ECOcar Issue 14

AUSTRALIA’S GUIDE TO ECO FRIENDLY, FUEL EFFICIENT CARS

RRP: AU $7.95 NZ $8.95

Issue 14 February / March 2012

ISSN 1836-4500

PEUGEOT’S FABULOUS 508

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erformance oriented compact cars these days come with turbochargers, superchargers, a combination of the two, or, of course, they can be nitro-injected if you really want to approach warp factor three within nine nano seconds.

In on-road performance terms, this petrol engine/electric motor combination delivers a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 9.7 seconds. But, the difference here is that, with a hybrid vehicle, you are not slurping through fuel.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Just add a few electrical bits out of the hybrid parts bin and you can be steering your little rapid rocket while achieving interesting acceleration times, and yet fuel economy, the bane of all high-performance equipment, is not going to suffer.

When matched to the continuously variable automatic transmission, the CR-Z will be returning a combined fuel consumption figure of 4.7 l/100 km. Emissions will also be correspondingly low at a figure of 111 g/km of CO2. Go on a long run and these figures can improve to 4.3 l/100 km and 103 g/km. For those who still enjoy changing gears, there’s also a six-speed manual gearbox as an alternative.

Honda has always been a subject of some envy. It’s made some great sports cars in its time, even raced at Formula 1 levels, and of course it also happens to make some pretty impressive motorcycles. Now, this Japanese company that has built its reputation on quality is bringing a new hot hatch to the Australian market. And although it’s not using conventional driveline systems, it’s no slouch.

The electric motor also has a series of split personalities.

As well as providing power to the vehicle, on demand, to assist the acceleration, the CR-Z uses regenerative braking to apportion braking power between the hydraulic brakes and the electric motor to extract more electricity from the vehicle’s kinetic energy, recharging the batteries at a higher rate.

The Honda CR-Z has a badge that says IMA – standing for Integrated Motor Assist. This means, coupled to a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder, tricky little i-VTEC petrol engine, is a three-mode IMA drive system that adds an electric motor to create the first hot hybrid hatch on our market.

The petrol engine is a single overhead camshaft unit that is backed by the electric motor to pump out a total combined performance level equivalent to 91 kW at 6,000 rpm, together with peak torque of 174 Nm between 1,000-1,500 rpm.

In order to get your head around what this means to acceleration times and performance, you have to take onboard the habits of electric motors as being different from the way a petrol engine delivers its power, or, more particularly, its torque. An electric motor can produce peak torque from the moment it starts spinning. So, rather than suffering a time lag while the driver waits for full performance to come through, from the moment the driver presses the loud pedal, it pretty much happens immediately.

The third personality comes in when auto/stop start is operating. Although the petrol engine has its own starter motor, it only uses it at the initial engine start of the drive. Whenever the auto stop/start cuts in, such as at a set of traffic lights, the engine restart is handled by the electric motor in the drivetrain, providing a faster spin-up and, consequently, faster getaway.

The battery pack is a 100 Volt nickel hydride unit.

Although the external styling of the CR-Z suggests hot hatches are definitely on the agenda, there are two other alternatives when it comes to driving style. Hit the Sport button and, yes, there’s increased throttle response, tighter steering response, full power electric motor assistance and the quickest version of the acceleration on offer. Leave the selection button at the default Normal position and you’ll get better fuel economy, a less rapid response to the pedals and steering wheel, and the ride comfort will be more mid-hatch like. The third option is to select Econ mode, and it’s here that you’ll be returning the best fuel economy, lowest emissions and, literally, driving your dollar further.

HONDA' HYBRID HATCH The CR-Z may have electric assistance, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be left at the lights – Chris Mullett reports 14

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HONDA’S HYBRID HATCH When you take a run through the general specifications of the CR-Z, you come up with a car weighing in at around 1155 kg and styled as a three-door hatch with a large tailgate and enough luggage space, with the back seats folded forwards, to take two sets of golf clubs. Don’t expect to pack big people into the back seats when you offload the golf sticks, as, even with short people in the front, there’s not much leg space in the rear.

But, as Honda’s product planners and style police are quick to point out, you are not likely to have children of your own.

You and your partner could be empty nesters, or, in general terms, you could be female, early thirties, fashion conscious and looking for anything compact and nippy that doesn’t look like a VW Polo and can compete in the looks department with the Audi A1.

You get lots of airbags to protect you, vehicle stability controls, ABS and electronic brake distribution systems, and the car already conforms to the ANCAP five-star crash safety test protocol. The LED lighting system extends to daytime running lamps on the front and also the rear lamp cluster on the back. The Luxury model comes with Sat/Nav, reverse camera in addition to parking sensors, a DVD player and Bluetooth connectivity to blast music from whichever appliance you choose to carry with you.

Thanks to MacPherson strut front suspension and an H-shaped torsion beam rear axle, it corners as though it’s on rails. Although the CR-Z has a relatively short wheelbase, the wheel-at-each-corner design maximizes its ability to handle tight and twisty roads strongly, responding to the exuberance of the driver but never feeling as though it’s getting close to its limits. The ride quality for a small car is surprisingly good, although, as you might expect, you can drop into the occasional pothole on Australian roads and feel a corresponding thump through the cabin. There’s also a relatively high degree of tyre noise transmitted through to the vehicle.

The auto stop/start system assists the fuel-miserly mode, as, when you stop in traffic, so too does the engine – starting again when you press the go pedal. It’s probably the best auto stop/start system we’ve tested, as it happens quietly and seamlessly, and, for that reason, is largely unnoticeable. Neither will it roll back on a hill, as Hill Start Assist is included.

If you want to change gear by stick wiggling, you can choose a six-speed manual gearbox, but, with CVT offering an infinite range of ratios, there’s little point in taking your objectives and driving pleasure in hand. The weight balance is already a valuable 60:40 ratio from front to rear, meaning that the handling is pretty much as good as any engineer is going to be able to offer.

Honda Australia’s Managing Director and CEO, Satoshi Matsuzawa, together with project leader, Norio Tomobe, confirmed to ECOcar that the company is working on a fullelectric version of the CR-Z. But right now, Honda is content to gradually increase the electric motor assistance as better battery performance becomes available. You’ll know when they get it totally right – when they take out the petrol engine completely.

We’ve come a long way in our thinking about hybrid vehicles. From the earliest designs that tended to suggest the driver was at the wheel of a dodgem car or golf cart that needed an instruction course before moving off from the kerb, this latest hybrid has been kept simple for the driver.

Driving the CR-Z hybrid is virtually the same as any conventional car. It starts like a standard petrol-engined car, and the only indication that you have a stack of batteries on board and an electric motor assisting your progress, is a small gauge on the dashboard that shows when the IMA system is assisting the petrol engine or working in re-charge mode. This simplification is really where hybridisation should be going.

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Allan Whiting heads to the

Australian red centre with Skoda’s new Yeti 38

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CZECH-MATE-THE ABOMINABLE SANDMAN

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hen Skoda announced that the Yeti 4x4 would be launched to the national press on a trek to Boggy Hole – an aptly named MacDonnell Ranges site in the upper reaches of the Finke River, near Alice Springs – we were surprised. A ‘softroader’ being asked to handle conditions that test many hardcore 4x4 vehicles? Needless to say, the slick VW/Skoda marketing machine made it happen, but there were boggings and recovery operations aplenty.

The demanding trek encompassed a high-speed bitumen drive along Larapinta Drive to the Ellery Creek turnoff, just east of Hermannsburg. From there the vehicles travelled on rough dirt tracks to the dry creek bed and then paralleled and criss-crossed it to the junction with The Finke. Track conditions then became very demanding, with deep sand, large river stones and steep banks to conquer. The Skoda Yeti convoy did surprisingly well in the tough conditions.

Although very few potential Yeti customers would contemplate such a trip, the exercise did highlight the enviable toughness of this little wagon. Given the Yeti’s relatively low ground clearance, it was inevitable that the standard spec test vehicles grounded on river stones and rolled them along their underbodies. Inspection showed no damage at all to specially-formulated reinforced fibreglass underbody protection plates that are fitted to all Yetis. Mufflers are often vulnerable, but the Yetis’ are tucked away behind protective rear suspension components.

Yeti Bits There are currently two Yeti models: a petrol front-wheeldrive model and a diesel 4x4. The 77 kW/175 Nm petrol engine drives through either a six-speed manual or sevenspeed DSG (direct-shift gearbox) automatic. The 103 kW/320 Nm diesel couples to a six-speed manual or a six-speed DSG, and rear-wheel drive is via fourth-generation Haldex electronic clutch unit. In early 2012, Skoda plans to release a petrol 4x4 as well.

The petrol donk is a 1.2-litre (yes, just over one-litre displacement), direct-injection, turbocharged four-cylinder that is said to meet Euro 5 emissions levels and has claimed fuel consumption figures between 6.1 l/100 km (extra urban cycle with six-speed manual) and 8.4 l/100 km (urban cycle with seven-speed DSG). CO2 emissions are said to be 154 g/km for the manual box and 165 g/km for the auto.

The two-litre diesel is said to comply with Euro 4 regs, by way of a diesel particulate filter and has claimed fuel consumption figures between 5.5 l/100 km (extra urban cycle with six-speed manual) and 7.8 l/100 km (urban cycle with sixspeed DSG). CO2 emissions are said to be 162 g/km for the manual box and 174 g/km for the auto.

If true to its name, the Yeti should have been launched on the snowy slopes of the Himalayas, but the deep sand of Australia’s Finke River served just as well to demonstrate this new wagon’s considerable ability.

In the on- and off-road driving we covered, the Skoda Yeti 4x4 proved to be a responsive machine that handled, steered and braked sweetly. Noise levels were low and vision (front and rear) was excellent. The seats were supportive and control ergonomics were first class. The transition to four-wheel-drive was undetectable, and the DSG worked so well as a manual or auto box that we couldn’t imagine why anyone would want the three-pedal version.

So, we know this new softroader is well behaved and tough, but how does the rest of the specification stand up?

Regardless of engine and driveline choice, all Yetis are five-door wagons, based on the Octavia Scout platform, but with suspension height increases of 70 mm at the front and 90 mm at the rear. All have seven airbags, electronic stability control, ABS and EBD braking, ASR and hill-holding function, air conditioning, tinted windows, CD and MP3 with input jack, Bluetooth, height and reach adjustable steering, cruise control, trip computer, roof rails and Skoda’s VarioFlex seating system.

The diesel 4x4 model scores all the above, plus 17-inch aluminium wheels in lieu of 16-inchers, FRP underbody protection plates, fog lamps, auto lights and wipers, dual-zone climate control, CD stacker, hill-descent control and electronic

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few decades ago, when Japanese cars first went on sale in Western Europe, the locally based car manufacturers used the premise in selling their products that buyers of Japanese cars would suffer from low resale pricing. Also suggested was the assumption that reliability could also be an issue. This latter claim was particularly biased, given that most British cars, especially those from BMC with Austin, Morris, Singer, Sunbeam or Hillman badges on their bonnets, were themselves far from perfectly built and possessed questionable long-term reliability.

In the same way that the British motorcycle industry was decimated by incoming Japanese products, the British car industry failed to appreciate the threat from Asia –highlighted today by those famous names having become extinct.

Moving into more recent times, and similar comments were made when vehicle manufacturing commenced in Korea. Could these Korean built vehicles rival the established credentials achieved by the Japanese manufacturers? Initially no, as the build quality and standard of plastic moulding for interior dashboards and trim panels showed only too clearly.

But, within just a few years, we witnessed a rapid escalation in product quality, and now there’s every reason to believe that whether a car is built in Japan, Korea or now Thailand, quality comparisons have now achieved parity.

For the Australian market, these days, the frontrunners are now actually the Koreans. And if you need any justification of that statement, just take a close look at the ever-increasing range of

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vehicles becoming available from companies such as Kia and Hyundai. SsangYong to a much lesser extent is also waiting in the wings to move forwards, and with new financial backing from Indian giant, Mahindra, it too could become a major force.

The main difference between the Japanese and Korean car companies is that, in setting up their design and research and development divisions, the Koreans looked outside their own country and hired in the talent they needed from Europe.

Immediately, it created European design flair, supported by substantially improved manufacturing standards. That’s the difference from Japan, where, although the technology exists for mechanical advances, the vision or appreciation of external design always seems to be constrained, often by tradition, with a tendency towards blandness.

Hyundai is a case in point, and with its latest introduction the i40 Tourer now available in the Australian market, the company has blended design innovation from Europe with the now recognised high quality manufacturing standards of Korea.

Designed in Russelsheim, Germany, the i40 Tourer has a European look and feel about it, thanks to the abilities of a German called Thomas Burkle. As chief designer for

STATE OF ORIGIN Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre, he started his career at Toyota’s European design centre in Brussels before moving to the Institute for Design and Photography in Barcelona, Spain, and subsequently returning to Germany for work with BMW, also spending time with the department of corporate and advanced design for Mercedes-Benz.

ECOcar was able to meet with Thomas, personally, and discuss what he calls “Fluidic Sculpture”. This is the design theme that now extends through the more recent models launched from the Hyundai stable, resulting in an overall “look and feel” that is now establishing the bone fide credentials of the Hyundai brand globally.

“Fluidic sculpture results from our own passion for cars.

With five design centres across the globe, we blend the designs of France, Germany and Italy with the intention to create cars that are sporty, cool and environmentally friendly.

Our aim is to bring the worlds of concept and production together. The buyer or the driver has to feel it,” said Thomas.

So, with the option of “feeling” the immediate benefits of the i40 Tourer, with its petrol and diesel engines and sixspeed manual or automatic transmissions, here’s our take, at ECOcar, on just what this new wagon has to offer.

The styling is certainly sharp and distinctive, thanks to Thomas’ team of multi-national designers. It’s nicely balanced in appearance and doesn’t have a section of its sheet metal that could be called heavy or overbearing. Everything balances out nicely, and this styling competence extends through to the interior.

Power comes from one petrol or one diesel engine.

The former is an all-new 2.0-litre GDI four-cylinder, and the latter is an all-new 1.7-litre U-II CRDI diesel, and both are mounted transversely across the front of the car, driving the front wheels. Six-speed manual or automatic transmissions are available with either engine selection, and there are three differing levels of trim and inclusions.

Let’s start, though, with safety, and with nine airbags as standard across the range, this new vehicle achieves five-star ANCAP safety rating status, as expected. Also standard is what Hyundai calls Vehicle Stability Management (VSM).

VSM integrates all the active safety systems in the vehicle, including the MDPS electrically powered steering. VSM intervenes alongside other active safety features such as electronic stability control, traction control, anti-lock braking, cornering brake control and electronic brake distribution (ESC, TCS, ABS, CBC and EBD).

If you do slam on the brakes for an emergency stop, the intelligence of the car takes over, automatically flashing the rear brake lights three times and activating the hazard lights until the vehicle starts moving again. Hopefully this prevents, or at least minimises, the risk of a rear-end collision.

Buyers coming in at the top-end, with the predictably named “Premium” models, get the better night light performance of High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps incorporating the new Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFLS).

They operate by swivelling in the steering direction, and the dynamic beam pattern is able to adapt to varied road conditions. The addition of LED daytime running lights offers a further passive safety treatment for increased visibility.

Those who opt for a specification or trim level further down the scale get additional low beam lamps that provide improved side illumination during cornering in the steering direction by throwing a beam outward sideways from the front end of the vehicle. Other active safety benefits include cruise control and an upper speed limiter. There’s also hill start control to hold the brake application, in order to stop rollback, when the driver removes his or her foot from the pedal.

There are some really nice design features for the interior specification, and one of the more noticeable of these is the three-piece glass sunroof that comes with the Premium model. Even the rear-seat passengers get a skywards view,

e t a t SOF OrIGIN

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ENTRY OF THE

GLADIA Toyota makes its commitment to Australian manufacturing loud and clear with the launch of the New Generation Camry

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ENTRY OF THE GLADIATORS

ATORS T

he products may come from a company with a Japanese name, but Toyota is as much, if not more, a car manufacturer in Australia than its two competitors, Ford and Holden. In fact, while Holden has dabbled with exporting its products built in Australia, it’s Toyota that has really made its export story a success, sending the Australian-built Camry to 24 countries since it began exporting back in 1997.

The Camry name can trace its history, within Australia, back to its initial launch in 1983. At that stage, it was fully imported from Japan. In 1987, it gained a quad-cam engine, and this heralded the start of local production of the Camry at Toyota’s Port Melbourne assembly plant.

In 1993, we saw the change in size to the wide-bodied Camry, and, from 1997, the company introduced the Australian-made Camry to the export market. The move to export coincided with the introduction of the Generation IV model, and this was integral in developing new overseas markets, in particular that of the Middle East countries, which today still comprise the major export destination.

The very survival of a car company wishing to manufacture in Australia depends on the available volume for production.

It’s volume that creates economies of scale to justify the investment, and, in the case of the Camry, it’s resulted in the export from Australia of 850,000 vehicles, over the 24-year period, out of a total production level that now exceeds 1.6 million units.

This export ability of Toyota to sell 75 percent of its production overseas is what underpins the ongoing success of the Camry, which, amongst other accolades, can boast being Australia’s best selling medium-sized car for the past 18 years.

Now, we move forwards into 2012 for the Camry, and the introduction of the Generation VII version, with the launch of a totally new engine and transmission that provides a major step forwards in economy and performance.

At a time when the new car buyer is becoming increasingly focused on fuel pricing, the new 2.5-litre, four-cylinder engine, combined with a new six-speed sequential automatic transmission, drops the combined fuel figure to below the ECOcar cut-off point of 8.0 l/100 km.

The Generation VII Camry buyer benefits in just about all areas, including fuel economy that improves by up to 11.3 percent, torque improvement by up to eight percent, a reduction of emissions by up to 12 percent, and a power increase by up to 15 percent.

Let’s just see what that means in real-world terms. Fuel economy for the combined consumption figure now comes in at 7.8 l/100 km. That’s a phenomenal result for a large, spacious passenger car that has a performance capability to tour effortlessly along the freeway.

The power output of the new 2.5-litre, dual overhead camshaft petrol engine has increased over the previous model to 135 kW, and torque has also grown to 235 Nm. And amidst the improvements, the exhaust emissions have been reduced down to 183 g/km.

The engine itself, when fitted with a suitable exhaust system catalyst, achieves confirmation to Euro V levels, but at this stage of introduction, the legal requirement is simply to achieve the standards set by Euro IV. It’s also worth noting that this engine runs on standard petrol and not the more expensive stuff.

Max Gillard, the head of Toyota’s research division in Australia, told ECOcar that the company still had concerns over the fuel quality available in Australia, with some petrol suppliers remaining inconsistent in maintaining low sulphur levels.

“The problem comes from higher sulphur levels that can impact on the catalyst. This Toyota engine is unique amongst Australian car manufacturers in being Euro V achievable right now,” he said.

To appreciate the advances made with the New Generation VII Camry you need to get behind the wheel and take it for a drive. This latest version is a very refined product. Its handling is sure-footed and precise, the performance for a 2.5-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine is impressive, it never feels short of breath and the interior noise levels are very low.

Toyota has spent considerable effort in adding more interior space, and by moving the leading edge of the dashboard forwards and resculpting the seat profiles, there’s more legroom and an enhanced appreciation of spaciousness.

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n terms of looking at the Holden Volt, we are way ahead of the normal media scrum that scribbles away about cars arriving on our shores at midnight next Friday. Here’s one that will arrive when it’s ready, somewhere towards the middle of the year, but in doing so will change the way we think currently (if you’ll pardon the pun) about electric drive.

One dictionary definition, I like, details the word hybrid as a “mixing of elements”. And whether Holden likes calling the Volt a hybrid or not, it is truly a mixing of elements when you examine how it works.

The Volt is the world’s first Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). What this means is that unlike most electric cars that stop when the batteries go flat, the Volt continues on its merry way, still running on electric power, but using electricity that it generates itself. It manages this engineering feat courtesy of a 1.4-litre, petrol four-cylinder engine that powers not the wheels, but a generator that in turn recharges the batteries.

power alone. The difference here, though, is that should the necessity arise to travel further afield, you will get to your destination and home again.

Volt is a pleasantly styled, sloping back hatch with comfortable seats and easy to read dials that don’t suggest you are in anything unusual. There’s not a whole heap of rear legroom or headroom for that matter, but certainly there’s enough for the kids on their way to school, unless you are breeding a rugby scrum or the next generation of basketball players.

We could be discussing the size of the battery cell packs, the thermal efficiency of the climate-controlled motivation units, the onboard diagnostics and the years of research that goes into the DNA of the Volt. Frankly, most of the questions we receive at ECOcar come down to the same topic – Is it easy to drive or different from a normal car?

It might sound a little like the over-complication of a situation just for the sake of being technical, but when you analyze just why it works this way, it all makes sense.

The surveys show that on most urban journeys, 74 percent of commuters travel less than 64 km each day. Most electric vehicles (EVs) have a range of around 120 km, making this relatively short distance quite achievable. But what if you suddenly want to travel further without prior notice? In a standard EV you run out of battery power and glide to a halt unless you can find a recharging station. You might well have a 40-minute wait for recharge before being able to once again make progress.

Not so with the Volt EREV. If you do venture far and wide, well, at least over 80 km, you run out of battery capability.

But, in a seamless display of advanced technology, on comes the petrol engine to power the alternator that recharges the batteries that give you the electrical power to drive further.

And, without doing anything else, you can then travel up to a 500 km range without any further refuelling or recharging.

Of course, while running on the electric power created by the petrol engine, you are consuming fossil fuels. But, if this is worrying you, then you are perhaps thinking too deeply about the whole concept of the EREV. Concentrate on the fact that it’s going to be a rare occurrence that sees you running out of battery power. Mostly, you’ll be cruising on electric power and then plugging in the Volt to a standard, normal, three-pin electric socket at your destination. No special plug or electrical installation, just a power cord and a normal, domestic socket will do the job.

Recharging your Volt with enough battery capacity to cover the 80 km of electrically driven travel will cost you around $2.50.

Here’s where the cost saving starts, together with the greener way of living for your daily driving. It’s suggested by Holden that many commuters will actually never use the petrol engine to generate the battery recharge. It’s quite feasible for most drivers to cover off their daily requirements on battery 54

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Well, actually, it’s very easy to drive and doesn’t resemble a golf cart in feel or attitude. Apparently, according to Holden CEO, Mike Deveraux, the American TV host, Jay Leno, has travelled over 10,000 km in his personally assigned Volt and has never yet used the petrol engine.

That all makes sense, and, for most drivers, the daily cost of commuting will be overwhelmed by the cost of buying a coffee from Starbucks on the way to work. Where the expense does come in is the initial purchase price. Although unconfirmed, the suggested price range will be about the $70,000 mark.

That’s not cheap in money terms, but that impact might be offset by your increasingly green appeal.

There are three modes of driving. Unlike many cars that offer “Sport” and “Normal” settings, the Volt adds a third option, that of “Mountain”. Not that Australia has an abundance of mountains, but if we did, rest assured the Volt

THE VOLT GENERATION

would climb them. Selecting “Mountain” improves acceleration and progress up steep and twisty inclines, but it does use more battery power.

The “Sport” mode improves throttle response to provide a quicker torque application, while “Normal” is really for any driver who doesn’t want too deep an involvement with the mechanical bits and pieces and just wants to get to work.

When you get to your destination a plug-in to power will give you a fully restored battery within four hours.

If you really want to know about power and torque, then here are the figures. The traction motor produces 111 kW of power and 370 Nm of peak torque. The difference, though, from the torque production of a normal petrol or diesel engine is that an electric motor gives 100 percent of torque from startup. That means it goes from rest like a little sporty thing rather than a staid retiree.

The Volt drive unit consists of two motors, three clutches and a planetary gear set that improves overall efficiency by reducing the combined rotational speed of the electric motors. This configuration reduces battery drain at highway speeds, adding up to 3.5 km of additional EV range. There’s also an electro-hydraulic regenerative braking aspect of the transmission that returns electrical energy into the batteries as you travel on over-run and not under throttle. The system captures energy for transfer back to the battery.

At this stage we can’t really discuss its performance and handling in a real-life situation, as we’ve only driven a lefthand-drive model inside a warehouse complex. This constraint was in order to satisfy the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority that dislikes left-hand-drive vehicles from taking part in the daily traffic grind of Sydney.

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THE ALLU OF THE PUG

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unny people, the French! They’ve produced extreme achievers, including Bizet, Debussy, Lautrec, Marceau, Monet, Renoir, Rodin, Cocteau, Dumas, Proust, Sartre, Verne, Voltaire, Lavoisier, Braille, Curie, Saint-Laurent, Piaf, André the Giant, de Gaulle, Noah (the tennis-ball-hitter, not the boat builder) and Napoleon (yes, a Corsican, but did most of his dirty work as a French leader), but they tend not to shout about it, preferring a quiet self-assurance that’s often interpreted as rudeness. The most often quoted French word being ‘Non!’ doesn’t help.

Peugeot is quintessentially French in having a number of auto industry ‘firsts’ that you’ve probably never heard of: in 1891 Peugeot became France’s second automaker, just two years behind Panhard, making the lion-bearing marque, then, the third auto maker in the world; Peugeot was the first carmaker to fit Michelin’s new-fangled pneumatic tyres, in 1895; they developed the first four-valve engine 1913; they also produced the first diesel production car 1928 and introduced the first electric, folding, metal coupé roof 1934. All of this is good, practical stuff, but the marque has a sporty side as well, having dominated the World Rally Championship, at times, in recent decades, and scored first and second in the 24-hour Le Mans race with diesel 908 sports cars in 2009.

This heritage of practicality and sportiness is evident in the new 508.

Styling is so much a matter of personal taste that we usually don’t get involved, but surely potential Peugeot owners must welcome the company’s change from a scoop-shaped front end to a subtle, ‘floating’ grille design, with a separate shutterstyle, under-bumper auxiliary air intake.

Children in our street who feared being swallowed alive by a 407’s whale shark mouth didn’t run screaming for their mothers when we drove by in the 508.

Apart from its enhanced appearance, the 508 comes with a package of fixed-price servicing that should have great market appeal. Service costs for the 20,000 km, 40,000 km and 60,000 km services are capped at $330 each.

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Emissions and Economy Driven Engines In 2007, the EEC adopted progressively lower CO2 targets for new cars registered in Europe, and vehicle designers forecast that the engines of the future would be smaller and would employ turbocharging as a matter of course. Universally, diesels had already taken the turbo route, but only a few high-performance petrol engines were turbocharged.

The PSA Group (Peugeot and Citroen) takes the EEC’s target CO2 emissions very seriously. Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 provides that by 2015 the fleet average to be achieved by all cars registered in the EU is 130 g/km. The new 508 120 kW/340 Nm, 2.0-litre diesel automatic model has a low figure of 149 g/km, without additional CO2-reduction technology. By comparison, the previous 407 V6 HDi diesel model had tailpipe CO2 emissions of 223 g/km.

This dramatic drop in CO2 emissions has been achieved by engine downsizing to two litres, with a bored-out 150 kW/450 Nm, 2.2-litre GT version also available. This high performance version achieves its outputs with only a slight increase in CO2 emissions, to 150 g/km.

Petrol-engined 508s have been developed with low emissions as the primary focus, and, thanks to direct fuel injection and turbocharging, are dramatically downsized. The core is a 1.6-litre four-cylinder block with standard figures of 115 kW and 240 Nm, and CO2 emissions of 164 g/km, but an ‘e’ version, with traffic stop/start, has figures of 82 kW/270 Nm, with extremely low CO2 emissions of 115 g/km.

THE ALLURE OF THE PUG

URE

Two-litre Diesel Auto on Test Our test vehicle was a 508 2.0-litre HDi Allure sedan, fitted with an Aisin AM6 six-speed automatic transmission, modified to suit Peugeot’s economy and emissions targets.

Standard equipment included: multiple airbags and front seat belt pretensioners that contributed to an NCAP fivestar safety rating; Bosch 8.1 brake electronics incorporating electronic brake force distribution, emergency brake assist and electronic stability control; 17-inch aluminium wheels and full-sized spare wheel; remote locking with keyless start/stop; cruise control and speed limiter with steering wheel controls; audio and Bluetooth phone steering wheel controls; speedsensitive power steering; height and reach adjustable steering column; electric parking brake; hill-start assist; auto-fold mirrors; self-dipping interior rear vision mirror; front and rear parking sensors; eight speakers; quad-zone climate control; trip computer with multi-function display; daytime running lights; auto headlights and wipers; and leather seats with power adjustment on both front seats.

Why spend big bucks for European chic when Peugeot can sell you a tricked-up new 508 Allure for less than 45 grand? – Allan Whiting asks. A bonus is fuel consumption between 4.9 l/100 km and 7.8 l/100 km.

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WIRED AND WILLING

FEATURE

Always one of the greatest motoring events on earth, the Tokyo Motor Show 2011 didn’t disappoint. Minimising the effects of automobiles on the environment was the overriding theme via two main approaches: downsizing engines and use of electric drives. Allan Whiting was there.

A

utomotive wisdom asserts that ‘there’s no substitute for cubic inches’, but that old adage was written before the advent of electronic engine controls and reliable, cheap, forced induction, via supercharging or turbocharging, or both. Most new internal combustion engines on display at Tokyo 2011 were turbo- or super-charged, whether diesel or petrol fuelled. The only naturally-aspirated small engines were traditional Japanese-market ‘mini’ 660 cc petrol engines from Daihatsu and Suzuki that earn a road tax advantage in that market. Limited performance from these engines makes them unsuitable for most export markets.

What’s driving the forced-induction engine is emissions reduction, and now that CO2 is officially an emissions gas – even in the USA, which fought its recognition for years – engine makers are seeking ways of reducing CO2 production.

Other emissions can be eliminated or reduced by exhaust after-treatment, but CO2 can’t be ‘scrubbed’.

The simplest way to reduce CO2 is by cutting the amount of hydrocarbon fuel that’s burnt in an engine, and engineers have long known that cramming a lot of air into a small capacity engine produces the power and torque of a large engine, but with lower fuel consumption.

German-based engine components manufacturer, Mahle, was one of the instigators of downsizing and showed off a three-cylinder, 1.2-litre direct-injection, turbocharged petrol engine at Tokyo 2011. This engine was jointly developed with Bosch and has been powering a demonstration VW Passat for the past three years. Despite prodigious outputs of 120 kW and 260 Nm, fuel consumption is reportedly averaging 5.8 l/100 km.

Another example of the difference a turbo can make is Mazda’s Skyactiv technology in the newly released CX-5. This vehicle comes with a naturally aspirated petrol two-litre engine or a turbocharged 2.2-litre diesel. The company has achieved excellent power, of 114 kW, from the naturally-aspirated petrol engine by employing an efficient scavenging exhaust system and a high compression ratio of 13:1. However, the petrol engine’s torque of 196 Nm is less than half that of the turbo-diesel’s 420 Nm and the petrol engine needs to rev to 4000 rpm for its peak torque, where the diesel does it at 2000 rpm – more than twice the grunt at half the revs.

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Mahle’s ‘range extender’ engine/motor/generator package for small hybrid vehicles.

WIRED AND WILLING A further refinement of the efficient small engine principle is to use an internal combustion (IC) engine in concert with a hybrid electric-drive system so that the engine can rely on additional power and torque supplied by battery/ electric propulsion, to supplement the restricted IC engine performance. Although most hybrids have petrol IC engines, Peugeot displayed its new 3008 AWD hybrid with HDi FAP 120 kW diesel engine, 27 kW electric motor, and stop-start technology. Peugeot claims a car-world first for this diesel hybrid, but there are already thousands of diesel truck hybrids on the world’s roads.

Nearly all existing hybrid vehicles have a mechanical drivetrain with an electric motor/generator sandwiched between the IC engine and the mechanical transmission. This was the obvious way for hybrids to become accepted and is the only system that could go into production using readily available driveline components. However, some of the next generation of hybrids and EVs have electric-motor propulsion, with the IC engine serving only as a backup generator, such as the Chevrolet or Holden Volt.

Hybrid drivetrain makers obviously see growth potential in this type of drive system, because there were many exhibits of axle-split-motor systems and motor-inwheel systems at

Tokyo. An axle-split-motor system uses a transversely-located, chassis-mounted electric motor with conventional half-shafts connecting the motor (or two motors in the case of 4WD vehicles) to the wheels. A motor-in-wheel system has a smaller electric motor in each wheel hub – two motors for a 2WD vehicle and four for a 4WD - with electrical, not mechanical, connection to the power supply.

Mahle displayed what it calls a ‘range extender’: a petrol engine designed specifically to act as an on-board charger for hybrid battery packs. The display engine was a compact (416 mm x 327 mm x 481 mm) 900 cc twin-cylinder, with 30 kW generator integrated in the engine sump.

Mazda’s new CX-5 boasts the company’s SkyActiv technology engines.

Existing hybrids have proved that electrical power can be used to drive vehicles mechanically, and next-generation hybrids demonstrate that mechanical links between motor and wheels aren’t necessary. The next logical step is obviously to question the need for hydraulic brakes and mechanical, power-assisted steering. Several exhibits at Tokyo displayed the possibility of all-electric chassis layouts, with electric steering and electro-mechanical brakes. NTN Corporation’s electric steering had a steering wheel operating an actuator motor that connected electrically to servo cylinders that pulled and pushed left and right steering arms independently – no ECOCAR

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TESTED

The

I

f you’re anything like me, your memories of LPGpowered vehicles were limited to trips back home in taxis between the hours of 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Sunday mornings. These memories are further diluted by clunky taxis that would vibrate and make all sorts of strange noises on takeoff.

While you may not share such memories beyond the 12 a.m. mark, the sentiment is still the same.

The general image of an LPG-powered vehicle is one of a taxi and one of a vehicle that generally wasn’t all that exciting to be in or drive.

Gen y Conundrum Prior to the launch of the EcoLPi Falcon, Ford used an archaic venturi-vapour converter-andmixer LPG system that was inefficient, troublesome

Can a Falcon on gas Be cool?

Paul Maric takes the Gen Y stance 70

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THE GEN Y CONUNDRUM

The high level of interior luxury lifts the Falcon G6E into limo territory. Match that with refilling the tank for around $40.00 and the appeal continues to grow.

and so 1940’s. The old system would convert raw LPG into a vapour that would be mixed with intake air to become a combustible mixture.

touch start. Instead of needing to hold the key in the start position, the driver can simply click once and the vehicle will automatically crank for the required length of time.

The new Liquid Injected LPG (LILPG) system works on similar principles as the venturi-vapour system, with the main difference being that it exits the converter at a high pressure to be mixed with intake air and is then electronically injected into the chamber, allowing for greater control.

The best part about all of this is the driver can’t feel any vehicle alterations and the car feels just as good as, if not better than, the petrol Falcon to drive.

The end result of this system is a reduced intake temperature, which means more power is available with comparable levels of fuel use. The increase in power was so effective in the Falcon’s case, that Ford engineers had to detune the system so it wouldn’t go too far beyond the current development stage of the Falcon petrol six-cylinder engine.

Aussie engineers were made to work for their money, with a new pre-priming system required to stop the traditional extended cranking times associated with LPG vehicles. The system works by priming the LPG fuel line when the driver hits the unlock button, with the final stage of priming activated when the driver opens the driver’s door.

The priming mode ensures that the car is able to immediately start, regardless of the system or ambient temperature, a problem that often plagued LPG vehicles.

Another system employed to automate the process is single-

As a Gen Y male, I set off to determine whether LPG is ‘cool’, and whether the new generation of LPG Falcon features the goods to make it a viable option for buyers after a sporty car without the fuel bill.

At the top end of the Falcon range, the G6E features all the bells and whistles and is priced from $52,890. Tastefully fitted out with beige Cashmere Leather, the G6E offers a premium set of features to keep everyone happy, from young to old.

A 7-inch Human Machine Interface sits atop the dashboard and controls everything from climate to audio. The easy to navigate system allows the driver to personalise the car’s features, navigate a connected music player’s contents (which includes any device with an ‘i’ in front of its name) and pair a telephone for hands-free Bluetooth operation.

Sound is delivered by an eight-speaker, 262-Watt sound system with sub-woofer. Audiophiles will be bitterly disappointed with the sound quality, though. The sound

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Windchea

TESTED

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet offers much more than just wind in your motoring

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ater

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WINDCHEATER

here was a time when some of the Mercedes-Benz cabriolets were a little heavy in the styling area, especially around the rear area. No doubt, some of their buyers also suffered the same fate, but today, in line with slimming exercises and diets by the dozen, the latest cabriolet is simply svelte and stunning.

A recent trip to Melbourne enabled me to enjoy top-down motoring around the suburbs, where it took a while just to get used to the high visibility you get when you can’t drive unobtrusively, surrounded by glass and a metal roof.

I’ve owned three cabriolets in my life, although the first two were simply called convertibles, and the third, still in my garage today, is known as a pram hood. Number one was an early Triumph Herald, number two was an Austin Healey Sprite and, staying with the Austin brand, number three is an Austin Champ. A prize here for those recognising all three without referring to the web.

There was quite a substantial difference in build quality of the Triumph Herald compared to the E-Class. As a direct comparison, the massive amount of body flex present and displayed by the Triumph on the occasional corner resulted in the driver’s door swinging open when mid-way around a bend. As well as steering, the driver had to catch to door and slam it shut. Fortunately, speeds were slower in those days. You might also be pleased to know that Mercedes-Benz appears to have fixed Triumph’s problem.

So, back to present day, and the appeal of the E-Class cabriolet is immense. It’s beautifully proportioned, and taking the example we drove, it comes with 18-inch alloy spoke wheels, an entertainment package and black leather upholstery, in addition to heaps of safety bits and pieces.

Call it cabriolet or convertible, the hood mechanism these days is a marvel of technology. Sit for a moment by the side of the road and press a button. The windows drop in height, slightly, the hood unlatches, a panel in front of the boot lid unclips and folds skywards, and the hood above your head arcs away towards the vehicle rear. Everything folds into somewhere and, with a final gesture, the metal panel that was pointing skywards in front of the bootlid now returns to flush against the rest of the body. It’s effortless, its very impressive, and it even works properly going the other way when you want a roof over your head once again.

From an ECOcar perspective, there are both petrol and diesel engines available under the bonnet of the E250 that will both return highly acceptable fuel consumption figures. The 1.8-litre, four-cylinder, BlueEFFICIENCY produces maximum power of 150 kW and peak torque of 310 Nm, and with direct injection and turbocharging, plus the benefit of a sevenspeed 7G-TRONIC PLUS automatic transmission it returns a combined cycle figure of 7.6 l/100 km on 95 RON petrol to emit 178 g/km of CO2.

If you think this is unnecessarily advanced technology for your liking, then perhaps the 2.2-litre diesel is more for your taste. With the same maximum power figure of 150 kW but with a torque output ramped up to 500 Nm, it lowers your carbon footprint to 145 g/km while reducing fuel economy against the petrol engine by a further 2.1 l/100 km, returning a combined fuel figure of 5.5 l/100 km.

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