An EU legal system for carmakers which requires them to cut average fleet emissions below 130g/km by 2012, is ‘fatally flawed’, a leading green car analyst claims.
According to Jay Nagley of Clean Green Cars, while many people are award of the legal target of 130g/km, what many don’t realise is that that target varies for each car manufacturer according to the average weight of their cars. Manufacturers with heavier cars get a greater allowance for CO2 emissions while those with lighter cars have to meet a more demanding target.
Its a controversial idea, many of the carmakers which specialise in making smaller cars like certain Italian and French brands objected to the idea while German carmakers which produced bigger cars demanded a larger allowance.
However, what makes it worse is a detailed analysis by industry experts at the website, which shows that basis for these more generous allowances is calculated incorrectly, making them unnecessarily lenient in favour of carmakers which produce bigger cars.
The EU calculated that CO2 output increases on average by 7.6 g/km for every 100 kg of mass. That is true, but it’s only half the story. The CO2 output of heavier cars is more than CO2 of light cars but that is not simply because they are heavier. Heavier cars have bigger, more powerful engines (engine power also goes up by an average of 14 bhp for every 100 kg), because people who buy a BMW 5 Series expect it to go a lot faster than, say, a Ford Ka. It is that extra power they are also being given an allowance for. Clean Green Cars has isolated the effect of adding weight, but not power, and the true figure is approximately 4g/km for an additional 100 kg of weight. How can this be done? Simply by comparing different versions of the same model range that have the same engines and transmissions but different weights – for example a model range which includes a hatchback and a convertible. The website compared every model on sale that has both convertible and hatchback versions, using a standardised engine and gearbox configuration to isolate the issue of weight.
This way the website worked out that the EU’s figure of an increase of 7.6 g/km of CO2 is a major exaggeration – the true figure is more like half that. This means that companies that make large cars have a target that is relatively easy to meet because their allowance for weight is too high, whereas companies that specialise in small cars have to meet an incredibly demanding figure. Mercedes, for example has to meet a target of 140 g/km of CO2 (10 g/km of CO2 above the overall target) given the weight of its current model range, whereas Fiat has to get down to 111 g/km of CO2, again given the weight of its current model range. Fiat currently has one of the lowest CO2 figures of any manufacturer (125 g/km of CO2 on its UK sales), so has beaten the 130 g/km target already – but 111 g/km of CO2 is beyond any petrol engine car with a manual transmission currently on sale.
Jay Nagley, publisher of Clean Green Cars said: "This is not the first time the EU has based environmental decisions on poor science, but this is a shocking example of getting basic facts wrong. The fact is that with these rules, manufacturers could respond by making their cars bigger and heavier simply because they will have a less demanding target to meet.
