These are confusing times for car buyers looking to buy the car that best suits their needs.
Campaigners against diesel are making the most noise, and with good reason if the focus is on reducing Nox and particulates. The announcement regarding diesel tax hikes suggests the government backs this view, although it is intriguing that it also continues to promote the benefits of the latest Euro 6 compliant engines, so far excluding them from tax rises and potential congestion charges.
This new, shifted stance overlooks the equally logical reasons diesel was incentivised in the first place, namely because it puts less CO2 in the air, reducing concerns around greenhouse gases and global warming.
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And therein lies one part of the dilemma, because choosing either fuel comes with an upside and a downside. One fuel type cannot deliver on both sides of the equation - at least not at present, although there is new tech in the pipeline looking to address this.
It was ever thus, and that is why car manufacturers invested so heavily in improving the emissions and economy of both, to the point that today’s Euro 6 engines are substantially cleaner than anything that has gone before.
Now, of course, there are alternatives, in the form of mild hybrids, plug-in hybrids and full electric cars. And guess what? None of them provide a holistic answer that can answer all of the conflicts raised by our desire for personal transport at no environmental cost.
Read more: Autocar's best electric cars
Mild hybrid works well in certain conditions, plug-in hybrid works well in others and electric cars serve a niche of drivers perfectly today, and could potentially deliver for a huge proportion of drivers in the future.
All three present environmental issues, from how effective they really in are in the real world through to the knock-on pollution issues regarding where the energy to power them is generated and the environmental impact of both creating and disposing of their batteries.
So perhaps the most logical statement we can conclude from this is that, today, there is no silver bullet. Transport comes at a cost to the planet, however you fuel it.
The only way we can minimise that environmental cost is to select the most appropriate fuel type according to our needs and - to a large degree - reconcile that decision with our personal choices of how we want to pollute the planet.
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Yet another article which
Yet another article which fails to mention the significant part motoring journalists play in a persons car buying decision. The Nox issues with diesel engines are nothing new, its been well documented for years, but people have chosen not to pay any attention to it. Lets face it, few people are really concerned about the true environmental impact of their chosen vehicle, its way down the list compared to what it will cost to tax and run, and what the motoring journalists are recommending. And until recently, it was always the diesel model in a range, no matter what your actual mobility requirements were (thats if you could actually find a review of the petrol versions). The manufacturers and dealers, of course, jumped onto this and would always point out these verdicts as part of their marketing speil. Will we ever see one of these articles where the writer actually admits their part in this, and explains why they, as the 'specialist' in the automotive field pushed these models so one-sidedly?
Old cars are the future
The only environmentally sound policy is to keep old cars running longer. No car has ever been made, and none ever will be, which merits scrapping an existing car with useful life remaining in order to make way for it.
If necessary there should be a limit placed on buying brand new cars. For example that no-one may buy more than one in any ten year period. Additionally, instead of wasting money on stupid and useless electric cars the government should supplement the upkeep of old cars, by contributing half towards any MOT repair costs incurred by a car over ten years old, and the full amount for cars over fifteen years old.
This would be both environmentally sound, helping to increase longevity of the cars by not scrimping on their upkeep, and would benefit those who are most in need of financial assistance to stay mobile.
Sigh
This is the sort of thing routinely trotted out by people who've read disinformation and not bothered to look into the data themselves.
Everything you need to calculate EV CO2 is freely available without bias - the government publishes figures on the grid's mix of energy sources, as well as average CO2 for each source. Find your car's energy efficiency, allow 15% energy lost while charging if your energy figure doesn't include this, allow 15% transmission loss from the power plant, then apply the CO2 per kWh figure. As of 2016, we're at 290g/kWh, so an e-Golf (291 Wh per mile including charging loss) produces 97g CO2 per mile, equivalent to 149MPG in a diesel (3167.2g CO2 per litre according to UK Petroleum Industry Association; includes refining emissions).
The dirtiest energy source is coal, at 910 g/kWh in the UK. This still results in an equivalent of 47 diesel MPG, and no energy provider gives a 100% coal mix. If you're living somewhere with more of a coal-heavy mix then it's potentially a different story, but they're also likely to use more coal in petrol/diesel refining, so it's swings and roundabouts.
As for environmental impact of batteries, they don't *need* disposal. They're typically repurposed for energy storage after use in a car, so the use phase is measured in decades. Even after this, they don't end up on a landfill - the raw materials don't degrade and are too valuable to throw away. As there's nothing corrosive or particularly toxic in a lithium-ion battery, they're pretty much entirely recyclable.
Battery *manufacture* is a less transparent subject, but logic suggests the one-time impact of extracting, shipping and processing 200-500kg of metal can't be on par with extracting, shipping and processing over a tonne of crude oil every year. A Dutch study put Leaf battery emissions at 3.5 tonnes CO2, which is an equivalent to just 9,700 miles in a 40MPG diesel. Even in a bigger-battery car like a Tesla, which uses twice as much material, the vastly lower emissions during the use phase will typically offset the extra manufacturing emissions over the first few years of ownership.
You may well be right...
...but it's so bloody boring. I'll stick with a BiTurbo V8 petrol.