In the debate about the next Mobile Air Conditioning refrigerant to choose, Germany’s leading weekly has explained to around 2 million readers what is at stake for German manufacturers that could be left behind as “unconvincible deniers of progress” after sliding into a state of wait-and-see.
While German carmakers are making every effort to lose the stigma of being climate offenders through new fuel-saving models and electric vehicles, the “industry is sliding already into the next catastrophe.” A “climate catastrophe of a special kind” could undermine their newly built green image if they do not change course, according to an article published in the influential weekly DIE ZEIT on 14 May.
The extensive piece sums up the current situation in the automotive industry where German OEMs have stopped to send any clear signals to the market about which refrigerant they intend to use to comply with the European MAC Directive in time. Although alternatives exist, and although “car manufacturers promised to use them”, they would now be hesitating and hence put a timely mass production of CO
2 MAC before 2011 at peril. As a result, the automotive industry would lose a risk of face again, DIE ZEIT states.
Time running out
To be still in time for the EU 2011 deadline, orders for CO
2 systems would need to be placed today. All manufacturers and suppliers, including Behr, Denso, Visteon, and Valeo are mastering the high-pressure technology and “have prepared for the new era a long time ago”. In addition, the “eco technology has already gathered a big and uncommon group of followers, among them the Federal Environment Agency, the ADAC, environmental groups, and the automotive association VDA”. After stating in 2007 that all German carmakers have decided to use the “especially climate-friendly natural refrigerant R744 in future car air conditioning”, the latter is still confirming that CO
2 is the refrigerant of choice. However, to remain cost-competitive, a worldwide solution would be needed. This surprises, DIE ZEIT writes, as the car industry has always been willing to build very different individual models voluntarily.
Competition by chemicals
The article also mentions the competition by the newly developed chemical 1234yf and hints to the enormous pressure on chemical makers DuPont and Honeywell to present an alternative ready to replace their high-global warming refrigerant R134a.
“The blend with the bumpy name has the charm to work in conventional air conditioning systems with ‘minimal changes’. (…) The question remains if the chemical is really ecologically correct”, DIE ZEIT continues. The argument by Honeywell that 1234yf would be the “preferred solution regarding environmental sustainability” is rejected by an expert in process engineering. He states that in a vehicle the system will be the most efficient that has received the highest development efforts – a statement clearly in favour of CO
2 already announced 10 years ago by Daimler as the “ecological alternative”. Although Europe’s largest motoring organisation ADAC strongly rejects flammable refrigerants as “non-acceptable” – a position that would exclude the use of the flammable substance 1234yf – German manufacturers have gone silent.
Loophole closed?
With no solution adopted yet, carmakers are playing for time, hoping that a loophole in the MAC Directive could give them additional time to comply. After the European Commission clarified in an official document that there would be no exemptions or partial type approvals without the MAC, manufacturers intend to use a disagreement among the national type approval authorities about how the MAC would be judged when approving a new model. The result: systems containing the highly climate-damaging refrigerant R134a could be type approved in a country with “lax” authorities and then sold everywhere. This would sacrifice any climate protection efforts intended by the law.
