Apparently, facing the great challenge of emission reduction, our next generation cars have to be smaller and lighter. Consumers have to be told the fact that we cannot increase interior room forever. Somehow a compromise between accommodation and fuel economy has to be made. Just like when the world was hit by Energy Crisis in the 1970s, people shifted towards small cars. Similarly, the governments should be told that any plans for raising crash safety standards should be frozen if they want to put emission reduction on first priority. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

The rest of the improvement will be responsible by manufacturers. They can employ more lightweight materials such as aluminum, magnesium and composites wherever cost effectively. They can cleverly design the chassis structure to lose weight without losing rigidity. They can set a weight target for each component and give incentives to component suppliers which can design components lighter than the targets. They can integrate different audio and infotainment systems into one unit. They can combine various microprocessors into a central brain. They can develop lightweight seats and fabrics… Every sector can trim weight.

In fact, under the pressure of emission reduction, the trend of weight increment is arriving the U-turn now. The latest BMW 3-Series, 5-Series and Mini are no heavier than the cars they replaced. Ditto the new Mercedes C-class. The new Audi TT is even lighter than the first generation thanks to the aluminum-steel hybrid chassis. However, a more important indicator is probably the next generation Mazda 2, which has been shown in Geneva motor show and will go on sale later this year. The Mazda 2 is slightly smaller than the old car (40mm shorter, 55mm lower and only 15mm wider) and it is 100kg lighter. Expect more cars will follow suit.

Nevertheless, a greater problem lies in the mix of our car population. Since the late 1990s, customer taste has been shifting towards heavier vehicles like sport utilities, multi-activity vehicles and crossovers. As a result, car makers develop, promote and sell more these vehicles and lead to a dramatic increase of greenhouse gas emission. In the United States, the increase actually canceled out the reduction achieved by the progress of green technology. Both consumers and car makers should be responsible for the problem.

Undoubtedly, we have to stop the trend towards heavier types of vehicles in order to reduce overall emission. This is exactly where legislation may help – for example, a tax system according to emission level will drive consumers away from sport utilities and crossovers etc. so that manufacturers can concentrate their resources in developing smaller cars and greener technologies. Rearranging the mix of our car population is probably the easiest and cheapest way to cut the overall emission drastically. If half of the sport utilities and light trucks in the USA are converted to cars, the average fleet emission could be reduced by more than 10 percent immediately !

One thing is very interesting: by making our cars smaller and lighter, they could be actually more fun to drive ! As I always said, more power does not equal to more fun. A Porsche 911 Turbo (307g/km) is not necessarily more pleasurable to drive than a Cayman S (254g/km), Lotus Elise S (196g/km) or Mazda MX-5 (183g/km). Lightweight cars are more agile and easier to place in tight roads. Their lack of sound deadening, NVH suppression and driver assistance usually bring more direct feel to the drivers. In the future, legislation against emission will push manufacturers to shift their high performance cars towards smaller ones. Lightweight roadsters and coupes will rise again. Super-powerful performance sedans like BMW’s M cars, Mercedes’ AMG and Audi’s S lines will suffer the hardest blow. At least their numbers will be limited to avoid lifting the average fleet emission level. The top super cars like Ferrari or Lamborghini, however, will not be influenced much, because they are already very limited in numbers. They can be exempted from legislation.

There is worry that fuel saving technologies could hurt driving fun. To certain extent, yes. A diesel engine is nowhere as eager to rev as a gasoline engine. A hybrid powertrain adds weight to the car. An electric power steering is not as feelsome as a hydraulic one. On the positive side, diesel engines provide superior bottom-end torque for instant acceleration. Diesel technology is also progressing much quicker than gasoline technology so that one day it might just match gasoline engines for subjective feel. Hybrid powertrain might bring extra weight to the car, but on the plus side we can place part of the weight, say, the battery pack and inverter, at more favourable position to balance the car. The flat torque curve of electric motor also helps the car to get off the line more quickly than internal combustion engines can do. As for electric power steering, there is no reason why it can’t be improved to provide real feel in the future. In short term, any dramatic changes in automotive technologies will inevitably cause some drawbacks, just like the series of new safety and smog control regulations worsened the cars in the mid-1970s. Anyway, sooner or later car makers will overcome the problems and make better use of the benefits brought in by the new technologies.

In the future, the key to survival is technology. Developing green technologies require substantial and long term investment. Only the biggest manufacturers can afford. Smaller companies will be eliminated if they fail to form alliances to share technologies and costs. Mitsubishi and Proton are in the risk. UK sports car specialists had better to pray for an exemption for low volume car makers, otherwise they will be the victims. Well prepared companies like Toyota and BMW will be the winners. The same goes for small car specialists like Fiat and Suzuki. GM, Ford and Chrysler will survive anyway, but they will be seriously hurt because they are still building very large cars and trucks today. Hyundai group could also face difficulties to persuade people buying its cars at higher prices. So far it has shown little commitment to green technologies. Porsche could be a big loser because it produces only performance cars while its production volume of 100,000-plus units is unlikely to get exemption. Luckily, it bought Volkswagen recently. Other players like PSA, Nissan-Renault, Honda and Mercedes will be able to survive through alliances or working with component suppliers.

Global warming is going to change the view of our motor industry, our cars and our driving habit. Like it or not, you have to prepare for its coming.

Mark Wan

So, what should car makers do ?

The answer is to develop cars which use energy more efficiently. We can improve the efficiency of internal combustion engines and transmission systems. We can reduce the energy consumption of peripherals and equipment. We can recapture energy from braking. We can make our cars lighter and more aerodynamic efficient. We can use hydrogen instead of petroleum so that the only by-product will be water. There are plenty of technologies lying in front of us, but what we are more interested is how feasible they are and how they are going to change our cars in the future.

Unquestionably, small cars will be less influenced by the legislation against emission because of their inherently lower emission. Today we have plenty of mini cars meeting the EU emission target of 130g /km. Tomorrow the C-segment cars - the most popular segment in Europe which includes Volkswagen Golf, Opel Astra and Ford Focus – will also be able to meet the target by continuous improvement of conventional technologies. The recently facelifted BMW 120d is a good example. It employs advanced direct fuel injection (with piezo injectors and higher pressure), on-demand oil / water pumps, electric steering, automatic start-stop system and regenerative braking to achieve 129g /km, which is an improvement of 15 percent from the previous car. BMW demonstrated that you don’t always need revolutionary and costly technologies to achieve a sizable improvement.

However, petrol version of C-segment cars will be more difficult to approach the target of 130g /km. The BMW 120i, for instance, produces 152g /km even though it employs the latest direct injection technology (also with piezo injectors). Petrol engines generally produces 20 percent or so more emission than diesel engines with comparable performance. This make them harder to survive in the future. Nevertheless, petrol engines are lighter and less costly to build than diesel engines, therefore they are still appealing to small cars. To reduce emission, the recent trend is to downsize the petrol engines and compensate with turbocharging. The new Fiat Bravo is an example. It skips conventional 1.6 to 2.0-liter engines and replaces them with a turbocharged 1.4-liter engine. This is also a cost-effective solution because the engine is based on the naturally aspirated 1.4-liter unit, thus Fiat no longer needs to build two four-cylinder engine families.

Petrol engines will continue to survive in small cars and high performance cars, but they are going to have no future for medium size cars upward. To meet emission targets or to avoid heavy tax penalties, larger cars will have to switch to either diesel power, hybrid-petrol or hybrid-diesel power in the next 5 to 10 years. This is why German car makers promote Bluetec diesel technology so hard in Europe and North America. This is also why Mercedes and BMW joined GM to develop 2-mode hybrid system. The German is well prepared for the challenge.

Toyota is the leader in hybrid technology. This is the result of over 30 years of research and development. While other rivals saw no commercial incentives in developing hybrid, Toyota persisted in the technology and finally got return in the second generation Prius. Hybrid powertrain is still too expensive to small cars, therefore Toyota has shifted its focus to larger cars such as Estima MPV, Camry, Lexus GS, LS and RX. The strategy is to use a four-cylinder hybrid to replace a V6, a V6 hybrid to replace a V8 and a V8 hybrid to replace a V12. This ensure the hybrid cars to return considerably lower fuel consumption and emission compare with class rivals with comparable performance. Until now, hybrid cars still contribute to a small portion of Toyota’s annual sales. However, once EU and the states of USA started tightening emission standards, Toyota will be a big winner in short term.

In longer term, say, 10-15 years later, the trend could shift to “plug-in hybrid”, as demonstrated by GM’s Chevrolet Volt concept car. Plug-in hybrid allows cars to work as a pure zero-emission electric cars for short ranges (say, to travel between home and workplace), or use the on-board charging system to extend ranges. The charging system could be a very small and efficient internal combustion engine which only needs to work at constant rev to charge up the battery, or even hydrogen fuel cells. Plug-in hybrid is even more energy efficient than the hybrid technology Toyota holds today.

Of course, the ultimate solutions will be hydrogen engines or hydrogen fuel cells. However, considering the substantial infrastructure it takes to build hydrogen plants and refueling stations, hydrogen power is unlikely to be become popular until at least 15 years later.

That may be too long to forecast. Next part, we are going to see how our cars will look like in the future. Will our cars sacrifice driving pleasure in exchange for higher energy efficiency ?

Mark Wan

Among all nations, European Union is the most important motivator of greenhouse gas reduction. In 1997, it signed the Kyoto agreement and committed to a reduction of 8 percent greenhouse gas by 2012 compare with the 1990 level. This would require the cooperation of all industries, especially the motor industry. Around 12 percent of the greenhouse gas in EU countries is contributed by vehicles. No wonder European Commission put a lot of pressure on car makers to reduce emission. 8 years ago, they reached an agreement with most European car makers to set a voluntary emission target of 140g /km for their average fleet emission by 2008. What does this mean ? take an example, suppose a car maker sell 100,000 units of model A and 400,000 units of model B in a year, while the emission of A and B are 120g /km and 150g /km respectively, then its average fleet emission will be (120 x 100,000 + 150 x 400,000 ) / 500,000 = 144g /km.

With this target, European car makers invested a lot of money and effort into green technologies. In a few years time, the market is flooded with advanced diesel engines, direct gasoline injection, variable valve timing, turbocharging, electric power steering, on-demand oil / water pumps, automatic start-stop etc. Unfortunately, despite of the effort, most cars bar the smallest ones still fail to meet the emission target. For example, today a Fiat Panda 1.2 emits 133g /km, a Grande Punto 1.4 16V emits 145g /km, a Volkswagen Golf 1.6FSI at 168g /km, a BMW 330i at 210g /km, a Mercedes E350 at 244g /km, S500 at 279g /km, S600L at 340g /km and Lamborghini Murcielago at 500g /km. According to the latest figure obtained in 2004, the average emission for European new cars was 163g /km. Today it could be a little lower, but with only one year left, the target of 140g /km is going to be missed by quite a margin.

Is the target really infeasible ? not exactly. Car makers said we have the technologies today, but the problem is consumers don’t want to pay for them. Renault estimated that to meet the 130 g/km target will add €3000 on the cost of each car, which is impossible to be swallowed by consumers. A few years ago, Audi’s all-aluminum A2 1.2TDI achieved 81g /km, but the car was so expensive and compromised in dynamics that few people were interested. Audi lost substantial money in the project and eventually stopped producing it. It goes without saying that car makers won’t do whatever unprofitable.

However, the European Commission did not listen. Recently, it proposed to set a compulsory limit at 130g /km by 2012. The proposal is criticized by most European car makers as “unrealistic”. Predictably, German premium car makers Mercedes-Benz and BMW are most opposed to the plan, as their rich mix of luxury cars in their fleet will make meeting the 130g /km target impossible. If European Commission stand its decision, German motor industry could be destroyed in one night !

One can easily see that a fixed emission limit is unfair to luxury car makers - you can’t require a Mercedes limousine to emit the same amount of greenhouse gas as a Daihatsu K-car, can you? The legislators may say they are not requiring every car to meet the limit, but the average emission of all the cars produced by the car maker. That means, while BMW is overpolluting with its M5, M6 and 760il, it can counter-balance by producing large amount of ultra-clean Mini. The problem is, I don’t think it is wise to force BMW and Mercedes, especially the latter, to shift their focus from luxury cars to small cars which they are not good at and which are not associated with their image. Ask the costly German factories to produce Hyundai-rivaling small cars will only kill the German premium car makers, costing tens of thousands of jobs and arising political shock waves. I don’t believe European Commission will really do that.

The proposal by European Commission does not present a fair game. Firstly, only high volume car makers fall into the scope thus it will give low volume car makers a competitive edge. Secondly, the average emission limit is imposed on the basis of “manufacturers” instead of brands. For example, Audi will not be seen as a manufacturer but a division of the manufacturer Volkswagen AG. With so many Volkswagen small cars to drag down the average emission figure, Audi can continue making powerful luxury cars, leaving the independent BMW and (soon) Mercedes dead. The same goes for the Lexus division of Toyota. Again this will be an unfair game.

Instead of a fixed emission limit, a better way to reduce emission is to tax cars according to emission amount or fuel consumption. The taxation system will make low emission cars cheaper than today’s level and high emission cars more expensive, thus will attract consumers to shift to lower emission cars. Currently, car makers said no one want to buy low emission cars. But in the proposed system, market demand will be the power to drive car makers to develop lower emission vehicles, whether by downsizing their cars or by introducing greener technologies. In this way, we can achieve the target of reducing greenhouse gas while providing all car makers a fair competition environment. Car makers will no longer worry that their substantial investment into green technology get no return. Moreover, the taxation system conforms to the “Polluter Pays Principle”. Bosses can still buy a Mercedes limousine, but they will have to pay more and fewer of them will be able to afford.

Apparently, controlling greenhouse gas emission by means of taxation is much better than introducing emission limit. So why didn’t European Commission adopt it ? the answer is politics related. Each EU member state has its own financial policies. To change its taxation system drastically, its government could face huge political pressure from the opposition parties and the public, especially those benefited from the existing system. Therefore EU’s legislators want to do in the easiest way – to force car makers to reduce emission by themselves. But as I have mentioned, without the invisible hand of market demand, the government’s intervention will only distort the market and causes conflicts of interests between car makers and consumers. We should learn from the lesson of Audi A2 – without any incentives to purchase a low emission car, people would rather to buy a bigger and cheaper conventional car.

Since 2002, UK has been adopting a taxation system according to CO2 emission level. However, the system only applies to company cars and the tax rate only varies between 10-35%. Without expanding to all cars on the road, without increasing the scale and span of tax rate, the effectiveness of this taxation system will be very limited. Last month, German government revealed its intention to apply a taxation system according to CO2 emission to all new cars. It is deemed to be a counter proposal to EU’s fixed emission limit and has already got the support from DaimlerChrysler.

No matter which system, legislation against greenhouse gas emission will definitely change the view of our motor industry. Who will be the winners and losers ? how will our cars in the future look like ? please wait for the Part 2 of this editorial…

Mark Wan

]]> http://www.autozine.org/blog/archives/51/feed/ http://www.autozine.org/blog/archives/49 http://www.autozine.org/blog/archives/49#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 04:12:24 +0000 Mark Wan Uncategorized http://www.autozine.org/blog/archives/49

A fleet of 14 Rolls-Royce Phantoms parking in front of Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel must be a spectacular scene. Having seen this advertisement, I went to the hotel to prove whether it’s true… unfortunately, none of them were seen ! perhaps only a few have been delivered and some went out already. Obviously, the above picture is a Photoshop job.

“I’m worrying if you are ill or any accident happened to you…”"Monsieur, are you dead ?” (this is probably the silliest question in the world !!)

“Are you maybe tired of maintaining this highly respected but non-commercial site, or you have too much of your regular work ?”

Well, I am fine and living well. In fact, in the past month or so I have been working busily on another project. It is probably the most important project to me since establishing AutoZine… and now I think it is time to announce it to my readers: I am going to get married next Saturday !!!

Surprise? unbelievable that I got time to date with girl? you might remember in 15 Steps to create something like AutoZine, I wrote that in order to run a high-quality web site, you have to work days and nights, cut all other hobbies and split with your girl friend ! that was what I did many years ago… but you know, when the time comes, when the right person arrives, there is no way to escape… (oh, poor Mark !)

So, the only solution is to marry with my girl, turning her into my wife. That should save me enormous time for dating and watching those silly Hollywood movies ! besides, someone will take over the cleaning job in my house ! Suddenly I found the investment in the past few years is worthwhile, haha !

Well, back to reality. If you are interested to hear my true feeling and know about my love story, you may visit our wedding homepage and drop me some words there. But warn you, our story is 100 percent unrelated to cars, so don’t complain for boring you !

Regarding AutoZine, I expect there will be few updates in the following month or so as we will move into a new home and take some time to settle down. I hope my kind readers will understand.

Despite of my marriage, the long term development of AutoZine is guaranteed. By next September, it will be 10 years old (how many 10-year-old automotive web sites are still running today?). There could be some big changes to my job next year as various opportunities are emerging and it’s time to think whether to continue or to take other opportunities… On the other hand, commercializing AutoZine will be on the agenda, most likely through donation or advertisement. Hopefully that will generate extra income to allow me spending more time on AutoZine. There are plenty of opportunities lying ahead, but right now only one thing matters: get well prepared to be a handsome groom !

2006-12-06

Mark Wan

———————————————————–

Answer:

Hello Kelvin,

According to Lexus’ press release, LS600h is the world’s first production car to feature LED headlights for “low beam”. That isn’t a full LED headlight. In contrast, Audi R8 features a full LED headlight including main beam.

Besides, it’s debatable which car comes to the market first. R8 is already on sale on Sep 28 (although it won’t be delivered until “the first half of 2007″). Lexus is yet to release the price of LS600h. It only said the car will be launched in Japan in “spring 2007″.

Rgds,

Mark Wan

Hangzhou is a tourist city famous for wonderful views (especially the West Lake). Compare to most other cities in China it is remarkably well developed, organized and modernized. Apart from many foreign shops and restaurants, its streets are also filled with many imported European luxury cars, such as the new Mercedes S-class and BMW 7-series, plus the localized Audi A6, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac SRX etc. Both Porsche and Ferrari-Maserati have big showrooms there. Porsche Cayenne is especially popular there. In contrast, Japanese cars have relatively lower coverage here. The most commonly seen Japanese car is Honda Accord, built in Guangzhou.

Back to AutoZine, it is unbelievable that after 9 years it is still alive, how could time pass so quickly? But we had better to look forward. Next year, the 10^th anniversary will be an important milestone to it. I can assure you by then we will have a big celebration. Remember to bring cake and champagne then !

After a lot of research, I have finally updated the Manufacturers page to 2005 production / sales figures. When you read the figures, please don’t forget I spent a lot of time to search for the data, including searching in manufacturer’s press release and reading dozens of annual reports.

During the research I found most Western car makers are willing to disclose details of their sales and production data, especially Germany car makers, which reveal production figures for each models. Japanese car makers are not so transparent. Hyundai group even revealed contradictive data. However, worst of all is Proton, which is so far yet to provide sales or production data for 2005. Its annual report is also the only one in the car industry without giving the very important unit sales or production figures. Instead, it spent dozens of pages to introduce its board members and top managers (like advertisement). From these tiny things you can see a corporate culture and forecast its future.

Old reports recovered

Good news ! as you know, I lost most of the old reports because I didn’t save them until last year. Now thanks to the advice by a reader, I can recover most of the reports from Internet Archive server http://web.archive.org. There are reports for 132 model families already recovered (although most photos are not recoverable). I will put them in The Graveyard after edited.

The following reports are unrecoverable:

BMW 8-series

Chrysler JA series – only brief report found

Chrysler Sebring old

Chrysler Voyager

Fiat Punto I

Fiat Coupe

GM Chevrolet Lumina

Honda EV-Plus

Honda Civic (pre-2001)

Honda Acura CL (pre-2000) – only brief report found

Lancia Dedra

Mazda 929 – only brief report found

Mercedes C-class / C43 AMG old

Mercedes E-class old

Mitsubishi Lancer (pre-2001)

Nissan 200SX / 240SX

Opel Sintra

Subaru Vivio

Toyota Tercel

Toyota Lexus LS400

Toyota Previa

Toyota Soarer / Lexus SC

Venturi Atlantic 300

Fortunately these early reports were not very well written. Apart from 8-series, Fiat Coupe and Venturi Atlantic 300, I don’t feel much regret of losing them.

This is the first major facelift for 5 years. We have a homepage which looks more professional while keeping the merit of the old page: clear and easy to navigate.

Apart from the new look, we have added some features:

1. AutoZine Blog

This is the page you are reading now. It is used to publish:

-          Editorials (all the past editorials have been uploaded)

-          Instant thoughts

-          Site update announcement

-          Recommended readings

-          Reader letters: your emails will be published here if they are worth sharing with other readers.

2. Editorials

Simply a link to the Editorial category of the Blog.

3. The Graveyard

The new archive for placing reports for outdated cars. Whenever a car has ceased production, its report will be moved from New Car archive to The Graveyard.

4. History

A brief history of AutoZine.

5. April Fool’s joke

A collection of the past April Fool’s jokes.

6. Search in AutoZine

A search function powered by Google.

HOW TO USE THE NEW FEATURES:

Note that the AutoZine homepage hides behind the AutoZine Blog window. You can move the split frame to reallocate the area between the homepage and the blog.

That’s all. It’s user friendly. Isn’t it? Now enjoy your ride !

Mark Wan