The law is an ass. Sometimes…

Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009. Never heard of it? This catchily titled document, signed-off in Strasbourg by people you have also probably never heard of, decided the fundamental shape and crucially, the size of the cars that many of us drive.

It’s the law the EU put in place to limit CO₂ emissions of cars, after years of trying to get the car makers to curb greenhouse gas emissions by ‘gentlemens’ agreements’ (it turned out that Europe’s car makers were not as gentlemanly as one might wish).

The key bit of this document is hidden in Annex 1, on Page 12 of this hellishly boring 15-page screed. Even if you read it (and please don’t, unless you are suffering from a bad case of insomnia), it might not hit you immediately. So your friends here at Ti have converted the dry text and arcane formulae into a handy little graph for you: have a good look.