Today in the news, 23 October

fmcg_scribe

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/industry/ford-building-cleaner-diesels-are-politicians-preparing-axe-them

corglass

fmcg_scribe wrote: »

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/industry/ford-building-cleaner-diesels-are-politicians-preparing-axe-them

I really don't understand the point of these
www.autocar.co.uk/random-recent-articles

Cleveland Hot Pocket

Not sure what the point of this article was, doesn't seem to say anything really.
Nothing against the recent posting of articles by the OP though as the others were an interesting read

fmcg_scribe

The article is clearly an opinion piece but it rightly points out the mixed messages currently coming from central and local government in the UK about the future of diesel engines. The article covers a lot of ground.

On the one hand, most of the discussion in recent years about the environmental impact of petrol and diesel engines has focused on CO2 emissions and largely ignored other emissions. The focus on CO2 emissions has driven the emissions standards defined by the European Commission and lots of individuals and organisations in the EU have made buying decisions based on those standards and the vehicle taxation charges based on those standards.

Now, some politicians and other are turning their attention to other emissions from combustion engines other than CO2 emissions and this appears to be a case of moving the goalposts with the potential to "outlaw" or penalise pre-Euro VI standard diesel engines from many cities, not just London. Boris has the largest personal electoral mandate of any UK politician, so other major British cities tend to take notice when he starts sabre rattling about issues like this and the congesion charge in London is well established, so it wouldn't take much effort to rebalance the congestion charge tariffs to penalise vehicles are seen as "undesirable" for environmental or other reasons.

In the the case of London in particular, what would all this mean for its large fleet of taxi cabs? Most of the vehicles in that fleet would not meet Euro VI.

Equally, talking down diesel engines generally ignores the improvements that car makers like Ford have made in recent years.

The current electric, hybrid, and hydrogen vehicle are seen as intermediate and not long-term replacements for combustion engine vehicles and many people find that diesel vehicles are the only vehicles that meet their needs but they don't have the resources to scrap their current vehicles to move up to a Euro VI compliant vehicle.

fmcg_scribe

http://www.autonews.com/article/20141022/OEM11/141029940/bmw-to-lower-mpg-ratings-on-4-mini-cooper-models

It's good to see the Americans clamping down on car makers playing fast and loose about mpg data.

The Chinese government has also been banging the drum about this recently and threatening heavy sanctions next year:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20141016/GLOBAL03/141019909/china-to-punish-carmakers-that-fail-to-meet-fuel-economy-targets

fmcg_scribe

http://www.autonews.com/article/20141021/OEM11/141029957/auto-industry-forming-consortium-to-fight-hackers

This is an important issue because of developments in in-car-electronics, ideas around getting cars to "talk" to each other for road safety purposes, and recent advances in driverless cars.

edburg

Guess part of that is to stop aftermarket upgrades (ecu tuning/retro fitting etc) to, been talked about for a good few years among the euro car makers.

There always seems someone with huge brain around next corner who will find away around it

arthur daly

edburg wrote: »

Guess part of that is to stop aftermarket upgrades (ecu tuning/retro fitting etc) to, been talked about for a good few years among the euro car makers.

There always seems someone with huge brain around next corner who will find away around it

My cousin works for a company doing computer forensics and he put it like this,
1 guy designs software but there are hundreds ready to take it apart.
The Pentagon gets hacked several times a day,they never get far into the system but it is done.
Guarantee soon as they release a car you can't fiddle with someone will have cracked it and be offering a chip or replacement unit

Really I don't see why auto manufacturers would be concerned with aftermarket upgrades.

arthur daly

edburg wrote: »

Guess part of that is to stop aftermarket upgrades (ecu tuning/retro fitting etc) to, been talked about for a good few years among the euro car makers.

There always seems someone with huge brain around next corner who will find away around it

My cousin works for a company doing computer forensics and he put it like this,
1 guy designs software but there are hundreds ready to take it apart.
The Pentagon gets hacked several times a day,they never get far into the system but it is done.
Guarantee soon as they release a car you can't fiddle with someone will have cracked it and be offering a chip or replacement unit

Really I don't see why auto manufacturers would be concerned with aftermarket upgrades.

fmcg_scribe

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/ford/mondeo/65897/ford-mondeo-hybrid-2014-review

A lot of the comments in the review remind me of reviews of the Lexus IS 300h when it was launched last year. Looks as if Ford made similar design and engineering decisions to Lexus hence the similarities in the poor reviews.

Most of these hybrid cars from BMW, Lexus, and others are really intended for US buyers who don't like diesel. Judging from this review, perhaps Ford shouldn't have bothered launching this variant of the new Mondeo in Europe.