MOTOR

(Darren Dugan) #1
Ford’s 5.0-litre
Coyote V8 has so far
dodged the emissions
noose, unlike the FG
XR8’s engine which
bowed due to Euro IV
regulations

California Air Resources Board (and
the 16 other US states who copy the
west-coasters’ regulations), China’s
State Environmental Protection
Administration (which typically follows
in the wake of the EU) and Japan’s
Ministry of the Environment.
The squeeze was on hard. The Kyoto
Protocol of 1992 insisted the world
needed to pull its 1990-level emissions
back eight per cent by 2012, which
lead to the birth of the EU I vehicle
emissions regulation of 1993. It covered
mostly NOx and particulate emissions,
so it seemed like a mostly diesel thing at
the time, as did EU II (in 1996), 2000’s
EU III and 2005’s EU IV.
Then, with the introduction of EU
regulation number 443/2009, it all got
serious. It demanded an average CO2
figure of 130g/km for every marque by
2012/’15 (stretched out over three years
to account for model cycles). Ouch.


Not that the car companies minded
too much, especially the Big Three,
plus Volkswagen, Toyota and PSA.
New rules demanded new technologies
and new technologies were marketable.
Variable valve timing. Twin-scroll
turbos. Variable-geometry turbos.
Cylinder On Demand. Direct fuel
injection. Sodium-filled valves.
On-demand ancillaries. The list goes on.
Then came the crunch. By 2020,
the EU demanded the CO2 emissions
number be slashed to 95g/km for each
marque’s fleet average, or around
3.8L/100km on the NEDC cycle. Other
countries, like Holland, have gone even
further, demanding 80g/km by 2020.
So downsizing is a thing, confusing
alphanumeric naming structures the
world over. Three-cylinder engines are
the new industry buzzword, with BMW
even tossing one into the i8 sports car.
Audi, Ford, PSA and Volkswagen swear

by them. Fiat even boasts of its two-pot
screamer, though its real-world economy
benefits are, at least anecdotally, scant.
What our Mr Heil told us, that
we hadn’t heard about before, was
downsizing’s more potent stablemate,
downspeeding – lower revs, ever lower
revs. And he just let it slip, almost
accidentally, into a conversation in a way

California Air Resources Board (and
the 16 other US states who copy the


Not that the car companies minded
too much, especially the Big Three,

by them. Fiat even boasts of its two-pot
screamer, though its real-world economy

by MICHAEL TAYLOR

ANALYSIS: THE FUTURE OF NA


IN
DEPTH

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