An interesting question that came to me the other day was whether I would pay more for a car that was not only greener in terms of emissions and used less petrol. The logic is applied to Diesel engines, you pay extra but you save on not only fuel mileage but on the slightly cheaper price of diesel fuel.
What I find the most interesting is what has recently occurred in both France and Finland:
Any vehicle that emits more than 160 g/km of carbon dioxide will be charged a tax ranging from €200 up to a maximum of €2,600 for vehicles that emit of 250 g/km. Cleaner cars that emit less than 130 g/km will get rebates starting from €200 right up to a maximum of €1,000 for cars like the diesel Smart and VW Polo BlueMotion that produce less than 100 g/km.
I find this brilliant, it’s similar to England’s “SUV tax” where large bodied, high polluting cars are taxed but in this case a bonus is given to the car buyer with a conscious.
Take the new Fiat 500, a car to be released in South Africa in 2008. The Fiat emits around 111 g/km of CO2 which means it is in line for around 700 euro bonus. For a car that costs around 12000 Euro’s, produces a smaller amount of waste and sips small amounts of petrol you’ve got a winner.
This brings me back though to the question of would I buy a greener car at a price. I think I speak for most people when I say I would like to buy a car that was greener but I’m not sure I would. Maybe it’s my inherent suspicion for new fads but what sort of different does it make for say a 130 g/km of CO2 emission vs say a 150 g/km emission? Over the lifetime of a car will it make any difference to the environment? Are we really going after the smaller polluters, such as 20 grams per kilometer of carbon dioxide emissions that a small car produces, or should we be going after big business or even cows? I guess I’d buy a car that emits less pollution purely because it generally uses less petrol.
It’ll be interesting to see how the situation pans out but in the mean time fuel efficiency seems to be the leading factor in engineering while emissions are secondary. I applaud countries like France for what they are doing with offering rebates for lower emissions. In South Africa we could really use a tactic like that with all the old cars on the road. In the future it is critical for car maker to quite simply make a plan: looks like they are trying.
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