Increasing the number of cars that burn compressed natural gas would provide automakers the quickest and most effective way to obtain a significant reduction in CO2 emissions.
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“Due to its molecular structure, burning CNG emits 25% less CO2 than gasoline,” Rinaldo Rinolfi, executive vice president, director of engines division at the Fiat Research Centre, told the Automotive News Europe Congress in Barcelona.
Automakers face a 2008 European Union deadline to reduce average fleet emissions of CO2 to 140 grams per kilometre. Last year the average was 163 g/km.
Rinolfi, considered by many the father of the common-rail diesel, said that by adding electronic valve timing and a small-sized turbocharger to CNG engines, one could reduce CO2 emissions an additional 25%.
Rinolfi’s is less enthusiastic about hybrid powertrains. “Hybrids are a baroque technology,” he said, because they require the automaker to add heavy batteries to power one or more electric motors that moves the wheels.
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By GlobalDataWhen it comes to fuel cells, Rinolfi thinks it will take years before automakers can fulfil their promises. In 1996, Mercedes-Benz promised 100,000 sales of the fuel cell A class by 2004, but a year after the deadline has passed “they are still at a single-digit total.”
