This is amazing. I wish more car companies had this focus. I would bet all in, it’s more green than other cars. Emission standards tend to be poorly thought out.
I doubt it. Modern cars are very efficient in burning fuel, and this kind of old-fashioned engine, while necessary for infrastructure-poor areas, is going to have comparatively poor mileage and tailpipe emissions.
Considered -all in- - if you count the emissions required to keep a modern car operational (which includes accounting for much of society itself, I'd guess) this may be lower.
But that gets obscured because we already HAVE the high-emissions society with all the parts and pieces and knowhow.
After all, a vehicle that fails in the middle of nowhere may never be towed back and fixed unless it's like this one - fixable with very little.
I agree. One has to ask: what is worse for the environment, a car that pollutes more but lasts 400k miles or a car that pollutes less but only lasts 200k. The cost and environmental affects of manufacturing aren't zero.
It also varies based on what you have for recycling and other things, too - if we're talking the only vehicle in an entire town that is otherwise from the 1800s, the long-running simple one will almost certainly win.
But in Los Angeles? That's an entire different issue, especially as there will be so many that economies of scale come into play.
I’d just chime in that emissions controls are about particulates NOx, SOx and other pollutants, but not CO2. Combustion of a gallon of diesel will create the same volume of CO2. That’s not to say that those other pollutants aren’t important, they’re damaging to human health, but when I hear “green” I think CO2.
The emissions weren't the issue; they just kept replacing the engine with newer ones - the Ford one they were using at the end had a Euro VI version so they could have kept using that.
The issues were more around safety (both passenger and pedestrian) and not being able to sell it in many countries because it can't have an airbag fitted (I think there was an ergonomics reason it wasn't possible).
Emission and mileage are not correlated positively. Healthy exhaust comes at a cost. An engine purely optimized for efficieny would be more efficient than those that comply with emission regulations.
But in practice, of course the old ones are worse at efficieny, too.
The important thing is also that you do not have to breath the fumes in the city. This applies well to EVs -- they might more polluting (all in) in the first years then ICEs, but the pollution does not happen where you live.
