Londoners buy most under 100g/km CO2 cars in UK

Ecovelocity, organisers of a ‘Green’ Motoring Event in London, concludes Londoners are the ‘Greenest’ motorists. Piffle.

Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs, as my dad might have said. Londoners are the most eco-minded car buyers in the UK.

That is the conclusion of a report released today by Ecovelocity, organisers of a ‘Dynamic Festival of Green Motoring’ planned for September 8-11th at Battersea Power station. But it’s balderdash and piffle; Ecovelocity reach a conclusion where the wish is father to the conclusion.

Let’s look at Ecovelocity’s conclusion first.

Ecovelocity concludes that Londoners are the greenest motorists in Britain because they buy the most cars with CO2 emissions below 100g/km. London postcodes dominate the list of ‘Eco’ buyers, with 28% of cars registered so far this year in the London WC postcode emitting less than 100g/km.

The list goes on with SW (including Clapham, Wimbledon and Putney), EC (City of London, Hackney and Tower Hamlets) and N (Barnet, Haringey and Enfield) the next greenest boroughs.

The completely fatuous conclusion reached by Ecovelocity is that Londoners are catching on to green motoring more quickly than the rest of the UK. Their Events Director, Giles Brown, concludes that:

It’s perhaps no surprise that drivers in London are cottoning on to green motoring quicker than anyone else – after all, the Capital boasts more charging points for electric cars than any other region of Britain and commercially-available electric cars are all city cars.

So drivers in other towns potentially have less opportunity to go green but now the rest of the UK needs to take note and understand the fundamental need to fully support the drive towards cleaner, low carbon-emitting vehicles.

We hate to burst this man’s eco-bubble, but the reason London boasts more registrations of cars with CO2 emissions below 100g/km is far more prosaic – money.

For reasons known only to polititicians, motorists are taxed on the spurious basis of the CO2 emissions of their cars in London. Anyone entering the London congestion Charging Zone in a car has to pay £10 to do so. Every day of the working week. But do so in a car with emissions of under 100g/km and there is no charge.

That’s the reason – probably the only reason – Londoners buy cars with emissions less than 100g/km. They’re not ‘Green’, they’re taxed in to doing so.

The real sadness of this is that London fails to benefit. Clean air should be the priority, not less CO2. NOx and particulates should be the concern, not how much harmless CO2 is emitted. But that’s another argument altogether.

But please. These figures show only that motorists’ behaviour has been modified by imposing a swathing tax to use the roads in London.

Nothing else.

 Sub 100g/km Car Registrations – Year to date 2011

Area	Percentage of vehicles under 100g/km CO2 registered
Channel Islands	1.5%
East Anglia	3.4%
East Midlands	3.4%
Isle of Man	1.2%
North West	2.6%
Northern	2%
Northern Ireland	1.9%
Scotland	2.2%
South East	4.3%
South West	2.7%
Wales	2.3%
West Midlands	2.9%
Yorks/Humberside	3.6%