21.12.07

Cars and girls

"New German-made cars sold in Europe in 2006 had higher carbon dioxide emissions on average than they did in 2005, according to a new study." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/)
BMW reduced new cars emissions, but Mercedes and Volkswagen (+ Audis, specially the black ones, Seats and Skoda, that use the same motors) didn't. I think everyone of us as one or two special words to designate Mercedes drivers (and no, I don't mean "handsome", Mr. CLS500); we can keep on using them, freely.
"It is ironic that the country that did so much to get a European consensus on new climate targets earlier this year is also home to the carmakers that are holding back progress on one of the most important ways of achieving them, said Jos Dings, director of T&E.
The failure to cut the weight of cars is one of the principal reasons why CO2 emissions and fuel consumption are not going down, he added."

This brings me back to my previous post about Mazda 2: it's nicer, cleaner and lighter then the previous model. And also safer: just got 5 stars in the Euroncap test.
I'm not endorsing the brand, just the trend. And by the way, avoid the diesels: you're never gonna drive enough kilometres to justify the extra price, and although emissions are lower, all the extra gunk is responsible for the bad quality of the air we breath and for the increase of respiratory diseases.

1 comment:

GG said...

Hm...

I feel a buit guilty here with my 40 year old death trap :))
I'm consoled by those poor, poor Merc, BMW and Audi drivers that scream past me at ludicrous speeds on the N4, which probably quadruples the output of emmissions on these so called "clean and economical" vehicles, which probably have the air conditioning on in the middle of winter...