EU Ratifies New CO2 Targets
The European Union Parliament approved new CO2 targets for the year 2020, mandating an average of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer, or roughly as much as a Toyota Prius emits. Current standards sit at 130 grams per kilometer. Just-Auto reports that within a few months, discussions will kick off regarding a post-2020 target.
So what does this mean for enthusiasts? Well, expect more of the things that so many of us complain about. Automotive designs will have to work within narrow parameters to meet both design and safety regulations, so expect further homogeneity on that front. Under the skin, we’ll see more turbocharged engines (and fewer naturally aspirated ones), with smaller displacements and cylinder counts, as well as the increasing proliferation of hybrid systems in various forms.
More by Derek Kreindler
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The EU is a dying economic system. GDP 2013 is forecast at -0.4 percent. Global Warming is a part of their terminal illness. Germany shut 5 nuclear reactors to install wind power from the North Sea. At national and household consumer budget busting costs. Their partial remedy was construction of three lignite burning power plants. Massive CO2 emissions. It may rain mainly in the plains of Spain but their economic rain is also fueled by PV in various forms. It has been recommended that USA do the same. After all, GW is the greatest threat to civilization. Period.
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It looks like the Brussels bureaucrats will kill off the European car biz. All they'll be building are 4-wheel scooters, so the best thing for American manufacturers to do is write off the European market entirely and seek sales elsewhere. Those places that have adopted Euro standards will wise up eventually.
You can "win" the argument by Ruggling if you want, but hydrocarbons are going to continue to be consumed as fast as they can be found and pulled out of the ground. That is because people do not want to be poor, hungry, sick and cold. Ultimately, you are pissing into the wind. Most people, correctly, don't believe your chicken little cries anymore, and in 20 or 30 years you will all pretend you never believed it yourself. Nothing can stop the burning of every reasonably available hydrocarbon fuel on the planet. Ruggles yourselves to death.