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That wanna drop their prices then, greedy beggars!

I agree Ste, but if you read the story, it mentions that although this is leading to an economic short coming, it has a plus on the environmental scale...

Surely part of the drop is that cars are getting more economical.

If they did away with the requirement to have a catalytic converter and other ridiculous regulations, revert to just specified exhaust emission limits, not only could cars be even more economical, but also they could be a darned site cheaper and more reliable.

The emission tests are a farce anyway, they are done at idle when you are producing least problems. When your bombing down the motorway you could be producing far more problems.

Although you produce more exhaust gases when moving, the cat is also working more efficiently as it is hotter and cleans the gasses up more, so any issues at idle are multiplied higher up the revs.

I think the aim of emission limits is to ensure your car is working as it should be, and burning what fuel it does use as efficiently as possible.

Sure, cars are more efficient, and probably will contribute, though Im not sure they have become this much more efficient in the past 6 months. I think people are making less trips in cars, mainly due to the price of the fuel

Its not just the temperature of the cat that matters (and too hot is as bad as too cold albeit for different reasons), if you have it at constant temperature, it is most effective with least exhaust flow and least effective at high flow, the older the cat the more predominant the effect.

Recent vehicles now have dual lambdas to check the effectiveness of the cat. There is so much expense, just because it has to have a cat - which is not a necessary component to achieve the required emissions.