cleangreencars.co.uk proves EU target is achievable

Many car manufacturers are saying that the proposed EU limit of 130 g/km of CO2 (gpk) is impossible to achieve by 2012 – unless the EU is prepared to decimate the European car industry.

In the most comprehensive research of its kind yet undertaken, cleangreencars.co.uk has demonstrated that the target is within reach – even with current technology. Currently, the average CO2 output of cars sold in the UK is 166 gpk. Obviously the average varies by type of car – luxury cars have a much higher average than city cars, and the German manufacturers, in particular, claim that they would have to stop manufacturing larger cars if the limit comes into force.

cleangreencars.co.uk calculated both the average CO2 figure for all classes of car currently on sale, and the average for the most efficient model range in each class. The calculation shows that if all model ranges were brought up to the level of the most efficient, the average would drop to 140.8 gpk. According to figures from BMW, the adoption of currently available technology, such as automatically switching off engines at traffic lights and alternators driven by brakes rather than engines (both standard on the 2008 Mini), will lead to a further drop of between 7% and 12% in CO2 output – enough to get to the EU target of 130 gpk.

There is no reason why manufacturers cannot follow best practice. If for example, the Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1 can all manage an average of 109 gpk, why do some model ranges of the same size have an average figure of up to 149 gpk? At the other extreme, if the Ford Galaxy range has an average of 171 gpk, why do some MPVs have a figure of well over 200 gpk?

cleangreencars.co.uk calculated the sales weighted average CO2 of every model range on sale in the UK. To take an example, the average for the BMW 5 Series took into account every version of the range, from the 523i through to the 500 bhp M5. Thus the figure was not skewed by one particular version that happened to have a good CO2 figure. The point is that if a whole range can achieve a good figure, there is no reason why every equivalent range cannot achieve a similar figure. In order to demonstrate that current technology is sufficient, we even excluded the hybrid Toyota Prius from the calculation as it could be argued that not every car could (or even should) be turned into a hybrid within five years.