CLEAN CAR quirk

The Government’s feebate scheme is actually quite kind to luxury diesels like the Kia Sportage

Could diesel power for passenger cars and SUVs get a boost from the Government’s Clean Car “feebate” system? It’s possible — at least while such models can still be sourced from the global car industry.

The Clean Car system is based around CO2 emissions — or basically, how much fuel a vehicle burns and therefore how much greenhouse gas it produces. Diesel engines are more CO2friendly because they burn much less fuel than petrol per kilometre travelled (even though they emit slightly more CO2 per litre consumed).

Call it a loophole if you like, but the feebate system is fairly kind to diesel power. The Clean Car programme cares not for diesel particulates or other forms of nonCO2 pollution.

That’s not to say modern diesels are especially dirty. Filters and additives have cleaned up to 99 per cent of the many things ending with “oxide” and fine particulates that diesels emit, but they’re still not quite as “clean” (that’s got to be relative, right?) as petrols, because the finest of those fine particles can still escape.

So there are different ways to be green. Just some food for thought while we consider this Jungle Green Kia Sportage X-Line diesel, which highlights another inconvenient truth: a good diesel engine in a good SUV is a really good driving experience.

The $63,000 X-Line is the flagship Sportage, serving up a smooth (and surprisingly quiet) 2.0-litre turbo-diesel, an “e-shift” (rotary dial thingy) eight-speed automatic gearbox and full-time all-wheel drive.

Need we say it also looks awesome?

The diesel engine and automatic gearbox are a great combination; the X-Line feels as sophisticated as many of the premium European diesel SUVs we used to know and love, even if the refinement of the engine highlights road noise from the 19-inch footwear on coarse chip.

But the 2.0-litre is happy to lope along at low revs (peak torque is delivered from 2000rpm) and actually doesn’t mind a rev, either; within reason at least. Not much point in working this kind of engine beyond 4000rpm, which is another way diesel differs from petrol. But with the eightspeed transmission doing such good work, you don’t really need to worry about that kind of dynamic detail.

The diesel’s 181g/km puts it the “zero band”, according to Clean Car feebate calculations: no fine, no rebate. The Government’s temporary 36 per cent reduction in the road user charge for diesels as part of the Transport Support Package helps with the cost of ownership argument, too.

The impression of luxury is reinforced by the wealth of standard equipment: the X-Line is loaded with every piece of driver-assistance and safety tech known to Kia at the moment, including Blind-spot View Monitor (BVM) with that little video feed in the instrument panel, reverse Parking Collision Avoidance Assist (PCA) and Around View Monitor. Comfort/convenience features include a vast twin-screen digital display, power/memory driver’s seat with heating/ventilation for the front chairs, LED mood lighting . . . you name it.

The new Sportage is a good deal larger than the old, with an 80mm stretch in the wheelbase. So it’s more of a medium-large SUV, with generous cabin space and a 543-litre boot that even outdoes the Toyota RAV4 — another “medium” SUV that’s upsized in its current generation.

So, full disclosure: at $62,990 the X-Line diesel is $5k more expensive than the X-Line 1.6-litre turbo-petrol. But you’re getting an extra 151Nm (that’s enough to power a small car on its own) for no consumption penalty and you’re running on cheaper fuel into the bargain.

Probably still a hard sell on purely financial terms; but not if you drive and experience the diesel.