The end of an era15 July 2008As I think you’ve all guessed I am a card-carrying petrolhead. It doesn’t make me a bad person you know – in fact quite the opposite. I think it gives me a balanced view: I like performance cars but I also am passionate about progress and efficiency.

However, we are seeing the end of the great performance cars. I don’t think we’ll see any more 500 bhp super saloons – 2 litres will become the new 4 litres. Next season’s black will be regenerative braking and hybrid drives. Prohibition is definitely coming, so if you want one last blast, hurry on down. Superchargers are sooo last season, darling!

Down at the other end of the scale, the tendency is now towards petrol engines of as little as 1.1 litres to pull along a Golf or a Focus. How do they do this? With a combination of direct injection plus a turbocharger, they can give the kind of power (around 100 bhp) your previously needed a 1.6 or 1.8 to generate. They can be as fuel-efficient as a diesel, and a lot cheaper for the manufacturer to build.

By the way, you may recall my previous comments on a lighter, more efficient Porsche 911. The new 997 Mk2 is a step in the right direction and does the company credit. More please !

Porsche and the Mayor23 April 2008What a tale!  Ken puts the congestion charge up for ‘gas guzzlers’ (I hate that expression) and Porsche fights back. The judicial review will soon be upon us. Greens battle it out with petrolheads. Pistons at dawn!

I’m torn on this issue. I think the days of the car with poor economy are numbered. Even without the global warming issue, finite resources of fossil fuels must be better conserved. Porsche must know this too. They have a reputation built on innovation and making sports cars that people can actually use. Ferry Porsche himself thought that making the best use of natural resources was of vital importance.

On the other hand I don’t much relish the idea of being told what to drive. I’ll be happy to see the end of the Chelsea Tractor – on purely personal grounds. But I would hate to see the end of automotive exotica. This could be where pay-as-you-pollute comes in.

You see, Porsche sports cars are actually quite efficient compared with almost everything else of a similar performance. Driven conservatively, I think it would be possible to get a basic 911 to meet the congestion charge threshold on CO2.

I also think that Porsche could change their focus.  How much faster do they need to be?  I’d love to see a Porsche weighing about 1200 kg with about 300 bhp from a 2.8 litre engine. Fast yes, but also light, smart and economical.

Of course, you’d need a piece of kit to monitor and record the results. Hmmm, now I wonder where you’d get one of those?

Down in Telematics Valley15 March 2008Telematics Valley is the quaint name for a cluster of businesses in the Gothenburg region of Sweden who are involved in the telematics industry – the analogy is of course Silicon Valley, Fen (Cambridge) or Glen (Scotland). You can see more at www.telematicsvalley.org

Membership encompasses a variety of hardware, software and service providers involved in telematics technologies but also the mighty Scania and the even mightier Volvo, Europe’s second biggest commercial vehicle maker, now independent from the car maker, and owner also of France’s Renault Trucks, the USA’s Mack Trucks and Nissan Diesel.

We have made four or five visits to Gothenburg over the last year, to meet members, share knowledge and look for customers and partners. We found Sweden very receptive to our proposition. Truck drivers in Sweden for example have to go on a compulsory 2-week training course in how to drive economically and safely.

Lysanda has become the first British member of the cluster and we have appointed an agent, Chris Weber, to look after our growing Scandinavian interests. He can be reached at christoffer_weber@hotmail.com

Out and about on the conference circuit22 November 2007Lysanda's Commercial Director, Simon loves getting out and about, meeting all kinds of people and promoting Lysanda. His motto is "Network or Die".

On October 10 I joined Simon at the Institute of Engineering & Technology at Savoy Place in London. We delivered one of our 'technology for the masses' sermons - the audience seemed to enjoy what we were saying, lots of good questions, lashings of delicious canapés.

October 31 found Simon in Amsterdam, addressing the Telematics Update conference - telematics being the process of tracking vehicles and drivers via GPS and GPRS data comms. He presented a paper and then participated in a panel discussion on telematics and the environment, and the role our technology has for better fleet management. He pointed ahead to the scary prospect that our Eco-Log could enable governments to tax road users in direct proportion to their emissions - true "pay-as-you-pollute". This might not make us popular, but it would make us a lot of money.

Thomas Hallauer, the event organiser, has since written: "A special thank you to Simon as you were particularly active during the event and brought a lot of value to it by asking the right questions and doing a fab presentation". Thank you, Thomas.

The subject of Environmental Management cropped up at a further Telematics conference in London on November 8, where our sales colleague Conor Molloy was on the speakers' platform. People like TomTom came forward to express their interest in what we are doing.

And now it's off to Sweden on November 27 for a conference run by Telematics Valley, a Gothenburg-based cluster. I'll report back next time.

A very particular matter15 October 2007 Another little gem at the Gothenburg symposium reported on last week was exhaust after-treatment systems, especially the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). This is the trap that is found downstream from the catalyst in most Euro 4 diesels to catch particulates bigger than, say 10 microns. In order to make the thing burn off the particulates it accumulates, you have to put in some heat. This is usually done by adding more fuel than is needed into the combustion chamber for about a minute or so while altering the turbo and EGR settings. This creates a little bonfire in the filter and the nasty little particulates are turned to CO2 and ash (the ash remains in the DPF for ever!). However, what about the fuel required to regenerate the DPF?

You see, at Lysanda we are really interested in this sort of thing because DPF regeneration is one of the engineering challenges we have faced and overcome in the course of our work. We’ve learned some interesting things about DPFs: for instance we’ve found that regeneration during the standard EU drive cycle increases fuel consumption (and therefore CO2 output) by 3% or more. OK, the DPF is only going to need regenerating every 8 hours or so, but there is a price to be paid for lower particulates.

Just don’t get me started on SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction), supposedly the silver bullet for that even more odious output: NOx.

The problem with drive cycles28 September 2007 A couple of us recently attended a heavy duty diesel emissions symposium in Gothenburg, organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers. I am not sure which was the heaviest: the diesels, the emissions or the symposium.

But despite the obvious calibre of the presenters and the learned minds in the audience, I was still left wondering who is in charge of all this destiny? I mean, the politicians from Brussels consult with industry to set the targets for emissions and the manufacturers moan that it’s going to cost a fortune and then the engineers set to work trying to solve the problems and if they can’t do that they try to work around the rules. But who is actually steering the ship?

We had a couple of hours chat with some boys from Brussels (the bigwigs sent their boys rather than turning up themselves). It was all off-the-shelf stuff. Yes we all know that Euro 5 is going to make Euro 4 look like a walk in the park and that Euro 6 will be nearly impossible to achieve and that there probably won’t be a Euro 7 because to go any further than Euro 6 requires a truck to run on tears from angels and baby seals.

While there was some mention of a “World Harmonized Drive Cycle” that might get agreed in the next few years, no one said a word about the problems with all drive cycles and their relevance, or lack it, to emissions in the real world, i.e. out there on the road. Our Department of Transport is well aware that the real emissions of road vehicles are significantly higher than the figures published in the advertisements, and used as the basis for road tax bands. Even as we speak, the men from the ministry and their EU counterparts, are working on methods of checking a vehicle’s “in-service compliance”, i.e. how much more than the stated levels does it typically emit?

You have been warned.