MEPs Reject Automakers Demands For Watered Down CO2 Targets

In a stunning turn of events last Thursday, MEPs in the European Parliament today voted to make carmakers play a much greater role in tackling climate change and rejected car industry attempts to weaken proposed legislation on the fuel efficiency of new cars.

With an overwhelming majority, the Parliament's Environment Committee endorsed the European Commission's proposal to cut average emissions from new cars to no more than 130g grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre (gCO2/km) by 2012. Proposals to postpone the deadline to 2015 and to lower proposed penalties to be paid by car manufacturers were rejected. The Committee also said that average emissions in 2020 should be no more than 95g C02/km, subject to a review in 2014.

This is great news. The Committee has listened to the views of concerned citizens across Europe who overwhelmingly want tough action to make new cars more fuel-efficient and cut emissions. The low penalties and long deadlines the car industry wanted have been effectively trashed. Instead a new and overdue target of 95g Co2/km by 2020 has been agreed.

According to the Guardian, the CO2 emissions of cars make up about 14% of such emissions in Europe. The commission proposals are a key part of the overall climate-change package to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 - proposals that need to be turned into law by the end of the year if the EU is to maintain its credibility as a world leader in the fight against global warming. The overall package has to be agreed by the commission, the parliament and the 27 EU governments, meaning there is now likely to be a showdown between Berlin and the parliament before Christmas.

The car industry must now focus its efforts on driving down emissions rather than self-interested lobbying.

Jaguar and Land Rover Sales Down as Buyers Seek Efficient Cars

This news comes from ETA:

Fewer cars were sold in the month of August than at any time since 1966. The drop in sales has been especially hard on British-made luxury brands such as Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover.

This time of year has traditionally been a strong time for new car sales because new registration plates were issued, but despite the fact the plates are now released in March and September and there is no longer a guaranteed peak in August, this year’s figures are particularly bad; overall sales are down 18.7 per cent on 2007.

Toyota and Land Rover have announced production cutbacks because of falls in orders and Britain’s automotive industry, which employs 815,000, is urging the government to drop interest rates to stimulate the market.

A spokesperson for the Environmental transport Association (ETA) said: “In the current economic conditions it’s quite understandable that people are unwilling to buy new cars, but it is the heavier, thirstier cars that are suffering particularly badly – smaller, greener, more frugal models are continuing to sell.”

The revised rates of emissions-based vehicle excise duty (road tax) has further harmed sales of larger, fuel inefficient cars.

To find the greenest cars, try the ETA's Car Buyers Guide

Car Makers Cancelling New 4x4 Models

In the wake of the economic downturn, consumer demand for new cars is falling. As a consequence, car makers across the USA and Europe are canceling or postponing plans to introduce new car models, including 4x4s.

According to Automotive News Europe, Renault, Opel and BMW are among car companies stopping or delaying planned new models due to difficult economic conditions. Most notably, BMW has axed its planned X7 premium 4x4. The model was to be aimed at rivals such as the Land Rover Range Rover.

Besides saving on product development, some European carmakers are also cutting production and revising down their unit sales and profit forecasts for 2008.

Here is a summary of new models being axed or delayed:
* Renault Espace, Megane crossover, Vel Satis replacements
* Opel/Vauxhall flagship, small SUV
* BMW X7
* Volvo C30 variants

Chelsea Tractors Worth More as Scrap Metal

Rising fuel prices are helping to secure the fate of 4x4s as a hugely undesirable car for the future.

A recent article in the Daily Mail reported that car dealers are refusing to take gas-guzzling 4x4s as a trade in towards new car purchases as the values for secondhand cars fall.

According to the article, 'There is no appetite at present for thirsty 4x4s that would typically cost £100 or more to fill up with petrol as fuel prices continue to soar, and become liable for more than £450 a year in vehicle excise duty by 2010 for models currently two years old.'

As the chart above shows, second-hand prices are expected to fall by 12% by Christmas.

'The one bright spark was with 'green' or alternatively-fueled vehicles, where sales rose 19.4 per cent last month.'

Damon Hill and the New Tesla Sportscar

Today I caught up with Damon Hill as he was driving a black Tesla Roadster around London for the Greenfleet fuel challenge. The model is based on the Lotus Elise, and is in fact assembled by Lotus for Tesla in the UK.

Q: Good morning Damon. Can you tell us a bit about the Tesla, and what you think about it so far?

DH: Well, it's a sports car. It's designed on the model of a small sports car, so I think they're [Tesla] trying to say that, just because it's got an electric motor doesn't mean it can't be fun. I think that's very important to explain to people that this isn't some sort of puritanical kind of attempt to spoil everyone's enjoyment of the car....because those people love cars in their various forms, but we have to be able to make them accept the challenge that we need to try to make the world a better place and pollute less.

Q: Right. And how about performance?

DH: Well so far so good. I haven't really had a chance to take it out yet. I'm going to be driving around London as well, so the objective here is to see how efficient it is here, certainly on an urban cycle.

Q: Just practically, it gets 250 miles per charge, takes 3 hours to charge up, 0-60 in 4 seconds. How's that compare to, like a Porsche Carrera or something?

DH: I think you've probably got a ways to go as far as comparing performance to those sort of cars, but you could also ask, well, why do we need cars that perform like that on the road. I mean, the whole thing is an issue, and it's a question and I think by and large, it's pointless having a vehicle that can do 200 miles an hour if you're going to drive from Newham to London.

Q: So it's a nice way to..say your a business executive or a trader, you can still have a fun car but still, you know, flash around London

DH: I think it's about trying to be intelligent about it. I mean I don't think anyone wants to spoil anyone's fun, but we have to be a bit more intelligent I think about things because the message is quite clear that we can't keep on going like this.

For anyone interested, special edition models are still available for £79k

Get Lost Porsche - Make Room for the New Sports Cars

Move over Porsche.

The futuristic sports cars for the 21st Century are being developed by Tesla, RiverSimple, and now, the Lightning Motor Company.

According to reports, "the Electric Lightning GT appears to have everything an ecoconscious lover of British sports cars could want: a luxury interior, a top speed of 130mph and acceleration that would put a Porsche to shame." The Lightning GT will accelerate from 0-60mph in four seconds and will be able to travel up to 200 miles on a single battery charge.

They replaced the fuel tank, engine and transmission system found in standard vehicles with an electric motor inside each wheel. There is no gear stick, axle or drive shaft. "All of the power is generated at the wheel, the point at which it's required, which eliminates mechanical complexity and power losses experienced in standard sports cars," the company says.

The new prototype car will be unveiled at the British Motor Show in July.

Is the Car Industry Headed in the Right Direction?

I came across an interesting article by Iain Carson in the Guardian. He argues that "manufacturers will only deliver improvements when they are forced to."

Giving us a brief history lesson, he cites that "One hundred years ago this October Henry Ford's Model T launched the mass motor industry. Simple and rugged enough for country tracks, it was also the world's first flex-fuel vehicle. Its engine could runon petrol or ethanol; Ford thought that farmers might prefer to make their own fuel from corn. In fact it was already as economical with either fuel as the average American car today."

"Until the Model T, nine out of 10 cars were electric. Gasoline-powered vehicles came to dominate as oil was found in Texas, and the battery-powered starter motor made internal combustion cars easier and safer to start, without dangerous backfires. Now the car industry looks set for another revolution."

"The most hopeful sign across the board is that the car industry, led by Toyota, has realised that it is in its own interest to develop alternative technologies that really work to cut carbon emissions. Toyota has sold a million of its conventional petrol-electric hybrid cars, and other manufacturers are piling in with their versions. GM [recently] reaffirmed bringing to market its Volt plug-in hybrid in 2010 - and said it might ditch its gas-guzzling Hummers."

"The Volt is an example of the latest twist in the hybrid - it can be plugged into the mains overnight, and equipped with a battery that can provide a range greater than 30 miles; the petrol engine is only a stand-by if the battery runs down. Battery-powered vehicles, even if the electricity comes from coal-fired power stations, are more energy efficient than internal combustion engines; if the electricity comes from nuclear or renewables, there is no carbon emission at all."

"Beyond the plug-in hybrid or battery-only car being developed by Renault and others, there is the fuel-cell electric vehicle, running on hydrogen and emitting only water vapour from its exhaust pipe. Makers such as Toyota, Honda and Mercedes believe that the car of the future will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells within 20 years, and costs are coming down as parts suppliers develop mass production techniques."

"Oil and energy companies are working with Mercedes and others to create a "hydrogen highway" carving through Germany from north to south. The European commission and the German government are putting about a billion euros into developing the network. Even if making hydrogen consumes electricity, the fuel cell is still more efficient than internal combustion engines."

"No one can be sure if electric cars, biofuels or hydrogen power are the answer to cutting emissions. What seems to be happening is that these different technologies are competing with each other to improve the carbon footprint of road transport. The tougher the rules, the harder car companies will work to find alternatives. And high petrol prices are already changing US motorists: in March they drove about 10% less than a year earlier, and sales of gas-guzzling SUVs have tumbled. Meanwhile, even if oil eases back to around $100 a barrel, the days of cheap motoring are over."

Alliance Wins Legal Challenge: Car Billboard Ads to Show Climate Impact

Car adverts on billboards and in magazines will now be emblazoned with the car’s climate impacts, after the Government yesterday agreed to change its advertising guidelines in response to the threat of legal proceedings by the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s.

The fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of vehicle will now have to be prominently displayed, arming consumers with the information they need to choose a greener vehicle – and one that needs to be filled up with fuel less often.

The Department for Transport admitted that it had been wrongly interpreting an EU Directive on car advertising, which says that fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions information must be prominently provided in all promotional literature. The Government has until now exempted ‘primarily graphical’ adverts from the law with the effect that most billboard adverts did not include information about the car’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The announcement came in response to a legal letter to the Department for Transport from Friends of the Earth’s Rights & Justice Centre acting for the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s. We wrote to the DfT in March to point out that the UK wasn’t abiding with EU law and warned the Government that they would issue Judicial Review proceedings if the guidance was not changed.

From now on, it won’t be enough to woo consumers with a sleek and sexy image of a car in billboard ads – car advertisers will need to give real and readable facts about the car’s fuel economy and environmental impact. With rising fuel costs and a growing awareness about climate change, this information is crucially important for people to make greener and cheaper choices of vehicle.

In order to cut emissions from cars, we need both strong regulation on advertising and also strong regulation that forces car manufacturers to make more efficient cars. Today’s change in the advertising rules will help encourage car-makers to build more efficient vehicles, something they have so far been very slow to do.

Phil Michaels, Head of Legal at Friends of the Earth said:
“Until now allowed the UK was getting away with flouting EU legislation on car advertising – but our legal action has closed the loophole.

“Consumers have a right to meaningful information about how much carbon dioxide a car emits and how much fuel it guzzles, so they can choose to buy a car that will be greener and cheaper to run. We will be watching carefully to make sure that the law is now properly enforced.”

See the cars and CO2 campaign website here: http://www.advertiseCO2.co.uk

New Health Warnings on Car Ads

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies and the EU Environmental Committee have started a move that may see 20% of all car ads covered with health warnings similar to the one pictured.

According to Mr. Davies, "I want to encourage a shift in consumer behaviour which will communicate to car manufacturers in a financial way that it's in their interests to reduce emissions. Manufacturers of high emission cars hate this idea."

Londoners can attest to the anger of car manufacturers when they hate an idea; Porsche recently ran an all out PR battle to have Ken Livingstone defeated when he threatened to charge their beloved gas guzzlers up to £25 per day.

Promotional material including magazines, newspapers and billboards posters for new cars must currently include CO2 and fuel consumption information, although many car manufacturers fail to comply. The European Commission is now being urged not only to enforce the existing regulations but also to extend the rules to cover television, radio and internet.

The End of Cheap Oil

Today I received an email about how to protest the rising price of oil in the UK. In case you haven't noticed (or just don't drive), the recent price of petrol is up to near £1.30 per litre

I read the email suggesting that motorists boycott Esso and BP garages and realised that the sender didn't really get it, as probably most drivers don't.. the era of cheap oil is over.

Now, we do sympathetically agree that the Big Oil companies are making ludicrous profits. However, the rising cost of oil is a good thing, as it will force us to transition to a non-carbon society.

It's not rocket science: oil is becoming more expensive because consumer demand is outstripping the available supply. And the oil that is left in the ground is harder, more expensive, and more polluting to extract.

Should Greens Demand Higher Petrol Prices?

Often the green movement and transport NGOs lobby for higher petrol prices. They argue that the escalating prices at the gas pump will decrease car usage. Witness the reaction by Greenpeace in light of the petrol protests by the hauliers in 2003. They held reactive protests asking the government for higher petrol prices.

In the USA, where the price at the pump is rising, consumers are now turning their backs on large SUVs and demanding new hybrid and cross-over models. You could thus argue that the higher prices are a good thing, and should be used by central government as a blunt instrument for change in the transport sector.

However, a recent article in the Financial Times came across our desk. According to the article, the rising cost of oil has wiped out the benefits many African countries were expecting from western aid and debt relief over the past three years, according to new research by the International Energy Agency.

They reported: "Surveying 13 non-oil-producing African countries, including South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Senegal, the IEA found that the increase in the cost of oil bought by the countries since 2004 was equivalent to 3 per cent of combined GDP. This was more than the sum of debt relief and aid received over the past three years by the countries, which have a combined population of 270m, of whom 104m live on less than $1 a day."

So, the increase in oil prices in the markets is having a much wider effect beyond the pumps. The rise has real social effects around the world.

The higher prices also stimulate an uncontrolled international gold rush towards mining ‘unconventional oil’ from dangerously toxic projects including tar sands and coal-to-liquid extractions as well as new policies promoting biofuels, which have the disastrous effect of hitting the poor much harder (food scarcity, higher food prices) than they hit us.

Therefore, pushing for low carbon cars is one of the most important measures we can take to manage oil consumption and help bring oil prices down again.

Are Diesel and LPG 4x4s Better or Worse for our Cities?

We get a lot of complaints from disgruntled owners of large urban luxury 4x4s who drive diesel models or who have converted their old Landie to LPG.

Diesel cars in general burn 'hotter' and so are more 'fuel efficient'. They also emit less CO2. So, should we be congratulating drivers for 'going green' by buying diesel and using LPG?

Well, our friend Simon Birkett over at the Campaign for Clean Air has informed us that diesel engines should be replaced in general by petrol or LPG in cities and that diesel vehicles should be priced out of London. The reason? Diesel vehicles produce up to 3 times as much air pollution.

And while LPG generally produces less CO2 and other air pollutants than petrol models, the benefits aren't that clear cut. This week the Department for Transport released a report that compares petrol engines and LPG. The study shows that some car models produce twice as much NOx on LPG as they do with petrol. So, some vehicles are better and some are worse in this regard.

Also, the lack of refuelling stations for LPG means driving further may offset the inherent CO2 benefit.

Thinking about converting your vehicle to CNG (compressed natural gas)? It appears that it's not an alternative vehicle fuel to consider because it tends to leak and blow-up!

Bio Fuels - Climate Solution or 'Deforestation Diesel'?

There has been a lot in the news recently about biofuels. The UK government, as part of their Climate Change Action plan, want to see up to 5% biofuel mixes as mandatory by 2010. This will, they say, reduce our CO2 emissions from the transport sector.

Quite rightly, the Secretary of State for Transport, Douglas Alexander, in a speech to an IPPR audience, cautioned that the biofuels must come from a sustainable source. But is there a sustainable source? And can we, let alone the world, provide a 5-10% biofuel crop in a way that is sustainable?

Already the price of corn has shot up in the US, due to the new push for ethanol. This has led to food riots in Mexico where people can not afford the higher price for their maize. George Monbiot called last week for an immediate moratorium on biofuels until more research is carried out. He warns that biofuels are a recipe for a humanitarian and environmental disaster.

And even the oil companies are saying that we can not meet targets to bring 5% biofuel to the UK forecourts without endangering wildlife.

So are biofuels a magic bullet to reduce our carbon footprint? Consider this:

* The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required would feed a hungry African village for a year

* Much of the fuel that Europeans use will be imported from Brazil, where the Amazon is being burned to plant more sugar and soybeans, and Southeast Asia, where oil palm plantations are destroying the rainforest habitat of orangutans and many other species. Species are dying for our driving

*The expansion of biofuels would increase monoculture farming

*If ethanol is imported from the US, it will likely come from maize, which uses fossil fuels at every stage in the production process, from cultivation using fertilisers and tractors to processing and transportation. Growing maize appears to use 30% more energy than the finished fuel produces, and leaves eroded soils and polluted waters behind

* Meeting the 5.75% target would require, according to one authoritative study, a quarter of the EU's arable land

* Using ethanol rather than petrol reduces total emissions of carbon dioxide by only about 13% because of the pollution caused by the production process, and because ethanol gets only about 70% of the mileage of petrol

* Food prices are already increasing. With just 10% of the world's sugar harvest being converted to ethanol, the price of sugar has doubled; the price of palm oil has increased 15% over the past year, with a further 25% gain expected next year.