What comes out of the exhaust pipe is not the only thing that pollutes a car. We are always alarmed with images of thick clouds of white smoke coming out of strange cup-shaped chimneys at power plants, but that’s not just what we can have in our vehicle. Do you really know how much it pollutes?
Now you can know the real emissions of your car
Although the CO2 emissions announced by the manufacturers depend on the approved consumption, it is important to know how to calculate the real CO2 emissions of your car, based on the fuel consumption that we make on our daily commutes or trips.
And this covers all types of cars. Just because; To say that electric cars are zero emissions is an understatement. Unfortunately, they also emit and pollute, and we are not referring only to the origin of the energy that they store in their batteries or in their hydrogen cells, but to what they emit when they circulate.
And it is that, in addition to the smoke that comes out of the exhausts (electric ones do get rid of this), cars emit particles from the brake pads, tire wear, oil leaks, brake fluid, coolant fluids from the air conditioning equipment… but how can we be sure how much our car does?
How can we do it
Brands are aware of this trend and, in the case of automobiles, more and more are disclosing the data on how much the car pollutes as one more value of the product. However, we may think that this information may be distorted and it is more appropriate to obtain the data from an independent body.
So, first of all, we must follow a series of very simple steps. The first thing you should check is the technical data sheet , you will find it in the carbon dioxide and CO2 emissions section and it is expressed in grams per kilometer. There they will tell us at a first glance what we can have.
Also, and as something more than accurate for everything, it is best to go to the website of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE ), which is an agency dependent on the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of Spain. It has a database on fuel consumption.
But also about the characteristics of the new car models sold in Spain, created in support of a European standard that seeks to guarantee citizens information on carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption. In this, in the search results, we can know aspects of the car such as the following:
- Liters of consumption per 100 kilometers.
- Emissions in grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer.
- The energy classification.
Poor driving can increase emissions by 30%
In many situations it is true that the faster we drive, the more we spend. But it is also key to say that going slowly does not mean that we spend less . In fact, poor driving increases consumption and emissions by 30%.
Throughout its useful life a car will do an average of 250,000 km. If we take as a reference (to simplify the calculations) a car with CO2 emissions of 100 g/km, that car will emit 25 tons of CO2 during its useful life, plus another series of gases that are also polluting.
It should also be noted that to determine how much cars pollute, the type of vehicle must be taken into account. The reason is that not all cars pollute the same. Diesel before 2005 and after 2009 are the most polluting types of cars on the market. These are followed by gasoline and hybrid. Furthermore, not all cars emit the same polluting substances, which reminds us why it is essential to invest in new, more sustainable models based on renewable energy .