The not-so-green truth about current car CO2 legislation

What is the world’s greenest car?

You could be forgiven for thinking that would be a simple enough question to answer; that there should be a list somewhere. After all, what comes out of the tailpipe is used as a basis for legislation.

Much more important, however, and ignored by legislation, are the cradle-to-grave CO2 emissions generated during a car’s lifetime.

LPG car fuel: could the diesel crisis give it an opportunity for a comeback?

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed by most manufacturers, scientific bodies and engineering consultants such as Ricardo. The results can be revealing and sometimes contradict the simplistic yardstick of tailpipe emissions used today.

Ricardo breaks LCA into four main blocks: creation…