TL: SmILE (Small, Intelligent, Light, Efficient) - Questions and Answers SO: Greenpeace International (GP) DT: August 13, 1996 Keywords: environment energy cars europe / I. The automobile and the climate What influence does car traffic have on the climate? The carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from the exhaust pipes of cars is one of the main causative factors of global warming. Together with the other global warming gases, its presence in the atmosphere prevents heat being radiated back into space. The heat collects as in a large greenhouse. Droughts, tornadoes and extreme flooding are the fatal consequences of this artificial global warming, also known as climate change. More than 50 per cent of this effect is caused by carbon dioxide. If one compares the sources which give rise to carbon dioxide, then traffic world-wide - together with power stations - is the number one destroyer of our climate. Road traffic has by far the largest share of overall traffic (in the industrial countries 80 percent). An estimated 500 million cars world-wide emit four billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is around 20 per cent of the total quantity caused by humans. If road construction, car manufacturing and refineries are also included, the share of road traffic in CO2 emissions rises to almost one third. How rapidly is the car fleet growing? Among all the causes of global warming, car traffic has by far the highest growth rates: the car fleet is growing currently twice as fast as the world population. According to a trend analysis of the Umwelt- und Prognoseinstitut (UPI) in Heidelberg, the number of cars world-wide will rise from the current 500 million to 2.3 billion by the year 2030, 4.5 times as many as today, mainly due to rapid growth rates in Asia. In the same period, cars will indeed consume on average increasingly less petrol. Yet even under this assumption, the world-wide petrol consumption will double by 2030 to 1.3 billion tons. Up to then the traffic-induced carbon dioxide emissions will double correspondingly to 7.5 billion tons. How much oil does car traffic consume? Oil consumption has doubled in the USA and quadrupled inEurope since 1960. Traffic in the meantime swallows up 60 percent of the mineral oil world-wide. Thus the largest part of the direct oil contamination of the seas by oil leaks and tanker accidents is attributable to road traffic. In Germany, the fuel consumption has been reaching new record levels year by year. Currently it is more than 60 billion litres (internal combustion engine plus diesel fuel). II. The first step: Halving petrol consumptionWhy has Greenpeace had a car rebuilt? Apart from declarations of intent such as that of the German Government to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 25 percent by 2005, no real measures to drastically reduce the energy consumption of the industrial countries have been evident so far. The traffic sector is the biggest problem child of climate policy because of the forecast growth rates. We can wait no longer to achieve the reduction targets for carbon dioxide considered to be necessary by, among others, the IPCC, the UN panel of climate experts (60-80 percent reduction by 2050). Immediate measures are necessary.Greenpeace has had a Renault Twingo redesigned so that the car consumes only half as much petrol as the original. In tests performed by the official Swissmaterial testing institute the consumption ranged between 3.26 liters/100 km and 3.75 liters/100 km. Thisyields, in comparision to the orginal Twingo, a 44 to 51 per cent reduction in fuel consumption. In this way Greenpeace can demonstrate that even today, it is possible solely by technical improvements to drastically reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of car traffic. Halving the petrol consumption is a feasible and necessary first stop for all cars. How much carbon dioxide is saved by SmILE? Since in Germany around ten percent of all cars are replaced annually by new vehicles, an annual reduction of the CO2 emissions of the car fleet by fivepercent would be the result if all new vehicles had the SmILE standard.Nevertheless, saving fuel alone is not enough. Improvements in efficiency will not stop the forecast growth of the car fleet. Political measures which help to prevent traffic (car-free inner cities etc.) and to make environmentally more acceptable means of transport(public transport, railways etc) attractive, are necessary for this. What has Greenpeace spent on the SmILE car? The Swiss engine development company Wenko AG has received a loan for 2.5 million DM (2 million Sfr) from Greenpeace which will be paid back if and as soon as the engine goes into production (under licence) or profits are achieved from the sale of production licences. Does Greenpeace now find cars to be good? Are low-consumption cars the solution for Greenpeace? The Twingo SmILE is nothing else than the proof that thepetrol consumption of the individual car can be reduced by nearly one half by applying contemporarytechnology. However, this fact does not make the product "car" clean, healthy and environmentally benign. But drastic petrol savings in cars are indeed a firstnecessary step without which the necessary reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is not achievable. In the Study Commission on "Protection of the Earth's Atmosphere" of the German Federal Parliament, it was determined that technical measures for reducing petrol consumption will have by far the greatest effect in the coming years to reduce traffic-induced carbon dioxide emissions (18-19 per cent by the year 2005). Other political measures, such as preventing traffic, shifting the modal split orchanging leisure activities were given a clearly lower rating in the short term (in each case between 2 and 10 per cent) A further factor is that individual mobility by car is today considered almost as a basic expression of freedom and leisure consciousness. This will and must change in the medium term. Alternative transport concepts are necessary and have been underdiscussion for a long time.But time is pressing. It would be irresponsible as anenvironmental organisation to declare improvements in efficiency of the car taboo. To waitespecially in this sector until the car industry and politicians wake up and take the necessary steps would be fatal. Isn't the car industry already building economy cars? The German Traffic Club (Verkehrsclub Deutschland - VCD)recently, when presenting its "car environmental list 96", stated that in 1996 there is not a single car on the market consuming on average 5 litres of petrol, not to mention one consuming less than this! Nevertheless, the car manufacturers are world champions in making announcements: In 1992, Ferdinand Piech then head of Audi, revealed that Audi "has been working on a 3-litre car since 1974". It is known that VW developed an economy car in all secrecy for the first time in 1975. The fact that drastic reductions in consumption have been under discussion for more than 20 years, but there have been no tangible results, can mean only one thing: the car industry has no interest in economicalcars. Apparently giving up the consumption dinosaurs appears less profitable for the present. "The three-litre car" that industry is talking about is a chimera: neither is such a car on the automobile market as yet, nor is conversion of all new cars to the lowest possible consumption being considered for the future. Economy cars are under discussion only as a supplement and in addition to the model range. Hasn't the car industry undertaken to do something for the climate? Achim Dieckmann, then head of the German car industryassociation, declared in October 1990 to the press that the car industry has undertaken to the GermanFederal Government "to reduce the CO2 emissions of road traffic irrespective of the further increase of the vehicle fleet by the year 2005 by at least one quarter". But obviously they had not looked at the numbers: the promise would have made an immediate and drastic reduction of the consumption of the new car fleet necessary. A downward correction was made on the quiet: The "CarConsensus Paper" presented in March 1995 by the minister presidents of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Lower Saxony together with the chairmen of the boards of VW, BMW and Porsche contains only the "promise" of the car manufacturers that by the year 2000, "passenger car models which only consume three to four litres of fuel per 100 km will also be on the market". A 25 per cent reduction in consumption by the year 2005 was now promised only for the new car fleet (and only for the new cars which are sold Germany). In other words: business as ususal - no special efforts beyond the improvements in efficiency within the scope of the normal innovation cycle. For this the industry obtained from the minister presidents the promise to promote "clear framework conditions withoutadditional burdens for the vehicle manufacturers and car drivers". The press reported "noadditional mineral oil tax increase" - a departure from one of the most important prerequisites for making petrol saving cars marketable and competitive. Can one convert only small cars or also other cars to SmILE cars? In principle, the improvements we have made are possible in all cars with petrol engines (Golf SmILE, Omega SmILE etc.), independent of the size of the car.Nevertheless, the consumption of diesel vehicles can not be simply halved, because there is onlyslight potential for reducing consumption of the diesel engine. Won't even more cars be driven if there are low-consumption cars? The conversion of the car fleet to greater consumptionefficiency is not the only necessary action needed. The price of petrol should also be at least doubled together with the halving of average petrol consumption. Only then will it be possible to prevent cars being driven even more than today. Halving the petrol consumption of all new cars must therefore be accompanied by corresponding increases in the price of petrol. Won't a car such as the Twingo SmILE become the classical second car? No, the Twingo SmILE is only an example. "One half isfeasible" applies for all cars. The SmILE concept proves that the necessary technologies and the know-how to halve the petrol consumption of all cars newly coming onto the market are available. The car industry is banking on making additional business with the environmental consciousness of many people, while the petrol guzzlers continue to be produced. Economy cars according to the SmILE conceptshould not be second cars but successively replace all cars with high consumption. Why doesn't Greenpeace rather promote electric, hydrogen or solar cars? Because action to combat dangerous changes to the world's climate must be taken now. We cannot wait until the development of more environmentally sound vehicles has matured before drastically reducing the fuel consumpiton of the existing car fleet. Currently only niche markets exist in Germany for solar or electric vehicles, unfortunately a broad change in the car market due to them is not in sight. There are various reasons for this: the prices of the vehicles are comparatively very high (two-seater DM 30,000 and more, four-seater starting from DM 40,000, the battery package may also be an additional cost). If the vehicle is to be be operated not "from the socket", but as a "real" solar mobile , then an additional investment in a photovoltaic system must be made (DM 10,000) .If the vehicles are operated "from the socket (power point)" then with the central European electric power mix, they are one third "atom-mobile" - some of their power comes from nuclear power stations. Their climate balance is also not any more favourable currently in relation to comparable "fossil fuel" cars: a four-seater electric car consumes around 20 kwh/100km in town traffic. With a carbon dioxide emission of power stations of around 700 grams CO2 per kilowatt hour, this corresponds to a petrol consumption of around 5litres/100 km. A clear improvement of the energy balance of electric vehicles presupposes a systemchange in the power supply (congeneration of power and heat instead of conventional power stations). Apart from price, their limited ranges (50 to 100 km) are currently the reason for the low acceptance of electric vehicles. Also in their practical use, solar/electric vehicles currently do not fulfil the expectations of car drivers. The lack of service stations, batteries which have to be recharged even after less than 100 km and battery charging times lasting for hours, are a few of the still existing defects which result in solar\electric vehicles currently having the image of second or third cars, which today would lead to a further increase in the vehicle numbers. A similar situation applies for the hydrogen-fuelled engine concepts: they are not practicable for the time being because of transport, storage and safety problems. Mercedes Benz itself admitted a period of 14 years up to the series production stage in the recent presentation of the "Necar II". The overall energy efficiency of the chain from hydrogen generation up to use in the vehicle is very poor with the present infrastructure and is less than half of the a petrol-driven car. Nevertheless, a fuel cell operated with regeneratively produced hydrogen would represent a very favourable future option with regard to both energy and emissions. Greenpeace hopes that advances will be achieved here quickly. Why did Greenpeace have a petrol engine built and not adiesel? There are a number of reasons why diesel is not a suitable alternative. Firstly the cancer risk. Almost two thirds of the cancer risk created by air pollutants is due to diesel engine emissions. The particles ("soot") contained in the diesel exhaust gases and thepolycyclics deposited on them penetrate deep into the lungs because of their small size. A large number of medical publications have proved the cancernogenic effect of diesel exhaust gases. The exhaust gas problem has not been solved.Even the latest diesel engines have 30-40 percent highernitrogen oxide emissions in comparison to petrol engines with catalytic converters. The planned exhaust gas limits of the European Union for the year 2000 allow the diesel 2.5 times higher emissions of ozone precursor substances in comparison to petrol engines. Concepts which could reduce exhaust gases of diesel engines to a level still below the standards applying in Europe as from the year 2000 (such as the Californian ULEV limits) currently do not exist. In addition, it is a fallacy to assume a CO2 advantage on the basis of the lower consumption of diesel vehicles compared with petrol engines. "A litre of diesel" is not "a litre of petrol". Diesel fuel is more dense than petrol and has a higher carbon content. Theconsequence: a litre of petrol produces 2.32 kg of CO2 in combustion, but a litre of diesel 2.63 kg of CO2. If one relates the additional emissions of CO2 and the lower consumption of diesel vehicles with one another, then the actual CO2 advantage of diesel tends towards zero.Diesel engines are also heavier, more expensive to manufacture and require batteries of double the strength. The arisings of used oil are also twice as high. Therefore the diesel engines are not the environmentally sound alternative of the future. Will Greenpeace sell the Twingo SmILE and thus make money with it? No. Nor will Greenpeace become a car manufacturer. It has been agreed with the Swiss company of Wenko that Greenpeace will be paid back the loan of DM 2.5 million which was spent for the design of the Twingo SmILE if the engine concept is taken over by a manufacturer for series production or profits are obtained by the issuing licenses. III. The Twingo SmILEWhy has Greenpeace converted a Renault Twingo especially? Basically any other model could have been redesigned - from the small car up to the limousine. Nevertheless, the Twingo offers a comparably favourable ratio between compact external dimensions and a spacious interior. As the most imported car in Germany, it satisfies the needs of a family with two children and can therefore be considered as a small and reasonable "all-round car" for everyone. What is the car going to cost? The Twingo SmILE and all other cars built according to the SmILE idea will not be significantly more expensive than the respective original models. The final price naturally depends in the final analysis upon mass production. However all parts of the Twingo Smile, and the necessary technology, are known and customary in the car industry. The novel and consistent combination of the consumption-reducing measures which are practically ready for seriesproduction, is the main innovation. The manufacturing costs of the engine consists of few parts and the material expense is lower. Nevertheless, supercharing costs more (independent of whether a COMPREX or turbo-supercharger is used), also the wheels and the wheel suspension are made of aluminium. The production facilities will not be more expensive, since the designs are indeed different, but require in principle no new tools and operations. What has been changed compared with the original Twingo? Twingo SmILE is lighter: The 845 kg Twingo was slimmed down by the Swiss company ESORO to the 650 kg of the Twingo SmILE - a total saving of 195 kg or 23 percent. In detail, the smaller engine, including the lighter peripherals (smaller battery, smaller radiator, lighterexhaust system) brings around 80 kg off the total weight of the car. Effectively about another 80 kg were saved on the vehicle interior and the chassis, e.g., by brake calliper and rims made of light metal matched to the lower weight. With a view towards being in series production quickly, no exotic materials (such as titanium screws or carbon gear boxes), which in any case would increase the price considerably, were used. In addition, the wheel weight was reduced by using light construction rims and special tyres and a rolling resistance value 35 percent more favourable wasachieved. Twingo SmILE has less air resistance: The body of the car was redesigned by the Swiss company BRM in co-operation with the ESORO AG so that the Twingo SmILE performs 30 percent better in the wind tunnel than the original (own measurement in the wind tunnel: cw value Twingo SmILE 0.25, cw value of the original Twingo:0.37)Twingo SmILE has a smaller and more efficient engine: The engine of the Swiss company WENKO is a supercharged two-cylinder four- stroke internal combustion engine with four-valve technology in boxarrangement. A maximum torque of 75 Nm (Newton metres) results from a swept volume of 358 cmue at 2,900 revolutions per minute.The engine is supercharged by a dynamic pressure supercharger which has the effect that it reaches its specifically most favourable and economical operatingconditions not at maximum speed, but at the lower and more frequently driven speeds. What special features does the new engine have? Does it still produce the same performance? The basic thought of the SmILE concept is that the petrol consumption of the vehicles can be clearly reduced with smaller dimensioned engines, intelligent engine technology and weight savings.Present-day cars are too heavy and also have overdimensioned engines which utilise their maximum performance only close to maximum speed or on extremegradients. However, engines achieve their most favourable specific fuel consumption only close to full load. In practise, they run in most cases at at low load and high friction losses, far from the optimum operating point. Therefore in cars available to date, a large part of the installed power remains unused and only drives the petrol consumption upwards. It is more advantageous (and applied in the Twingo SmILE) to drastically reduce the swept volume of the engine and to provide the torque required for acceleration or for the so-called "reserves" by supercharging. This supercharging is achieved by means of a dynamic pressure supercharger. Supercharging the combustion air in the cyclinder produces a rise in the performance combined with a reduction of the specific fuel consumption, so that theoperating points used most frequently are shifted into the range of the highest thermal efficiency. The engine produces at 55 bhp the same performance as the original Twingo. Does the new engine fail more quickly than the old one? No. The WENKO engine is indeed operated more frequently in the higher load range than conventional engines - this was, after all, the essential trick for reducing consumption. The fear that the engine could "blow up" early on is neverthelessunjustified. The ingenious cooling system of the engine, has avoided higher thermal stresses - and thusmaterial stresses - than those in conventional engines of the same horsepower. The mean piston velocities are in the customary range, so that no increased stresses of piston and bearing surfaces can beexpected. Due to the use of the latest technologies in materials and surface coatings, the stability of piston rings and cyclinder bearing surfaces, for instance, is guaranteed despite higher operating pressures in the supercharged engine.As a rule, the limiting factor for the life span of a car is not the engine - most cars are scrapped before the "death due to old age" of the engine. What further possibilities of optimisation are conceivable? At least a further 80 kg of weight could be saved by a more comprehensive redesign of the body with fibre composite materials and replacing the glass windows by polycarbonate. This further potential was not made use of in view of the short-term implementation of the SmILE concept. A smaller tank would also contribute to a further reduction in weight. Considerable additional potentials for reducing consumption are to be found in a more far-reaching concept which would redesign the entire vehicle structure: even smaller dimensioned engine; further weight savings; improving the aerodynamics (for instance a cw value 15 per cent better could be achieved by a rear interior of the Twingo a few per centsmaller): automatic inertia utilisation or engine switchoff systems; braking energy recovery (recuperation) etc. Does the Twingo SmILE have worse or better exhaust values? The exhaust values of the WENKO engine in the Twingo SmILE fulfill all standards applicable today, including the Euro II standard applicable from 1997. Within the fuel consumption range tested, lowest consumption 3.26 liters/100 km to 3.75 liters per 100 km , the emissions are generally lower than those of the original Twingo Easy, except for the consumptionapproaching 3.26 litres/100 km. The engine concept opens up potentials for further reductions inemissions corresponding to the future requirements of the Euro III standard or USA:ULEV standards) Are there reductions in comfort and performance? No. The interior comfort remains identical. The performance data of the WENKO engine and the improvements in weight and aerodynamics result in the same or better performance parameters, such as maximum speed, elasticity and acceleration.The correspondingly redesigned series vehicles should beequipped with a tempomat which permits a limitation of the maximum speed to 130 km/h (or freelyselectable lower speeds), which is sensible with regard to both transport policy and safety. Is the car just as safe as the old car? The original model, the Twingo from Renault, corresponds just like all other licensed mass produced cars to the current state of safety engineering. Just as the Twingo, the Twingo SmILE is also equipped with an airbag and has lateral collision protection. No safety relevant interventions were made in the subsequent design changes. Every steel member with safety or rigidity functions remains "as per Renault". The safety level of a Twingo SmILE produced inseries production will thus be comparable with that of the original car. Will Renault or another car manufacturer build the Twingo SmILE? For the owners of the Renault Twingo, it is naturally most apparent and especially annoying that their car manufacturer has sold them a car which consumes twice as much petrol as would be necessary. It is therefore conceivable that Renault would be among the first car manufacturers to adopt the SmILE concept, or at least to build the SmILE model itself. However, Greenpeace is calling upon not only Renault, but all automobile manufacters, to embrace the SmILE concept and build SmILE cars. How much aluminium, PVC and other problem substances does the Twingo SmILE contain? No harmful substances such as CFCs or PVC were introduced into the original Twingo in the course of the conversion. Nevertheless, to reduce the weight of the Twingo, the original material in the front and rear axle, wheel suspension and seat structure was replaced by aluminium. In 1995, the average passenger car in Europe contained 6% of aluminium (65 kg), with a rising trend. The use of aluminium is not unproblematic especially because of the highconsumption of energy in the manufacture of virgin aluminium. There are currently no product life-cycle analyses comparing the raw material extraction, life span, energy requirements, proportion of pollutants in production, recycling process and disposal of aluminium with conceivable substitue materials such as glass or carbon fibres. Recycled aluminium as used in the Twingo Smile is, nevertheless, when it is processed without composite materials for example in the engine block, an almost onehundred percent reusable material with a high life, the use of which - assuming prudent recycling - is comparatively unproblematic. Researching into more environmentally benign alternatives for aluminium that are suitable for industry is one of the priority tasks of the time ahead.