Euro 6 will be a lot cleaner and healthier than many petrol vehicles
As I also am a caravanner & I certainly WON’T be ditching my Euro 6 diesel car any time soon. If by some perchance I’m forced to & go to petrol, haven’t the legislaters worked out yet that a petrol engine is less efficient than a diesel engine & uses more fuel to achieve the same power (torque) output, so therefore by switching to petrol it WILL significantly increase CO2 emmissions!
The only true zero emmission engine is a Hydrogen fueled one!
the only by product of burning Hydrogen as a fuel is…..WATER! so it makes sense to me…..more research & more Hydrogen fuel distribution points for vehicles powered by Hydrogen!
Unfortunately energy is required to obtain the hydrogen in the first place.
Very true, but at the moment we, the tax payers, are giving billions per year in funding to the owners of wind farms to stop generating. The grid infrastructure is not in place to transport all the renewably generated power to consumers. So why not pay them to generate power to electrolyse water to make hydrogen to support a fuel cell infrastructure?
Wrong. According to the Renewable Energy Foundation (and the Daily Telegraph), it cost more than £100 million in 2017, not billions. You want to use excess power to make hydrogen? Then you’ll need to spend a huge fortune to put THAT infrastructure in place. Electric cables are far cheaper than massive electrolysis plants close to every turbine with an associated network of pressurised gas pipelines up hill and down dale.
In 2017 there was a day when the entire country’s energy was generated from renewables. The grid is far more robust than you think.
Neither difficult nor expensive and possible to create as an ‘add-on’ to current engines. Plenty of articles on the ‘net about how to make a unit (under £30) that will improve engine efficiency, reduce emissions and cost almost nothing a year to run. The technical requirement is that the exhaust sensor that checks the oxygen level in the gasses has to be adjusted to compensate for the different gas mix produced.
Some of the articles claim fuel efficiency improvement in old truck engines to be as high as +9mpg with the hydrogen generator installed.
do you have further information on these “hydrogen generators” ? could you post some links please?
There is no such thing as a zero emission car. How do you think the hydrogen is made? For the foreseeable future, the most efficient/least polluting cars will be hybrids, as they are more efficient than both IC cars and power stations/national grid.
also virtually NO electric cars (Tesla model X may be the only exception as far as I’m aware) are type approved (therefore legal, if capable) to tow ANYTHING
Why not a hybrid Darryl?
This is typical poor reporting, and the SMMT trying to shift blame. Of course CO2 has risen as less diesels are purchased. However, Nitrogen Oxide, and the particles that Diesels emit are far worse for the environment and human health. Yet there is no details of the reduction in these since people have moved away from diesels.
Diesels are awful for everyone, and as hybrid and electric cars and trucks become more prevalent the sooner the air quality will improve. If more trees had been planted rather than destroyed the conversion from carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide which plants are trees breathe would have been a good solution for petrol cars. However we now have a glut of carbon dioxide and its now unbalanced and causing issues.
So its simple, get rid of diesel in the most part, plant more tress to soak up the carbon dioxide and get more hybrid/electric vehicles delivered at affordable prices.
As I understand it the emissions figure is a calculation not a measurement – so no real proof.Even if all cars in the UK were zero CO2 emissions it is unlikely that there would be a measureable impact on worldwide CO2 emission levels. It would be better to kill off all the ruminants and the old – dirty diesel trains.
Yes, nitrogen oxide emissions are terrible, but they are a consequence of lean (ie efficient) fuel combustion. The alternative to higher NOx emissions is increased fuel consumption. Volkswagen’s ‘fix’ for their diesels simply involved reprogramming the engine management to enrich the air-fuel mixture, increasing fuel consumption but reducing NOx emissions. It’s not even a purely diesel matter – even back in the 1980s, Ford marketed lean-burn petrol engines on the grounds that they were more efficient (ie more economical). Euro6 regulations mandate NOx abatement anyway – the use of Diesel Exhaust Fluid (32% urea solution injected into diesel exhaust), for instance.
CO2 is not a problem. It is vital to life on earth. Atmospheric CO2 at 0.04% is not a problem. Atmospheric CO2 even at 0.08% would not be toxic to us oxygen-breathers, but it would enable greater plant growth to feed the world. We do not have a glut of CO2 – on the contrary, if atmospheric CO2 were to reduce much from current levels, it would be catastrophic. As for the greenhouse effect, CO2 is an extremely poor greenhouse gas, but methane is much more potent and that has increased as the amount of livestock has increased. The bottom line is that we humans must become less abundant and/or become vegetarian in the long run. Alternatively we could just NOT WORRY about global warming (which has been fiddled anyway – the climate oscillates naturally) because historically the times of greatest human prosperity have been during the times of highest historical global temperatures.
the problem was, in the case of Ford, the ‘lean burn’ engines were, admittedly more efficient BUT were NOT more economical. in the 1986-1990 (approx.) shape Escort and Orion range, the 1.4 litre petrol engine was the ‘lean burn’ variant. this produced little, if any more power than the 1.3 (about 6bhp more from memory) and where I lived, in rural Cumbria the 1.3, 1.4 and 1.6 would ALL average around 30-35mpg on local runs. the 1.3 could get close to 50mpg on a motorway cruise at legal speeds whereas the 1.4 and 1.6 carburettor equipped engines would return around 42mpg on the same trip (as near as can be replicated in the real world). I could also bore you with stats from the Sierra range too (but I wont). suffice to say I worked in a Ford dealership as a mechanic and owned numerous examples of Escorts/Orions AND Sierras with pretty much every engine combination possible, driven ONLY by myself and fuel consumption calculated brim to brim so I have a LOT of experience with the ‘lean burn’ engine. basically it ran lean so you had less power. because you had less power you had to make it work harder to get the same result (wider throttle openings to climb motorway inclines, or downshift gears to maintain your speed etc) so whilst better in ‘official tests’ in the real world, they were pointless. hence the diesel revolution, where MPG was a factor in the buying decision
Newer diesels produce no more toxic fumes than comparable petrol engines. However, no one calls into question the newer DPF filters which create microscopic particles, and it is these that are far more easily absorbed by the human body, whereas the older diesel exhaust filters left larger particles which are not absorbed but rejected by the human body.
But the Government or the ‘experts’ won’t do an about turn as the backlash would crush them.
Government. To blame. It’s only about revenue, nothing really to do with anything else.
It’s a change from one pollutant to another, we aren’t going to save anything.
Electric and hybrid cars are unrealistically priced and can u imagine how much electric we would need and use once w get rid of diesels.
How much would electric rise to ??
More revenue for some
I’m sure electric for vehicle use would be taxed at similar rates to petrol & diesel when and if, proportion of EV usage become greater. At present we seem woefully underpowered for electricity to power a lot more EVs.
Motoring journalists help stoke the diesel situation as they are just greedy turds like newspaper reporters only thicker!!
Not enough easily digested & available information on the emissions produced in generating the electricity with which to recharge an electric car. Neither have I seen the what difference there is in NOX & CO2 produced after taking into account the often very significant mileage differences between the use of diesel, petrol and electric propulsion fuels.Confused.
Diesel particulates poison people, babies and grannys all. not just vehicle users. All cars cause pollution including electric ones (nobodies telling the truth about these). A small fact a car travelling form John o groats to Lands-end uses more air than a man breathes in a life-time. If you must drive/need a car use it as little as possible and drive it as economically as possible. Boot and brake merchants, note.
The problem surely isn’t simply petrol versus diesel. It is the choice of car. Too many people buying large SUVs for short journeys when they could just as easily drive a Nissan Micra
Well said Tony, it really is as simple as that.
Drive a one and a half ton car 400 metres to drop the kids off. Nip to the Doctors for anxiety. Go to Starbucks for the WiFi whilst waiting for Jessica. Nip to Waitrose for four different ready meals for tonight, we should all have a choice. I have to stay in, so the LaunderForYou company can collect the ironing. Drive 200 metres to Pharmacy to pick up prescription. Mother’s day, oh crap! Drive to Chelsea for that adorable blouse. Oops, forgot to pick up the laundry. I don’t believe it, the kids need picking up,
“Jonothan, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had today! I never stopped. I’m knackered. I’ve driven 4 kilometres and I haven’t even been to the gym yet.
What a surprise, but only for politicians.
It was only the other week there was reports of a mini ice age for the world.
They just jump on the band wagon to blame someone.
Its been found the Rocks of Greenland is melting he glaciers nothing to do with pollution.
How much is natural?
Let’s say for a moment that everyone switched to electric tomorrow. This massive amount of extra power would have to come from power stations that burn gas/oil/coal, or from nuclear which has its own pollution issues. Then there’s battery production which, in turn, use precious/toxic metals. Then there’s the range and power of these vehicles which are fairly useless at present (diesel hybrids would be my choice). Whilst people need to drive and oil is in plentiful supply, nothing will change. When my 10 year old non DPF Skoda Octavia diesel finally gives out, I’ll go and buy a cheap, low mileage diesel that some snowflake has got rid of for next to nothing and drive that until the wheels fall off.
CO2 is not the enemy – we need it for all plant life, as without it there would be no crops, trees or any other flora.
Atmospheric CO2 from all transport sources – cars, trains, planes and boats – amount to less than 0.i% of the total, as verified by INDEPENENT scientific research, the remaining atmospheric CO2 ccoming from us – we breathe!
Why then are we, as motorists, being blamed? To make us feel guilty for “polluting” and more willing to accept punitive taxation without demur.
Anyone serious in intent to reduce atmospheric CO2 should start by reducing the numbers of people…..I have a list!
This is rubbish.
Edinburgh have reduced speed limits to 20mph,modern cars are not designed to run in third or second gear but, the slower speed increases pollution.
I was sat behind a petrol car and the exhaust sitting at traffic lights was choking me my diesel is fitted with a particle filter ,is serviced and if needed repaired every year and it has never failed the co2 test since I bought it.
Utter tosh and another money making scheme for authorities (most of whom, get taxied around in diesel powered giant cars….
There seems to be quite a few 20mph zones and streets going up this might be OK if you happen to get it by a car but it is not any good if you are breathing in the rubbish coming out the back. Its a case of a quick death or a long one.
or huge engine petrol Jaguars etc. in LONDON. WHY??? a Ford Fiesta or Ka, for example, could ferry the PM from Downing street to Parliament just as well and use about a third of the petrol.
Not just the Jaguar but also the motorcycle outriders (how polluting are motorcycles?) and various other vehicles that accompany.
Difficult to make a Ka bulletproof or to allow the front and rear seats to evacuate quickly./ allow the armed police to return fire!
My 1.2 TSI Skoda Roomster runs beautifully in 3rd gear, so smooth and quiet that I am apt to forget to change up when cruising around town, 20 or 30 mph.
Yes, I do mean change up – on the level it will do the same in 4th easily and often in 5th with the engine good and hot…
I towed 500 kilos EASILY 300 miles and the little car is rated for 1000kg, braked trailer…I can’t imagine what a similar but bigger petrol engine would pull.
Diesel NOx is the real killer, along with particulates; Mother Nature will sort out the CO2.
If your Skoda is Direct Petrol Injection then there is a particulate issue with it and clearly being able to run at higher compressions (as opposed to just high comp. ratios as computed in the more traditional way) as modern DI petrol engines do then there must be increases in NOX from it as well duevto higher combustion temperatures. Suggest you and other diesel knockers get out of your politician influenced comfort zone on this one.
I love the smell of somebody else’s petrol engined benzine in the morning. Cold engines are the best. It’s carcinogenic according to the World Health Organization but I am thankful that it smells a lot better than diesel!
the manufacturers just didn’t put in filters to stop the ultra fine particles which we breathe in and never expel. That’s the problem.
Also the sciencedaily article on carcinogenic particles is very revealing too. worth a google
*carcinogenic…. (sorry).
The global warming is a hoax designed to milk us, the taxpayers more and is a big scandal. moreover, that ad-blue is a c… – solution is to have a LPG installation (technology exists!):
– diesel system works as normal
– a small portion of LPG is added
– LPG ignites from the igniting diesel (diesel ignites because of adiabatic heating of air when compressed)
– LPG burn ignited by diesel helps to burn the soot
outcome is less soot and more efficient engine – energy from burned soot contributes to output!
I have an Euro 6 standard vehicle from VW which apparently emits NOx in minimal quantities and CO2 at around 106 mg. Can any one tell me why such a vehicle should not be used for driving in urban areas, when equivalent gasoline units produce a great deal more pollution Km for Km. I can see why Milan for instance prohibits EURO3 and below from entering the inner city cordon; but what is wrong with Euro 5,5+ or 6 from circulating in such areas. Or have we been brainwashed by US prejudice against Diesel simply because they don’t understand it or do not produce clean diesel engines?
There’s more to emissions than CO2 and the rise is trivial. However, the increase in big and unnecessarily heavy SUVs is ridiculous and the number of (mostly) mothers sitting in their diesel and petrol SUVs outside the school running engines for ages to keep themselves warm is disgusting. I’m afraid there’s much more to this than just diesel versus petrol, or emissions numbers…
I totally agree with you on that one . They are also a nuisance and dangerous in car parks where they block all visibility when you want to get out of a space particularly if they sandwich you in.
Cosmo, best comment so far. Straight to the point and you nailed it.
In this age of technical achievements do we have to believe that nobody is capable of producing an efficient filter for diesel emissions ? Or is working at it? And exactly how are we going to produce the electricity necessary to power the new cars ….all over Europe ..without pollution and at what cost?
they do have filters already. that’s part of the problem. the clouds of black soot that diesels used to emit are now filtered down and then burnt into smaller particles (which are the ones alleged to cause the health issues!!!) in addition to this my own car has a DPF fitted and when its regeneration cycle (when it burns all the black soot that should have gone out of the exhaust but is now trapped in the filter so burnt into the smaller ‘bad’ emission particles) is running, at idle the car uses FOUR TIMES as much fuel (I can visibly see the difference via the on board computer!!!) so yes, they must be GREAT for the environment/health, forcing a cars MPG to be reduced AND burning more fuel than necessary!!
I did say working on an EFFICIENT filter! So much research and so little results.
I felt I had no choice but to go Petrol for my new car which is a 2 ltr model well geared for green performance however it returns only between 35 to 40 mpg on long runs compared with 40 to 50 mpg on my 10 year old diesel car. So although petrol is cheaper per gallon it helps nobody least of all me to do more for the environment. Electric cars have a long way to go for the typical 500 mile to 700 mile round trips I make to see my family in terms of charge points, speed of charge and range compared to petrol or diesel models.
Government has messed this up completely!
totally agree. I have a Diesel Mondeo (euro 5) which will cover 700 + miles (at a motorway cruise) on a tank of fuel. I can then stop for 15 mins to refill the tank, get back in and (on paper)carry on for ANOTHER 700 miles. show me an electric car that can do THAT, for a theoretical indefinite period (like my car COULD) that costs the same/less to buy/insure/tax that I can tow with and I will GLADLY swap the diesel for an electric car. even the petrol version of my car will cover 500 miles per tank with the same refuelling time. plus I enjoy DRIVING so refuse to drive an automatic. electric in places like London are fine. but lets face it, government don’t care about ANYTHING if its north of the Watford Gap!!!
Thanks Peter. I’ve always fancied the Mondeo but never owned or driven one. I was curious if a hybrid one would be any good. According to honestjohn’s website, a true mpg for a hybrid Mondeo would be 53.5 mpg. That sounds great but I wonder what it would be like to actually drive one on long motorway journeys? A diesel for me, in the past, is all about torque. Torque is good too, coupled with a bit more torque ;O)
I blame the lying carmakers , I have never believed a diesel could be that clean!!
A five-year-old could have predicted this….a direct result of the government’s knee-jerk reaction to the strident voices of the anti-diesel zealots. We’re told that pollution from diesels is causing untold premature deaths, yet on the other hand we’re told that the population is living for longer than ever, and the retirement age has to be raised accordingly. Something stinks, and it’s not the diesel exhaust!
Good job we are leaving the EU. The politicians may sit down and weigh up the real differences between petrol and diesel. I think last years extra scare stories about diesel were misleading and has hit the whole car industry. It just tarred all diesels with the same brush when more recent models are not any worse for the environment than the petrol cars. At the moment electric cars are too pricey and there will be difficulties in re-charging them as the network of charge points is poor and many people do not have the potential to have a charge point at their home.
So, having demonised diesel drivers, the spotlight is now being shone on petrol drivers. What I want to know is just where is the Goverment going to turn to, to grab the £30 BILLION of fuel duty, when we all go green in out electric cars
Dont worry Tony, a ‘smart meter’ in the charge point will ensure you will pay similar tax to petrol and diesel.
On top of that £30 BILLION of fuel duty, don’t forget to the add the tax payer subsidies that will make electric cars cheaper for the rich who can afford them. Basic rate taxpayers will enable higher rate taxpayers to have a new “leccy” toy. I hope I’ll get a taxpayer subsidy to recondition a “long discarded” skateboard for my 21 mile drive to work.
do we have to listen to this constant bull s–t from this government they come up with anything they think can rip the public off.
Well, if these Town Planners stopped cutting down trees and forests to make room for more houses in ever increasing housing Estates where £2M “houses” are slapped together within arms reach of each other that would mean that more CO2 would be taken up through Photosynthesis.
Stop blaming the car for everything, as most of it is created by Government bodies in one form or another. Convenient that twenty five years ago, the Government were endorsing Diesel for modern cars, because it was cleaner and didn’t produce so much SO2 & HC03; then suddenly when more people started using diesel and less petrol.
Then oh surprise, diesel is “dirty” again and as a result those people with diesel cars are being hit. Talk about hypocrisy. Yes, you may go further on diesel, but you are still paying more in the long term as the price is now greater than petrol.
Talk about fraud !
Some of the comments on here scare me.
All of you who think your modern diesel is “far less polluting” than a petrol, please take a read of: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/how_toxic_is_your_car_exhaust – the article is (IMO) unnecessarily long but it is definitely worth a read – skip to “The Truth” section at the end if you’re short on time. It’s shocking to see how bad these modern cars perform in real-world tests vs lab tests. I guess we always knew that manufacturer quoted MPG figures were on the generous side – but that was a factor of 10-15% or so. For the NOx outputs of diesel cars made in 2015 and 2016 to be TEN TIMES the legal limit in real-world use, and THREE TIMES worse than cars made 8-10 years ago is ridiculous.
I personally own a 2014 diesel Qashqai and can’t wait to get rid of it.
I have a Tesla Model 3 on order, due for delivery in early 2019 – and have already switched my electricity supply to 100% renewable in anticipation. And as for the grid being able to cope… the consumption of electricity in the UK is in gentle decline. Current models predict that mass adoption of EVs will simply soak up the spare capacity. Factor in the increase in home-generation of electricity (particularly Solar PV) and things are looking quite bright.
We should all care much more about NOx and particulates from diesels than the few extra grams of CO2 from petrols. But moving to EVs powered by renewables has to be the answer.
New Tesla on order eh…someine who can afford to put a deposit diwn on one while still operating your current vehicle…lucky you, ans l bet you’re also getting a tax break/grant or similar to help afford it too. You therefore are unlike the vast (and l do mean vast) majority of us who have a limited income or live below what most consider the breadline. So for you its a case of , “l’m alright Jack, pull the ladder up”.
And as for that TV article…the BBC is overseen (one could say ‘controlled’) by the Government, so possibly questionable. Unless you yourself can verify something do not take anything for granted.
Common sense really. A clean Diesel engine will always produce less harmful pollutants/unit of distance/and quantity of fuel used.
The hybrid/electric argument needs to be looked at carefully. Where and how efficiently is the electricity produced?
when my children were little We did not need more than one car. I could walk to work, visit the corner shop, my husband could use the local fuel station. But because employment forces us to travel outside of of town the building of large super markets has caused the loss of our corner shops. We all need cars to go shopping, and go to work. this in turn has caused more lorries on the road to deliver to these retail giants. Maybe it’s not just car manufacturers only that needs to be looked at but the infrastructure of modern living and what these retail giants have forced us into. They have forced the closure of our local fuel stations and now we have to travel further to buy fuel. When my children were living at home we were a six car family because modern living forced us into needing our own transport as we we all worked out of town. We would have used public transport but it is so unreliable. So surely the government should be able to see, that it is not just car manufacturers responsibility but also what they have allowed to happen in retail
Crikey Julie, you’re a six car family? That’s quite scary but completely understandable. Can you imagine if you all had to have electric vehicles tomorrow? There would need to be electric charging points every two metres or so. There would be so many cables trailing all over the place that “Injury for You” would be involved in multiple tripping accident injuries everyday. New houses also only seem to be planned for each house only having two cars as a maximum. Planners seem to be clueless.
global warming is a SCAM designed to milk us, the taxpayers more. they should fir LPG in diesels (adds small portion of LPG which ignites from diesel fuel and it caues to burn the soot == less soot and more mpg than from diesel + lpg when burned separately)
Patent that idea quickly!! You’ll be a billionaire.
Fact: Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.
There is absolutely no proof that climate change is caused by humans , however there are a lot of people making money from promoting the climate change agenda that we are the cause of it.
No one ever says reduce the population to stop all the people breathing out CO2.
It’s gone up because the higher number of vehicles on the road now not because of diesel
Climate change(notice how global warming is very rarely used these days because few people actually believe it) has been happening since the planet formed and it’s not about to stop anytime soon. The environmentalists and politicians target fossil fuels users because they are a soft target and because they can. Try controlling the output of a volcano or the geysers in Nth america. And don’t plants love CO2??? My local town centre is dying as a retail destination and the only things there are coffee shops and charity shops. the large retailers moved out of town years ago because of the anti car administrations.
Very well said Allen.
Fewer cars is the answer.
What a surprise!! The headlong panic and media hysteria have as much to do with this anti diesel movement as those who have actually studied the situation closely and realised that the new diesels are less damaging than their petrol cousins.
It’s worth pointing out to Greenpeace, that in a country where over HALF the power used comes from fossil fuels, internal combustion engines will remain the most efficient and therefore cleanest option. There’s just no getting around that, it’s physics. I appreciate physics is not their forte (they’re activists!), but it is perhaps worth consulting an engineer every once in a while without assuming we’re all liars.
Maybe they should push to replace all fossil fuel power stations with nuclear ones first, then we all get electric cars.
Totally agree. And Nissan are now developing really efficient, revolutionary petrol engines. And we have abundant fossil fuel. So why not use it.
Do you have a link to that Nissan feature? I wouldn’t trust them with a pogo stick personally. i agree with use the fuel. If we stop using it now then huge investment will be needed to reopen new coal mines. Natural gas is much easier to switch on and off, oil less so. We all need nuclear fusion and lots and lots of thick copper cables. Until then, we in the UK are doing quite well with renewables.
I HOPE THAT THE PEOPLE THAT ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DRIVERS WHO DRIVE A 4X4 DO NOT GET TRAPED IN THE BAD WEATHER THAT WE ARE GETTING. IT WAS THE 4X4 DRIVERS THAT WENT TO HELP, IN BY GETTING HOSPITAL STAFF INTO WORK AND GETTING OTHER MOTORIST OUT OF THE SNOW IT THE BAD WETHER THAT WE CAN GET, CAN A ELETRIC CAR DO THAT, PLUS DID NOT THE BAD WEATHER BRING DOWN THE ELECTRIC POWER CABLES.
Common knowledge to those who know: To winterise your car in the UK, the best way to do this by priority is:
1. Fit winter tyres to all four wheels.
2. Drive a 4×4
3. Drive a 4×4 fitted with winter tyres to all four wheels
My Peugeot RCZ has four winter tyres. I overtook a plonker in a Nissan Navara, all wheels spinning, without any difficulty. The only danger was avoiding him slipping from side to side and potentially sideswiping me as I passed him.
My neighbour’s stationary car was hit by a driver in a 4×4. He thought he was “invincible”. He braked on a downhill slope which he drove far too fast on. ABS working like crazy, he had no grip, his steering was pointless and he ploughed straight ahead into my neighbours car. Having a tenth of a brain might have helped. “SUV”s idiots think they are winter equipped, they are just two wheel drive unstable vehicles.
Well said though. To those drivers who knew what they were doing, excellent. To the morons, “thanks very much for making my next insurance renewal more expensive.
One last thing, fitting just two winter tyres to your vehicle is dangerous, The car can become seriously destabilised very quickly. The vast majority of “Proper” winter countries make it a legal requirement to fit all four wheels with winter tyres. Just having two might surprise you when the back of your vehicle overtakes the front.
when I lived in Canada I used to go past 4 wheel drives all the time in my very ordinary Toyota Camry front wheel drive car (with winter tyres). that’s driving in the heaviest of snow conditions.
the 4WDs were slipping and sliding all the time and travelling along at 30km/hr while I could happily cruise at 60+. Why? Because they had insufficient weight on the rear axle.
4WD is absurd as a solution. If you lose grip , having 4 wheels slipping doesn’t help any, and if one axle suddenly finds grip and you’re sliding around kiss goodbye to any control as it sends you off the road.
There’s so little understanding of what a 4WD is for in this country.
Populist politicians only concerned with getting voted back in, jump on each and every “cause”. Idealist Environmentalists who realised that they can earn a living from their activities, need to perpetuate the story. All of them, the Environmentalist Org’s and the Politicians work in the same geographical bubble – Central London, Westminster are collectively rather myopic. Yes the pollution is worse in big cities, but big cities have Public transport. Shifting to a bus or underground train is sensible and easy. No need for a car. Now consider the people (AKA voters) they don’t all live in London and don’t encounter the same level of pollution. Public transport isn’t as good in a small town as it is in a city like London. Even less reliable is public transport in a village. There might only be one bus in and out per day that to keep viable has to have a long and slow route through five or six other villages before reaching the passengers’ required destination. A “crows flight” destination of five miles say, results in a slow journey of twenty miles and takes more than hour. Those folk use diesel cars because it saves time and allows bulky stuff to be carried. Yet because the politics and environmental idiots want a blanket ban on everything everywhere, the ordinary citizens get the rough end of the deal.
We’re all barking up the wrong tree here. Whatever fuel we use, there is bound to be some environmental downside eventually. Surely the key factor in the pollution debate is for all of us to ask ourselves, “Is my journey really necessary?” If we consume energy we are going to pollute. If we use plastics we are going to pollute. If we must eat meat, and yes, I do, we are going to pollute. Virtually every human activity risks pollution in some way or other so the problem becomes a product of scale.
The simple truth is that our exploding world population will be the undoing of human existence as we perceive it today. It is indisputable that, historically, whenever our species makes first contact with other earth species, the road to extinction and species genocide has always followed. However one looks at it, we rape our environment without a second thought. It is an inevitable by-product of evolution without conscience and reminds us that our minds have not developed at the exponential rate of our powers of destruction and until humankind grasps this truth we’re all headed to Hell on a handcart so what we use as fuel is irrelevant since, globally, there isn’t enough to go around so we may as well simply enjoy ourselves and make this island Earth the dead cinder it is destined to become.
How convenient. Funny how the data always falls in their favour. I seen them taking samples in Glasgow centre, narrow street lined with high-sided sandstone buildings either side, obviously the readings are going to be higher there. Give me money to proove the point and yes i’ll proove it.