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| No not that Diesel.... |
My diesel estate car is average when judged by the standard g CO2 / km measurement. But therein lies the problem. As Richard Yarrow writes in The Telegraph, 'carbon dioxide is a bad thing because it is understood to contribute to global warming. But it's not the only bad thing. To conform to the European Union legislation, the car industry has got tough on just one element of air pollution and studiously ignored the other nasties belching invisibly from your car. Oxides of nitrogen (NOx), hydrocarbons, diesel particulates and carbon monoxide all are linked to breathing ailments, notably asthma. Bizarrely, you'll find no mention of these on the windscreen sticker.
Environmental Protection UK, formerly the National Society for Clean Air, works to promote innovation and awareness of pollution issues. Its policy officer Ed Dearnley explained public knowledge of the truth about car exhaust emissions was low. "It's not so much that the car industry has backed the wrong horse, but it's looking at one emission in isolation rather than taking account of all of them. CO2 might affect our children's children, but the NOx and particulates are affecting us all now."
He's right. Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee reported earlier this year that there will be 50,000 premature UK deaths this year, and every other year, because of poor air quality.
In terms of CO2, a very clean vehicle emits 100g/km or less while a dirty planet-killer is 300g/km. In short, there's not much range between good and bad [Keith - yes there is, 300%!]. Yet calculations using data from the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) reveal a vast difference on toxic emissions. The maths is as crude as "hydrocarbons + NOx" and some experts argue it's too simplistic, but it's based on manufacturer-supplied data and treats all cars the same.
It shows that the cleanest for toxic emissions is a Skoda Yeti 1.2 with 49 microgrammes per kilometre (mg/km). At the other end of the scale is a Nissan Pathfinder diesel, more than 20 times worse at 1,150mg/km.
Historically, there have been bigger offenders. The Cadillac Escalade, a 6.2-litre US sports utility vehicle once loved by Premiership footballers, pumps outs an eye-watering 2,080mg/km. Ironically, American consumer laws are held up as the beacon of best practice in this area, with all relevant emissions data readily available to the public.
Size of vehicle and engine are irrelevant. A Volvo V70 2.5-litre petrol – one the largest estate cars – rates at 201mg/km. But a 1.3-litre Fiat 500, a tiny city runabout with eco-friendly start/stop engine technology, puts out 484mg/km. It's half the size of the Volvo, but the emissions are more than twice as high.
Even cars marketed with specific eco-friendly badging aren't that green for NOx and hydrocarbons. A Mercedes B160 BlueEfficiency – that's the name for the German firm's "pioneering approach to optimising our vehicles for lower emissions… to provide you with cleaner motoring" – is rated by the VCA at 994mg/km.
The solution doesn't seem to be wildly complex. It would just mean every new car having another sticker to highlight the level of pollutants other than CO2 contained in the exhaust emissions. Better still, a single label with all necessary data to name and shame the worst offenders.
In the meantime, Volvo has come up with a temporary fix. In association with CleanGreenCars, the car maker has launched a free iPhone/iPad App which makes the simple calculation. Called "Emissions Equality", the user taps in the make and model of vehicle to get the VCA data.
Peter Rask, president of Volvo Car UK, said it wasn't just about Volvo promoting its range. "We do okay with this calculation – we've got one or two cars that top their class – but we're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. This is us putting our head over the parapet and saying this is an issue that needs to be discussed and acted on.
"People think they're making an environmental statement simply by buying a green car because it has low CO2. In fact they could be making a big mistake."
TOXIC EMISSIONS (Hydrocarbons + NOx)
UK's best performers:
Skoda Yeti 1.2 105PS 49mg/km
Nissan Qashqai+2 2.0 71mg/km
Honda Insight 1.3 IMA S/SE 73mg/km
Porsche Cayman S 3.4 79mg/km
Honda Insight 1.3IMA ES-T 5dr 82mg/km
UK's worst offenders (mg/km)
Nissan Pathfinder 2.5 dCi 190 1,150mg/km
Seat Ibiza SC 1.2 12v 70PS 1,026mg/km
Citroën C5 1.6i THP 1,010mg/km
Audi A4 3.2 FSi Multitronic 999mg/km
Mercedes B-Class B160 BlueEfficiency 994mg/km
*Source: VCA
Looks like I need to take another look at that Nissan Leaf after all.
