I never said there’s no new technology because there is and improvements to existing technology too, the proof being that the standards become more strict as time goes by and manufacturers need to plan ahead for it.

I said that just looking at carbon emissions is ridiculous as it’s a simple matter of how much fuel is burnt, it either comes out at CO or CO2 and both are bad, that study could be resumed by saying “Carbon emissions are worse in vehicles with worse fuel economy.” For this reason emission equipment improvements are concentrated on other emissions as we’re already handling CO emissions the best way possible with what’s feasible in a vehicle. Fuel economy improvement is the way we reduce carbon emissions and that’s also improving, an example is that my ICE car develops more power from a smaller, more efficient engine than the previous year model so its fuel economy is comparable to smaller cars from 10 years ago, its emissions are lower, but the driving experience is still better.

This is a European study so diesel vehicles are much more common and the SUV also beats the standards by a wide enough margin that the emission equipment won’t need to be replaced in 10 years. I’m just pointing out that if they only studied carbon emissions then the study is flawed as there are other emissions to look at.

No one replaces a catalytic converter as part of regular maintenance, that’s a thousands of £ job that you do when you fail the emissions test or it becomes clogged. Same thing for all the emissions equipment (O2 sensor, knock sensor, EGR system…) or carbon buildup that prevents the valves from sealing properly/blocks the intake, they’re things that get taken care of only when they fail.