Berlin, Germany - German cars have their avid fans and their detractors. Among the critics are environmentalists, who say its celebrated automotive products are bloated and overweight, leading to higher tailpipe emissions and negative repercussions for the environment.
Three million new cars are registered in Germany every year and in the first half of 2015 one in four of these was a so-called compact car. These are not quite as roomy as their mid-sized counterparts, but they are definitely getting bigger and heavier.
The best-selling Volkswagen Golf hatchback is a typical example. The original Golf 1 of 1974 was 3705mm long, 1610mm wide and 1395mm high, and weighed 790kg with a full tank of of petrol. The lightest model of the current Golf 7 - 4255mm long, 1799mm wide and 1452mm high - tips the scales at 1205kg.
One in seven new registrations is for a mid-sized car such as the Mercedes-Benz C-Class or a Mazda6 and the number of new SUVs on the roads has gone up sharply.
The class includes crossover models which have chunky looks but not the off-road capability of, say, a Range Rover.
Criticism from environmentalists revolves around what they see as the extra weight these vehicles lug around with them. Statistics show that even small cars carry much more ballast than they did even 20 years ago. Meanwhile, engines are getting cleaner but also larger.
LUXURY FEATURES
Many features regarded as luxuries a few decades ago are now standard issue even for smallest cars.
These include electric windows front and back along with ABS braking, air-conditioning, servo-assisted steering, the electronic handling aid ESP and side airbags. None of this is making cars any lighter, although the critical environmentalists offer few ideas of their own to reduce vehicle weight.
Jens Hilgenberg, a transport expert with the BUND environmental pressure group, said: “Cars are putting on more and more weight but they are expected to be more powerful and agile at the same time.”
The VW Golf underscores the trend, with a 52 percent weight gain in 30 years – mainly due to all the high-tech and safety systems on board. It needs an average of 5.4 litres of petrol to cover 100 kilometres, according to data compiled by the VCD motoring club. If the Golf 7 weighed the same as a Golf 1, it would use about two litres of fuel over the same distance.
One in five of all cars made globally is produced in a factory owned by a German carmaker, which means the country’s car giants determine to a large degree what people drive.
Green critics say German brands are fond of introducing heavy, sophisticated models packed with new technology, so they tend to use more fuel. German manufacturers boast that their models account for 80 percent of the so-called premium segment.
Carmakers charge a premium for frugal power units or cars with alternative drivetrains such as hybrid petrol-electrics. Sales in Germany of expensive all-electric vehicles are negligible, largely due to the lack of financial incentives from the government.
As of 1 January 2015 only 19 000 pure electric cars were registered for use in Germany.
PERCEIVED PROBLEMS
Industry experts say building battery cars still doesn’t make sound business sense; they’re more expensive to make and can’t be sold at a decent profit. Car guru Stefan Bratzel recently referred to the “RIP” problem, to illustrate perceived problems with range, infrastructure and pricing.
Whether German makers have so far contributed towards alleviating worldwide tailpipe emissions is debatable. Manufacturers have invested heavily in clean engine technology and both fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by a quarter over the past 10 years. At the same time, the average power output of their cars has gone up from 96kW to 110kW.
Germany’s statistics agency recently pointed out that several billion litres of petrol and diesel are being burned every year owing to the growth in the number of heavy, fuel-guzzling SUVs - yet “fighting the flab” does not seem to be an option for carmakers at the moment.
One industry guru said bluntly: “People do not want to drive cars that amount to a rolling ‘declaration of renunciation’. Cars still need to be “sexy” if they are to sell.”
Future legislation may mark a turning point. EU rules stipulate that, from 2021, cars across a carmaker’s entire range must not generate more than an average 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometres - at the moment manufacturers are around 40 percent
above this benchmark.
Environmentalists say this stringent limit could be achieved with the cars on offer today, although in order to achieve this Germans would have to buy more foreign-made hybrid cars.