Emissions, performance, and design of UK passenger vehicles

Consumer, legal, and technological factors influence the design, performance, and emissions of light-duty vehicles (LDVs). This work examines how design choices made by manufacturers for the UK market result in emissions and performance of vehicles throughout the past decade (2001–2011). LDV fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions, and performance are compared across different combinations of air and fuel delivery system using vehicle performance metrics of power density and time to accelerate from rest to 100 km/h (62 mph, t_z-62). Increased adoption of direct injection and turbocharging technologies helped reduce spark ignition (SI, gasoline vehicles) and compression ignition (CI, diesel vehicles) fuel consumption by 22% and 19%, respectively, over the decade. These improvements were largely achieved by increasing compression ratios in SI vehicles (3.6%), turbocharging CI vehicles, and engine downsizing by 5.7–6.5% across all technologies. Simultaneously, vehicle performance improved, through increased engine power density resulting in greater acceleration. Across the decade, t_z-62 fell 9.4% and engine power density increased 17% for SI vehicles. For CI vehicles, t_z-62 fell 18% while engine power density rose 28%. Greater fuel consumption reductions could have been achieved if vehicle acceleration was maintained at 2001 levels, applying drive train improvements to improved fuel economy and reduced CO₂ emissions. Fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions declined at faster rates once the European emissions standards were introduced with SI CO₂ emissions improving by 3.4 g/km/year for 2001–2007 to 7.8 g/km/year thereafter. Similarly, CI LDVs declined by 2.0 g/km/year for 2001–2007 and 6.1 g/km/year after.