my name is mwd

Whilst at a Mercedes garage this morning to get Laura’s Smart serviced, I was looking that the showroom, which was full of shiny high-end Mercedes sports cars. It amuses me that cars now seem to have to have the same eco friendly colour chart on them that home appliances do. I suspect for some cars, like the Mercedes SL they might wish they didn’t have to do this:

As you can see, the SL is rated at 246 grams of carbon-dioxide per kilometre. The Mercedes SLK, another roadster, managed an F rather than a G, managing – 220 g/km – clearly not trying hard enough to burn that fuel :) To give some context, apparently 120 g/km is what a Ford Fiesta produces.

The news this morning was reporting that the motor industry was upset that the EU Commission is trying to impose regulations that all new cars must achieve 120 g/km by 2012, and you can see why they might be unhappy about that – it’s hard to imagine any current performance car reaching that level in that time, and it’s hard to imagine that market, as planet destroying is it may be, going away. Roll on the Tesla Roadster I guess.