Volkswagen Up. VW says EU rules will add $3,962 to the price by 2030. That old proverb comes to mind when you look at the pickle the European Union is cooking up for the automotive industry as it gathers in Geneva, with its aggressive commands to slash fuel consumption.
Meanwhile, sales of diesel-powered cars are wilting as politicians declare city centres diesel-free zones on health grounds, after saying for years that people should buy diesels because they were more efficient, and kinder to the environment. Diesels had been the key to auto manufacturers grappling with ever-tightening fuel consumption rules. Not anymore.
Gautam Kalghatgi, visiting professor in engineering science at Oxford University, said the demonization of diesel could lead to industrial havoc because alternative technologies like battery power are not ready to step into the breach.It is a cruel deception to say that a quick transition to new energy systems is going to be painless,”“Coercive measures will be needed to discourage people from using energy, which will be largely fossil-fuel based for decades to come.
“The industry has a problem here because the drift out of small and medium cars and into larger ‘lifestyle’ SUVs, along with the switch out of diesel, means that future CO2 emissions reduction targets will become even harder to reach. “The global automotive market still requires small cars in the future as individual traffic will increase in major cities because of autonomous driving. Those small cars will be shared 24/7 as robo-taxis and being an important factor of new business models for future mobility,” Fuss said.
. get with it. It's CO2 that 'clouds' (i.e., threatens) the auto industry's as well as all our futures.