this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
370 points (98.2% liked)

United Kingdom

4116 readers
136 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The increasing popularity of ultra-heavy SUVs in England means a conventional-engined car bought in 2013 will, on average, have lower carbon emissions than one bought new today, new research has found.

The study by the climate campaign group Possible said there was a strong correlation between income and owning a large SUV, which meant there was a sound argument for “polluter pays” taxes for vehicle emissions based on size.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kecessa 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never said there's no new technology because there is and improvements to existing technology too, the proof being that the standards become more strict as time goes by and manufacturers need to plan ahead for it.

I said that just looking at carbon emissions is ridiculous as it's a simple matter of how much fuel is burnt, it either comes out at CO or CO2 and both are bad, that study could be resumed by saying "Carbon emissions are worse in vehicles with worse fuel economy." For this reason emission equipment improvements are concentrated on other emissions as we're already handling CO emissions the best way possible with what's feasible in a vehicle. Fuel economy improvement is the way we reduce carbon emissions and that's also improving, an example is that my ICE car develops more power from a smaller, more efficient engine than the previous year model so its fuel economy is comparable to smaller cars from 10 years ago, its emissions are lower, but the driving experience is still better.

This is a European study so diesel vehicles are much more common and the SUV also beats the standards by a wide enough margin that the emission equipment won't need to be replaced in 10 years. I'm just pointing out that if they only studied carbon emissions then the study is flawed as there are other emissions to look at.

No one replaces a catalytic converter as part of regular maintenance, that's a thousands of £ job that you do when you fail the emissions test or it becomes clogged. Same thing for all the emissions equipment (O2 sensor, knock sensor, EGR system...) or carbon buildup that prevents the valves from sealing properly/blocks the intake, they're things that get taken care of only when they fail.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never said there's no new technology because there is

Well, alright then: what is the new emissions reducing technology that 2023 SUVs have, but smaller 2013 cars don't have?

[–] Kecessa 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Better fuel management in general? More forced induction engines than before? Improvement on existing tech? New emission control equipment like DPF, SCR (that thing that made the difference between cars that only required a retune vs cars that required a buyback/mechanical modifications for VW diesels)?

Do you think manufacturers have been using the same engines and fuel injection methods since the introduction of OBDII or something?

Smaller cars can also get by without things like direct injection because they don't require as much power to get going, but under constant load (on highways) it means worse control over fuel injection vs more modern tech.

https://wikis.ec.europa.eu/display/ULEV/Emission+control+technologies

Heck, just go take a look at the source of the study and you'll realize it's totally biased.