Newsletter

The most complex suicide note in history?

The most complex suicide note in history?

The 1983 UK General Election saw the Labour Party manifesto dubbed the longest suicide note in history.  The current policy for decarbonising transport in the UK and Europe may be the most complex one.  For the policy to work, it is necessary simultaneously to switch the grid to green sources and fundamentally change the relationship between consumers and their cars, in order to balance that new grid.  Both are a major challenge, and if either fails, the whole policy fails.  If it does go off plan, we may well end up with undesirable cars being powered by a dirty grid, and an unresolved climate change problem.  Are industry and government locked in a suicide pact?

Why you should be interested in tyres

Why you should be interested in tyres

A surprisingly compelling subject
Dinner table, or social media, conversation may centre on arguments over which football team deserves to win the league, or whether the Mustang or Camaro is better, but the common feature of such polemics is that they represent simple and interesting questions. The topic of tyres, however, and if you dare raise it, may stun your companions into silence. Tyres are not simple and interesting. They are complex and boring – at least on the outside.

FUD off

FUD off

Fear, uncertainty and doubt in an age of decarbonisation
Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.  This rhetorical triptych is increasingly used as an insult to describe interventions from anyone who deviates from the current environmental orthodoxy.  When French philosopher René Descartes sat down in the seventeenth century Netherlands to write his Discourse on Method, he also faced FUD.  

Don't try this at home!

Don't try this at home!

Increasingly simplistic calls to #Stopburningstuff and #Stickyourselftothings have recently been accompanied by another call: that anyone who challenges the virtues of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) should shut themselves in their garage alongside their idling internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle for an hour, to see whether they emerge to tell the tale.

What matters is not the promise of electric vehicles but the actuality

What matters is not the promise of electric vehicles but the actuality

Friday 18 September 2015 saw Dieselgate break.  This was the culmination of a growing dissonance between real-world nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and official values for cars and vans.  The rupture was created by governments picking a technology, for the purposes of decarbonisation, where too much was taken on trust within a fragile governance system.

Champagne Supernova?

Champagne Supernova?

When an exploding star led to the observation of supernova SN 2003fg in 2003, it was nicknamed the ‘Champagne Supernova’ due to its unusual brightness, and its inexplicably great mass.  Many supernovae eventually succumb to their own weight, leaving behind a black hole.  Are we at this stage with battery electric vehicles (BEVs)?  

How tyre emissions hide in plain sight

How tyre emissions hide in plain sight

Emissions testing is usually preoccupied by testing for known, worrisome chemicals in the environment. Often they are in small amounts or concentrated at hotspots.  Sophisticated equipment is deployed to find and measure them.  We obsess with ever-tighter regulation of these pollutants we know about, even well beyond the point of diminishing environmental returns.

Deft landing, captain

Deft landing, captain

Euro 7 has finally arrived - As the saying goes, a ‘good’ landing is one from which you can walk away, but a ‘great’ landing is one after which they can use the plane again. Euro 7 has not just landed safely, but the craft that is the European system of emissions regulation remains viable. It required a deft touch. The industry says it is too tough and environmental campaigners say it is too weak in equal measure, which perhaps reflects the achievement.

Following the tyre tracks… Where do tyre emissions go?

Following the tyre tracks… Where do tyre emissions go?

We know, from earlier research, that tyres emit lots of particles, both coarser and the more potentially dangerous ultrafines. To put this in context, the levels are less than from exhausts of many older diesel vehicles without filters, but orders of magnitude greater than from the exhausts of modern internal combustion engine vehicles with the latest filters. But, where do these particles go, and can they be found in the environment?

The light duty vehicle to nowhere

The light duty vehicle to nowhere

The evidence clearly points to using full hybrid electric vehicles (FHEVs) as the best route to rapid, low-risk decarbonisation of cars and vans for the next decade. FHEVs cannot deliver the biggest aggregate reduction in principle, but with scarce battery resources and higher manufacturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of battery electric vehicles (BEV), FHEVs can deliver more CO2 reduction now, and potentially for some time to come.