I think we have two issues with diesel cars.

The first is fine carbon particles. Diesels do contribute to this problem but they are not the only source of carbon particles. Tyres also contribute quite a lot as do oil heating systems, fuel fires of various types, and so on. In times when there is not much rain simply washing the streets with water wagons would help but that is probably considered too expensive. What can be done is to insist that all vehicles that enter the greater metropolitan areas be equipped with particle filters. (a particle filter led economic recovery smile )

It seems that carbon particles are generated by locally rich pockets of fuel droplets. Without a doubt car manufacturers and fuel makers are well aware of this problem. With my old car, which did not have a particle filter, I returned to the dealer very quickly to complain about the clouds of black smoke that appeared under hard acceleration. I discovered that the Q8 Hi Perform Diesel (also called Hi Q) hardly produced any smoke at all, even under the hardest acceleration. OK it cost more but it shows that it can be done. Very simply a similar approach to the introduction of lead free is required here.

The second problem is NOx. Certainly that is more difficult to resolve. Here we have conflicting requirements. Lean burn technology produces more NOx. Diesels are all lean burn engines. To retrofit AdBlue to vehicles not equipped to use it is probably impossible.

At the end of the day the government, of all metropolises, needs to work to provide adequate public transport. Look at Tokyo for a good example. Virtually no private cars enter the city area during peak periods. Public transport is sufficient for the number of passengers (pushing passengers into carriages is a thing of the past), clean, efficient, and on time.

Peter

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