Diesels not flavour of month no more?

[mjh_056]

On a company lease scheme and one reasons that went for the GTD is how favourable it was for me with the C02 incentives.

At present that has not changed and C02 and Carbon footprint is still seen as a differentiator BUT diesels do still throw out harmful human emissions and the congestion charge for example is going to become very anti-diesel.

Now the car industry has pumped in lots of ££ in development to make really fuel efficient low C02 vehicles and  these cars have then been bought in the millions as seen as 'green' but is this technology and value of cars about to take a real hit with a shift of the goal posts in making the diesel the pariah it once was when smoke used to pour out of exhausts?

The governments set out directives and offer incentives the car industry and public take up that lead and now it seems a real U turn is coming so just wondered what everyone thoughts are on this?

[corgi]

At present that has not changed and C02 and Carbon footprint is still seen as a differentiator BUT diesels do still throw out harmful human emissions and the congestion charge for example is going to become very anti-diesel.

Only for pre EEC-VI diesels... our GTDs will be fine... for now...

[fredgroves]

Yes, this is true.

Have a read of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31823252

In particular, look at the table for Euro spec emissions...

The Mk7 GTD is a Euro 6 vehicle, its emissions are miniscule compared to past Euro standards - even petrol ones.

New cars (petrol or derv) are tons cleaner than the past. The "problem" debated so often is the dirty old crap on the roads - 20 year old buses, lorries, taxis plus a handful of private cars.

If everyone was driving a Euro 6 engined vehicle, there would be none of this problem... but they can't/won't outlaw dirty old polluters because of the business backlash.

[Sootchucker]

Read recently that the mayor of Paris is looking for it being a completely diesel free zone within 5 years (and that goes for trucks, buses and cars). Apparently other major European cities are keeping an eye on this. It could be the future ?

[fredgroves]

Boris was talking about making the London CG zone free of non-Euro 6 in a couple of years - or charging them another ten quid for being there.

The knee jerk reaction "Paris ban" though is illustrated as being wrong though by the link I showed you - Euro 6 is only marginally more poluting for oil burners than petrol. Probably not so much as you'd even notice.

[monkeyhanger]

Lots of demonisation of diesels lately, but as usual, hack journalism tars all diesels with the same brush.

DPF diesels are good, gets rid of almost all the soot, but NOx output is still high.

EU6 compliant diesels cut the NOx right down, much better.

Many direct injection petrol engines are now dirtier than up-to-date diesels. As these petrol engines become more diesel-like in the way they introduce fuel and combust it, they get more fuel efficient, but they also generate particulates of their own (finer particles that can get deeper into the lungs when breathed in), unless they employ direct and indirect injection. Benzene and Toluene present in far greater quantities in petrol than diesel are some of the nastiest chemicals you can be exposed to (carcinogens) on a daily basis.

A well maintained and up-to-date car whether it be petrol or diesel will be infinitely cleaner than an old and badly maintained example.

Hopefully the people that draw up transport policy will see past the sensationalisation of "dirty" diesels and treat modern versions fairly. If the government is serious about cleaning up the roads it will get the filthy ancient taxis off the roads and have the bus companies retrofit tech to minimise particulate emissions.

[fredgroves]

They aren't that serious about doing anything though.

What have we seen so far?

1) A speed limit on a motorway to keep pollution down (expect more of that)

2) Adding extra duty to derv - that's almost certainly going to continue.

Neither of these things addresses the issue of the older, commercial, vehicles are the main polluters.

Rather than take on London cabbies, lets just screw everyone.

[virtual camper]

I did read an article recently that stated, as London Mayor, Boris is probably going to ban Diesel engines from the centre of London within a couple of years. So it will no longer be the big smoke. 

Thank god you might say for the new GTE 

[phope]

If they really want to tackle the problem of old polluting diesels, a phased 'scrappage' programme to get as many of EU5 or lower diesels off the roads would be a start

Starting with the really old sh!tters, and building up over a few years to EU5 cars. Likewise for vans

Give incentives for people to move to clean diesels, or hybrids like the GTE, etc

[fredgroves]

The problem is, as always, they want/need to be seen to do something but they need to also no pay for it.

The problem is not big enough to warrant a total solution (all sub Euro 5 vehicles banned 1st April and a compensation scheme for all) and even a scrappage scheme is expensive to achieve.

The strategy they are pursuing is to use eye watering VED rates to try and kill it off.

I expect the next step will be not just to rate vehicles by CO2, but also by NOx.

Nice and easy that way, either you give large sums of money to HM Guv or you cleanup - that's win win for the government.

I'm not a minister, but I bet my idea comes to pass...