BBC emission tests an "Old Banger"

[lisbon_road]

While we shouldn't be attaching huge significance to the data from one set of results, I think they've done a good job in doing real world testing, and it might be ok to see it as proof that the whole situation is a mess.  Their work seems to show that there are some brand new cars which are very bad and that for me at least is an important result.  

 

 

The cat on the Golf might have been degraded or it might have been replaced.  I suspect that as there is no practical way of assessing them, replacement cats for older cars don't have the NOX reducing elements.  

[forddeliveryboy]

^

 

It's also worth taking to account the car's 'lifecycle' of course. Mine does a nice and healthy 45mpg, costing about 12p per mile, but the total burdened cost of ownership so far has been about 30p. I've paid for tyres and other parts which have to be made in a factory somewhere, I've insured my car so that somebody else will pay if more parts need replacing through a crash, I've paid road tax so that bitumen and aggregates can be mixed and criss cross the country for me to drive on. The impact of one car is absolutely phenomenal.

Road tax -> roads.... News to me!

 

More seriously though, yes absolutely - carrying one or two people about in a tonne and a half of steel, alloys, rubber, plastics, computers, velour and rare metals is environmentally crackers, whether a neck-snapping EV heavyweight or not.