Excuse my emissions... No. Its for your own good

The motor industry are (understandably) not happy about the ever tightening emissions controls under which they find themselves. Increasingly stringent EU directives specify that volume car manufacturers must ensure that their fleet averages a CO2 output of just 130g/km. This is not much at all. Its a bit like asking a fat man, to come back in a month, 100Kg lighter. Achievable, but rather difficult. As a keen driver I too initially saw this as the end of enjoyable motoring, banishing one and all to the inexplicable dullness of Toyota Prius motoring (if indeed it can be called that).

Thinking about this a little more, I am however, now tentatively hoping, no, expecting, that these new restrict limits will have something of a positive effect for all concerned; mother earth, you, me, our offspring, and maybe theirs too.

You see, like our aforementioned anonymous fat gentleman, cars and also benefit greatly from improved efficiency, and one way to acheive this is to carry less weight.

In their ruthless search for CO2 reducing measures, the likes of BMW and Ford (something of pioneers in this area) started on a programme of efficiency measures including energy reuse, weight saving, even dynamically altering a car's aerodynamics based on its engine temperature. The rest of the motor industry are following suit, VW in particular, showing a marked reduction in emissions across their range.

So what does this mean for the motorist? Well it means your car will cost less to run, will weigh less and consequentially (we hope) handle better, all while (probably) maintaining, or improving power output through increased use of turbocharger technology which has matured significantly over the years. I expect to see an increase in the use of high torque electric motors either replacing or augmenting the output of a traditional external combustion engine over time. Downsides? Ok our cars might not sound as beefy as those big V8s and V10s but really, in this day and age, they don't really make sense when considering it's not ridiculous to see 250+ Bhp from a 4 cylinder engine.

Roll on efficiency, and let us all benefit from it!