Safe Speed Forums

I've just spotted this comment on the Daily Express website.

PORSCHES IN LONDON
10.07.08, 8:27pm

Porsche is in the process of legal action in the courts with regards to the congestion charge and the emmissions they produce....it has been scientifically proven that amount of Co2 comming out of the vehicle is actually lower than the Co2 in the air the car draws into its system,but the car itself is being taxed to the heavens on Co2 emmissions grounds even though by driving one around the driver is effectively cleaning and filtering the Co2 out of the air as he/she drives along!

Also why are deisels being targeted when in fact modern deisel engines are cleaner than unleaded engines?

• Posted by: jonG

So does Porsche have a valid case and what will be the most likely outcome?

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

I think this chap is probably slightly out of date. Porsche have been challenging the proposed increase (by Ken) for more polluting (their terms, not mine) cars to £25 p/day. Boris has scrapped it but the Courts recognised Porsches argument about the research showing the charge would have been false and made emissions worse and has, as such, told TfL (read tax payer) to cough up the legal bills. Porsche are donating the money to charity.

That makes my head hurt.

I am struggling with it too - unless Porsche cars are fitted with a carbon collector of some description - and if they are, what happens when it gets full?

would still be intresting for it to go ahead- anything that scores a victory against the anti-car pseudoscience we're continually subjected to may help turn the tide.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I keep seeing this quoted, as someone once famously said, it is a statement that has only one tiny drawback.....
It's bollocks.

Of course the car can't clean the air, after the combustion process, the exhaust will contain more pollutants than went into the inlet. This is just a case of using statistics in a dubious way to present an argument (who else have we seen doing that?). Porsche have obviously never said this, in fact I believe the original quote comes from Mr. Clarkson, who was being ironic when he said it, however, it now appears to be presented as fact.

Actually, you keep seeing this MISSquoted

What Porche actually said was that the exhaust coming out of the car has less CO and HC than the air going into it.

This is infact quite possible

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Yup, if the CO2 is converted into carbon (possibly in the form of soot) and oxygen during the combustion process then the car will in fact be removing CO2 from the air. It's like a carbon sequestration scheme only it's sequestering it into people's faces.

Of course since the only 'pollutant' anyone cares about any more is CO2 this should be seen as a good thing.

Personally I don't care about CO2, but am a little more concerned about the emissions that cause smog and maybe asthma, so I'm looking into an LPG conversion (the fact that it's less than half the price of petrol doesn't hurt either )

Errrmmm.................

Look up the definition of combustion for me.

Erm yes, I'm confused, CO2 is carbon, that's kinda how it got it's name, and it is noteable that it doesn't combust. And when oxygen is burnt it produces CO2 (or CO if burnt with limited oxygen), at least that was the science that I used in school.

I dont know how it works if it does at all. But with regards to the "at least that was the science that I used in school." - I imagine you, like I, were also taught CO2 was a natural gas which was vital to life and in no way was a pollutant... apparently they just chop and change these "facts" as years go by

Less carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons than the air going in........



Carbon dioxide is not a toxic gas, carbon monoxide is.
Unburnt hydrocarbons are noxious, at the best.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this additional congestion charge is based on the fact that all but one of Porsche's engines are larger than 3.0 Litres?

My Chevy Caprice Classic Estate - 8 seater - came standard from GM with a 5.7 Litre Corvette V8.

How do you think that would make me feel, if I had to suffer this congestion charge, imposed by a guy who could never make sense of how I once travelled 575 Miles on a single tank of gas out of this car- that's 28MpG - carrying three zaftig passengers and all their luggage? Or how I - alone - got 16MPG from a Honda Civic 1.7Litre over the course of 120 Miles?

While it makes sense that a larger engine would tend to consume more fuel than a smaller one, the mass of the vehicle, the aerodynamic Drag Area of the vehicle, and most importantly, the DRIVER of the vehicle (and its maintainers, if separate from the driver) have more impact on its Fuel Economy and thus, to a large extent, its emissions, than its engine size?

Then again, a base Porsche 911 with the smaller 3.6L Flat6 gets very nearly the same Fuel Economy scores as the new Chevy Corvette Z06 - bear in mind that the new Z06 has a 7 Litre V8 producing 500 Horses, 470LbFt, scores only one point worse in each test than the base Porsche 911, and doesn't get hit with a[n American] GasGuzzler Tax.

That, to this Yank, is more than proof enough that engine size is a poor proxy for environmental impact. To what ever extent it was or still is, however, perhaps Porsche has some work to do, if a 3.6L engine tests out to consume about the same amount of fuel as an engine twice its size.

Feel free to clarify me on these issues, I'd appreciate the education.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

Mr Rush sir, I enjoy reading your posts, very enlightening, however it always makes me smile when I read on the interweb Americans stories of fuel economy. At the current rate of exchange your cousins (that's us lot) across the pond are a little over $9/US gallon, so by default, we know a thing or two about fuel consumption. you must have been wringing that poor Honda's neck to get it down to 16/us gallon! The worst mine has done is 21/us gallon, let's just say I didn't get overtaken very often in 200 miles....

I crossed the US in a 1984 Pontiac Parisenne with the V8 with a mate and our worldly goods in the back and it did 17/gallon there or there abouts for 7500 miles. The 2.8 S10 I had for a year in OH that would get blown away by every 1.2 litre euro hatch every made, did about the same, the same driving style was using half the fuel in a Skoda Favorit that had less than half the displacement and way more performance, and the 1.8 Golf that came after never dropped below 21/us gall dispite being thraped. The S10 would have run out of steam before the Golf got into 4th gear. The fuel consumption of the 350 Superduty Powerstokes was frightening, even at 1$/gallon! Most taxi drivers here have 2litre diesels and get 40/imp gallon around town and the traffic in the area is nasty.

This is particularly impressive when one considers that though US miles are the same as ours, US Gallons are a good bit smaller.

(As are US Pints. US chaps visiting the UK for the first time and unaware of this can find "Going out for a couple of pints" something of an education, especially since "A couple of pints" useually means rather more than just two!! )

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

It has little to do with pollution, congestion or consumption, and everything to do with envy-politics.
They chose the 4X4 drivers with big engines, because they thought everyone hated them. Then everyone found-out that even a small-engined Ford saloon would be clobbered. It takes us time to understand these things, some never do, others do not want to and the professional socio-political-agitators do not want anyone to understand anyway. The basic chord running through, and binding it all together, is money. They want it, we've got it, and they have to find ways of getting it from us without putting-up income taxes. So, they tax everything OTHER than income.
The other theme running through society is that we have to be "protected", usually from terrorists, but mainly from ourselves.
We have to give up our rights, so that we can protect our freedom (yes, a circular argument)
The other freedom we do not want to give up, is our freedom to travel. So, we get taxed on our trips (car and plane) to "protect" us from our self-imposed greenhouse gases (etc) (the fact that planes and cars emit the least (ob) noxious greenhouse gas is rather tartly kept from us)
No, I'm rather afraid that our political masters (prompted by the army of enviro-professionals) see us as a load of dumb idiots. With more than a hint of truth.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing