Why no more lean burn??

[BLSTIC]

I know in australia it used to be parts per million, but now with the 'euro' titled regulations it is parts per km. But that's only for factory cars.

Anything that tests your personal car will only be able to check parts per million, so that's what they use. Testing overall fuel consumption and emissions in an annual check would be... Difficult

[steveo539]

True, it would be difficult to measure a driver's personal fuel consumption. It would not be difficult to come up with a formula that estimates particles per mile using PPM out the pipe data in conjunction with government accepted fuel economy numbers for that particular make & model of car.

Say to pass inspection you must be at or below 20PPM (random number). It doesn't seem fair that if car A puts out 20PPM pollutants and consumes a gallon of fuel per 10 miles passes inspection, while car B that puts out 25PPM but only consumes one gallon for 60 miles fails inspection. Car B is still belching out far less pollutants for any given trip.

Seems like there should be an adjustment there, but that would be logical....and we are talking about government agencies......what was I thinking!

[Superfuelgero]

Originally Posted by steveo539

True, it would be difficult to measure a driver's personal fuel consumption. It would not be difficult to come up with a formula that estimates particles per mile using PPM out the pipe data in conjunction with government accepted fuel economy numbers for that particular make & model of car.

Say to pass inspection you must be at or below 20PPM (random number). It doesn't seem fair that if car A puts out 20PPM pollutants and consumes a gallon of fuel per 10 miles passes inspection, while car B that puts out 25PPM but only consumes one gallon for 60 miles fails inspection. Car B is still belching out far less pollutants for any given trip.

Seems like there should be an adjustment there, but that would be logical....and we are talking about government agencies......what was I thinking!

How about PPM meaning Particles Per Minute instead of million? More air (displacement), more particles.

[minispeed]

The test in Ontario use to be on a dyno, it would have been very easy to just calculate the distance travelled on that dyno to switch from PPM to a NOx/CO2 per km like rating. I think they moved away from the dyno to a stationary test though.

[Hersbird]

I often wonder how efficient and inexpensive cars could be if you removed ALL regulations and just built what a consumer wanted. Emissions may matter in the LA valley with millions of cars in what amounts to an enclosed space but the lonely cars traveling the interstates of Montana would better serve the planet by using as little fuel as possible. That and heavy, complicated, expensive safety features should be a personal choice like wearing a helmet. Strip all that, delete all emissions that don't add to efficiency, and lean those cars out. I bet they could make under $10,000 cars that get over 50 mpg.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

I often wonder how efficient and inexpensive cars could be...

You'd have a few mini-micro cars that can barely get out of their own way and get 150+ MPG.

You'd have a whole lot of large cars that go fast but can't survive contact with a sparrow.

You'd have an immense number of SUV-like things that look like bank vaults and get approximately the same fuel economy as bank vaults.

You'd have a bunch of very fast cars that don't weigh a whole lot and are modestly efficient, but can't even survive contact with the second car in my list above.


.... You'd probably have very few of the type of cars that we would like. A lot more of the type of cars that most of us dislike. And you'd get lots of air pollution, to boot!

-soD

[BLSTIC]

You would also run into the problem of certain cars getting banned from congested places simply because of the emissions. But still, I think you could affect a lot. I mean the kind of car I wanted I simply can't buy in Australia because our laws classify it as a 4-wheel motorbike (Renault Twizo or something, can't remember the proper name) and is hence illegal for road use. But electric, single seat, 80km range and 80km top speed is ideal for my commute of some 3km, shopping, etc. I mean I've always had two cars so 'range/performance/no doors anxiety isn't an issue when my second car can be a rarely used sports car...

[Hersbird]

I had the pleasure of a couple visits to Australia in the late 1990s. The Early Ford Owners Club of Tasmania too us on a tour of their island and the topic of the strict laws came up. I was surprised at how difficult the import process was with the manadory right hand drive conversion. You would think on a old collector car exceptions could be made, I mean its sort of like changing a price of art in some cases. Even in the US I constantly see things available around the world i would like but not available here. At least we can still home build and operate pretty much anything on most roads.
Can you get the three wheel can-am spiders there?

[BLSTIC]

Yeah those are available. There's some technical thing that defines a 4-wheeled motorbike as a farm implement that is unsuitable for highway use, whatever the construction... It's not a very useful law and it cost renault the ability to import these cars into Australia, and me the ability to put my money where my mouth is and buy one...

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by BLSTIC

There's some technical thing that defines a 4-wheeled motorbike as a farm implement that is unsuitable for highway use, whatever the construction...

In my country they were considered an agricultural machinery, then less import duties were charged, but when the ATVs started to be more widely used as a recreational vehicle they started to be taxed more heavily. BTW I have seen very few ones legally-registered for on-road traffic in Brazil, but they`re kinda popular in Uruguay...