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.
When 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.”
