Joint Campaign "New Ways to Drive”
rotecting the environment: top-priority objective of the automotive industry
Environmental protection is one of the customers’ demands, just as it is one of the development goals of the automotive design engineers. Environmental competence at all stages along the value-creation chain makes a crucial contribution to the future viability of the automotive industry.
What the automotive industry is doing to protect the environment:
The German automotive industry plays a leading role in the development and market penetration of low-emissions technologies for engines and exhaust treatment, in exploiting the potentials of energy-saving technologies and in the development of alternative powertrains and alternative fuels, and it will continue to expand this role.
Research and development
The automotive industry is constantly increasing its spending on research and development. During the last ten years it has spent approximately EUR 200 billion in this area; a large proportion of this has gone on the area of "the environment.” In the year 2007 the automotive industry spent over EUR 18 billion, which means it alone accounted for more than one third of all expenditure on R&D by German industry, which is the largest proportion of any industrial sector.
Reducing vehicles’ fuel consumption
In 1995 the German Association of the Automotive Industry made a pledge to the Federal Government that by 2005 the carmakers in the VDA would bring down the average standard fuel consumption of the passenger cars/station wagons they sold in Germany by one quarter as compared to 1990. This pledge has been fulfilled all down the line. The final result could have been even more impressive if countervailing effects had not hampered the engineers’ work on reductions. For example, numerous legal and quasi-legal requirements have increased average vehicle weights, pushing up fuel consumption for purely physical reasons. The causes included more stringent regulations on external noise, more rigorous crash test requirements, and the new, ambitious Euro 3 and Euro 4 air pollution control standards. In all of these cases, and the introduction of diesel particulate filters, the engineers had to compromise on fuel consumption.
Although more and more effort is required to reduce fuel consumption, and the potentials become ever smaller, they have not yet been exhausted by any means. Modern vehicle engines are more economical then their predecessors at the beginning of the 1990s – the difference is more than two litres per 100 kilometres travelled. Over the same period, the mileage per litre of fuel has improved by around 60 per cent. And these successes can be experienced on the road. In 1978 a motorist could have driven roughly nine kilometres on one litre of fuel, whereas today a German car can travel more than 15 kilometres on the same amount of fuel, i.e. around two thirds more.
Despite the continually increasing volume of traffic, encouraged by borders opening in Europe, the turning point in CO2 output from road traffic was reached in 1999. According to data from the National Inventory Report compiled by the German Federal Environmental Agency (FEA), from 1999 to 2007 CO2 emissions fell by over 31 million tonnes. In the year 2007, CO2 emissions from road traffic actually undercut the 1990 level by over 6 million tonnes. This trend will continue. This is a "unique selling point” of German road traffic among the EU-15, as no other Western European country has been able to bring down its traffic emissions to below the levels of 1990.
And the efforts in this area are continuing. In fact the OEMs and suppliers have moved up a gear. In 2007 the average CO2 value of passenger cars newly registered in Germany decreased by another 1.7 per cent. And the German manufacturers managed to achieve a much larger reduction (2 per cent) than the importers (1.3 per cent). In the vehicle segments with the largest volumes (compact class, medium segment and upper medium segment), which account for nearly half of all new registrations, the emissions value of the German makers is actually below the average values.
This trend continued in the year 2008. CO2 emissions from German-branded passenger cars newly registered in Germany fell last year by a total of 2.9 per cent. The German manufacturers achieved a reduction of 3.1 per cent, well in excess of the average. Furthermore, in the first quarter of 2009 the environmental bonus was having measurable climate protection effects: the year-on-year reduction in CO2 output came to a record 5.9 per cent. The average CO2 value of all passenger cars registered in Germany was 154.9 g CO2/km – which was well below the value of 160 g CO2/km.
The most economical vehicles are offered by German automotive manufacturers. They consume only 3.3 litres to travel 100 kilometres and therefore emit only 88 grams of CO2 per kilometre. Another 381 models with German badges consume less than 6.0 litres over 100 kilometres. Today such economical vehicles make up 50 per cent of all newly registered vehicles, which is five times more than even just five years ago. A good 90 models actually undercut the 5-litre mark. This group contains not only small cars, but also vehicles in the medium segment. And the luxury segment has achieved disproportionately large reductions in fuel consumption.
Developing and producing synthetic oils
The development and use of synthetic oils and low rolling resistance tyres have contributed to the documented successes in reducing standard fuel consumption, and will support the achievement of the targets pledged in the year 2005.
"Synthetic oils” is a term applied to oils with reduced friction. The reduction actually achieved depends on a number of factors, such as the construction of the drivetrain. It can amount to up to 2.5 per cent in the statutory driving cycle and is one of the improvements in the standard fuel consumption measured in this driving cycle.
Synthetic oils have been used increasingly by German automakers since about 1980 and today they are found in over 98 per cent of vehicles. Intensive work continues in the remaining niches to push up the level of use even more. And for vehicles already on the roads, manufacturers will provide even more information about the use of synthetic oils and conduct promotional activities to encourage their use when vehicles have an oil-change.
