Chip & Dim

What seems to me another idiotic source of waste is highlighted.

Chipping away at high fuel costs

If cars can have their fuel economy and performance improved, however, why are the manufacturers not performing the operation at the factory gates? The answer is that like any product that is sold worldwide, car makers must produce performance figures that are consistent whether the car is driven in Abu Dhabi or Aylesbury. Because of this, and in order to get past the Single Vehicle Approval test (which forces cars to conform to British safety standards), car makers set the engine parameters to the lowest common denominator so it will perform equally well with low-grade fuel or bad servicing in, for example, eastern Europe, as it will in Britain.

At risk of sounding daft, if there is more mileage to be had by these methods, why on earth would it not be incorporated as a matter of course, and hence an immediate campaign launched to change the daft law/requirement that has created this wasteful situation? Lots more is done for much less.