<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by saabfast</i>
Actually, in the UK, 15 year old cars have to meet the same emission standards as new ones at the annual MOT.
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This is not true in the US. But since this thread is about a UK proposal ...
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This standard is much higher than required for much older (carburetted) cars like the TR7 (thank goodness). My Saabs are 12 and 15 years old, have engine management systems which control everything so tightly that most would meet the standards without a cat fitted. It has been said that the exhaust from the rear is cleaner than the air taken in the front.
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There is 'meeting the standard' and then there is achieving the goal of cleaning up the air.
Not sure how the standards are determined in the UK, but here in the US, the standard is a compromise between meeting the air quality goal and cost to the consumer (and a bunch of other stuff).
The fact that the air coming out of the engine is cleaner than the air going in says more about the air quality (or lack thereof) than what the engine management is doing.
Having said all of this, I am pretty sure that the focus of the proposal is not HC/CO/NOx, the normal concerns when looking at for air quality emissions and the basis for the standards quoted above.
Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions. The primary way to do that is to increase fuel economy. This is where things get interesting.
Not sure what happened with cars sold in the UK and European during the late 80s, 90s, 00s, but safety and features became the focus, so cars put on a lot of weight, balancing out or negating engine efficiency improvements made. Compare, say, a BMW 3-series from the 80s, 90s and 00s and see how much bigger cars got.
So, there are a bunch of cars from the 70s and 80s, including the TR7, that are small and light and have pretty good fuel economy, so probably have pretty good CO2 emissions. However, they are gonna suck compared to modern cars on air quality emissions and modern safety gear.
How does the fuel economy of a typical car sold in the UK (the TYPICAL car, not the car that someone who owns TR7s in 2009 would buy) 15 years ago compare with typical cars sold in the UK now?
alan
