Being Green - 7 July 2017
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WILL TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING SAVE THE PLANET?
Things are happening fast in technology and development, or are they?
The Swedish-Chinese owned motor manufacturer Volvo created quite a stir this week by announcing the end of the internal combustion engine as we know it.
From 2019 Volvo will be turning out cars and trucks that are not ICE based. They will be all-electric, no other mode of propulsion; or hybrid, that is with a small petrol motor to recharge the battery. So that’s not quite the end of the car engine we all know and rely on, is it? Diesel though will be on the decline, in developed countries, including China. Diesel, once hailed as the solution, turns out to be bad for health because the NOx or nasty nitrous compounds in the emissions that get into the air. So more stringent emission control is needed, and that adds to the cost of the vehicle. The Volkswagen exhaust pollution-fraud debacle didn’t help either. So this is the beginning of the end for the I C E? Maybe.
Things are happening fast in technology and development, or are they?
The Swedish-Chinese owned motor manufacturer Volvo created quite a stir this week by announcing the end of the internal combustion engine as we know it.
From 2019 Volvo will be turning out cars and trucks that are not ICE based. They will be all-electric, no other mode of propulsion; or hybrid, that is with a small petrol motor to recharge the battery. So that’s not quite the end of the car engine we all know and rely on, is it? Diesel though will be on the decline, in developed countries, including China. Diesel, once hailed as the solution, turns out to be bad for health because the NOx or nasty nitrous compounds in the emissions that get into the air. So more stringent emission control is needed, and that adds to the cost of the vehicle. The Volkswagen exhaust pollution-fraud debacle didn’t help either. So this is the beginning of the end for the I C E? Maybe.
