Funny mistake. For a moment I think I catch the Lexus LC500 Cabriolet in unprecedented efficiency. I see in small numbers an eight in the display and assume that according to the usual consumption display stands for eight liters per 100 kilometers, 1 in 12.5. That would be quite special for a V8 with 466 hp.
Mistake, thank you. The Lexus on-board computer reports the number of kilometers driven per liter. So it reads 1 in 8. Such a drinking bout is almost moving. You don’t come across such old-fashioned drunkards anymore. Almost all new cars with a combustion engine are relatively to unimaginably economical, even the non-hybrids and the big boys. Over the course of my not-so-long car testing career, I’ve seen fuel bills drop every year regardless of prices, and now we’re all a hundred driving, it’s all partying. The only cars with which I could not possibly score better than 1 out of 8 in recent years were fat eight-cylinder engines like the BMW X6M and the LC500, which are on the verge of extinction anyway. With a recent 911 I already reached 1 in 11, with the two-liter turbo version of the new Mercedes E-class coupé 1 in 16. Volkswagens TSI engines are almost total abstainers. With the most recent Skoda Octavia 1.5 TSI I drove more than 1 in 22. Almost all new little ones get 1 in 20. With a few exceptions like Volvo, I dare to say that the majority of cars with combustion engine are about twenty to thirty percent more efficient has become, despite a hefty weight gain in recent decades and the backward SUV fashion that partly undoes the gains made. The diesels completely break all records. In my logs I come across the most incredible numbers: 1 in 25.6 for the Mercedes e200d, 1 in 22.7 for the new BMW 530d. In addition, they are unbelievably clean.
As the owner of four young timers, I have good comparison material. The 850 Estate twenty-valve runs at best 1 in 12. The antique VW petrol block never gets further than 1 in 17 in the feather-light Audi A2, the turbo three cylinders in a modern Korean or VW Polo make mincemeat of him. The other Volvo and the elderly Mercedes do between 1 in 10 and 1 in 12. Twenty years ago these were normal averages for good middle class cars. At the cold start, my fossil gadgets smell nostalgic of exhaust fumes and gasoline. Modern cars are odorless.
In the meantime, the combustion engine has become a firm social taboo. Electrification cannot go fast enough for political parties. GroenLinks and D66 want to witness their draft election programs only with zero-emission cars on the road within ten years, the PvdA as early as 2025 – how then, Lodewijk Asscher? Politicians don’t test cars, they don’t read car magazines; they see the car as the nemesis of Mother Earth, the ICE as the poison dungeon of big business. They don’t know how much has already changed for the better. And if it were, they would never hang it on the big clock. Put the problem into perspective is political suicide.
CEOs are also aware that they should not hide their share in the climate crisis. Opportunistically, they play into the spirit of the times by guiltily putting their heads in the noose. They like to cut their own meat for the stage. We don’t build diesels anymore. Sorry for the inconvenience, we will go electric as soon as possible. The only reasonable argument came from Polestar’s CEO Thomas Ingenlath, who called on his peers to be honest about the carbon footprint of electric cars. Smart marketing, that confessional PR, but he had a point. Don’t pretend the industry has made a total mess of it, although I haven’t forgotten about the cheating diesel scandal. A little respect for the great evolution of the combustion engine does not seem out of place to me. A bit of respect for that V8 from Lexus, by the way. What a beast of a block. Just beyond the shame, wonderful.