THE UK VIEW FROM MERCEDES-BENZ Nick Blake, sales engineering manager
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commercial vehicles at Mercedes-Benz UK. is cautious about the proposed ACEA rating system. "I'm not against it ifs probably better than nothing at all but I do have some reservations. The danger is that you produce a green or red score, and your vehicles are judged on that score. If that is based on assumptions that don't relate to your own business, it could be misleading and result in the wrong vehicle being purchased to do the job.'' Blake says that while roost truck-makers can provide detailed specification information, which an operator could enter into an efficiency calculator, many bodybuilders will be unable to deliver the sarne amount of detail. "The operator needs to understand that its a simulation subject to varying conditions. A body-builder may be able to provide information on dimensions, but will they have information on. say, the body's drag co-efficient? If it ends up being an 'average' figure, the end result may be meaningless." Like Iveco's Martin Flach (see box opposite), Blake is keen to avoid a rating system based on just fuel consumption based on gram*m as we have with passenger cars and vans. "If we're not carefui, we'll encourage people to buy smaller vehicles as opposed to larger vehicles which, through being able to carry more, will have a lower CO2 emission based on grams/tonne/km. The gram/tonne/km formula makes sense, although the grams-per-cube/km is more appropriate for lighter vehicles up to around 3.5-tonnes.
Despite those caveats, Blake broadly supports the shift away from concentrating on just reducing regulated emissions, NOx, HC, PM etc to the exclusion of 002, although he insists: "Emissions regulations need to be on a different basis, not just regulated emissions. We should be looking at both regulated emissions and CO2 and drive them both down. but I'm not sure how we can square that circle. In the past, although we've reduced regulated emissions through the introduction of new Euro standards, we haven't always reduced 002. Euro-6 is almost certain to increase it. I believe 002 emissions can and must be reduced further, and a clear guide to how this can be measured is essential. Because many commercial vehicles have a range of different engines, gearboxes, axle ratios, wheels and not least bodies, the accuracy of such information can at best only be used as a guide and not a penalty to tax road transport."