Volvo want Boris Johnson to address the anomalies in Congestion Charging in London
To be entirely accurate, Volvo aren’t actually out to get Boris Johnson, just the ridiculous exemptions policy that exists for London Congestion charging.
At present, a wide range of Hybrid cars are exempt from congestion charging. Which does seem odd. On what basis? Because they’re flavour of the month, or because Ken – when he was in charge – wanted to polish his green halo? Hard to say, but there is no sound logic.
We’ve banged on about emissions on Hybrid and Plug-in cars. It’s not always popular, but it’s hard to escape the facts. A good efficient diesel (whatever well to wheel figures may say) in normal use – and with a normal driving style – is more economical than a hybrid. And if we’re judging cars by their emissions – as we do on VED – then it is entirely inconsistent to give exemptions to Hybrid and Electric cars, and not to low emission cars with a conventional power-plant. Of course, we should be more concerned about NOx levels in cities than CO2, but as the debate on emissions is centred on CO2 (quite wrongly, in our opinion) then there should be a level playing field.
So we understand where Volvo are coming from on this. They have a range of economical cars – the Volvo DRIVe range – but because their cars are not Hybrids or Plug-ins, owners in London have to pay £8 a day. True, if they tweaked a bit and got under 100g/km they would be exempt, but that’s not the point. There are exempt Hybrids that emit more than twice the CO2 of the Volvo S40 DRIVe – which was Green Car of the Year this year – which isn’t a Congestion Charge anomaly, it’s inexplicable.
So Cars UK are happy to support Volvo in their aim of getting a fairer Congestion Charging exemption list in place. Of course, that would mean not just fixing an emissions exemption level, but coming up with real CO2 figures for so-called zero emission electric cars – which are only actually zero emission at the point of use. You would also need to take in to account the whole life CO2 cost of battery production for Hybrids. Or ignore all the CO2 claptrap completely and come up with NOx figures for all cars.
So if you agree with Volvo you can register support at Volvo’s Emission Equality page. We have.
Mr Blobby says
I think Volvo are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot here.
All it does is highlight that basing only on CO2 is nonsense. In urban environments its NOx and PM that are much more important – something their diesels cannot live with hybrids on.
If Boris has got any sense he’ll ban diesels on basis that it costs a fortune on heathcare and keeping buildings clean…
CarsUK says
Agree with you completely, James. We would much prefer to see the congestion charge based on emissions and NOT CO2, but as CO2 seems to be the main focus of legislation at the moment we believe it is iniquitous to exempt all hybrids and not other vehicles with low CO2 levels.
But the right thing to do is set aside the CO2 argument and look at NOxand particulate emissions. But of course we would need to look at the whole picture, and in particular the cost of electricity for plug-ins and the cost of manufacture for Hybrids.
James Sutherland says
But that IS the point isn’t it? NOx is the major urban issue, as are particulate emissions. Hybrids have low CO2, low NOx (a tiny fraction in fact) and zero PM10 emissions. So they are in fact a fair bit greener than a diesel, not to mention more ecomonical in time.
CO2 is still an important issue, but you are right that it needs to be legislated on as well. Be interesting to see how much the “Eco” diesels cost when Euro 6 comes in, they will all have to slash their NOx by a huge amount and that won’t be cheap.