Jaguar Land Rover is lagging behind the rest of the car industry when it comes to reducing pollution and is the manufacturer most likely to face huge fines for failing to hit tough new environmental targets….
The problem being that it doesn’t make small cars. The targets are for the fleet average. So, a manufacturer that outs out small cars can also make 5 litre beasts. A manufacturer that only makes 3 litre cars can’t average down. Which is the insanity of the target but then that’s what happens when politics tries to manage such things. You get idiot regulations.
Assuming that it is actually desired to limit engine size – assuming, so no shouting that it’s not needed or desired – the correct answer is something like what Portugal does. A tax upon registration of a vehicle, a tax which rises with engine size.
Making it possible for large companies to make gas guzzlers but not small is simple idiocy.
The solution is for JLR to buy a microcar manufacturer like Aixam.
Only if there are millions upon millions sold
The UK car tax is higher for bigger engines and then also an extra tax on “luxury” cars (over £40k I think)… The extra tax is every year too so keeps on punishing high emissions…
It was the fleet average emissions rules that lead to Aston Martin producing the Cygnet (rebadged Toyota IQ.). That didn’t work out well for them:
“The Cygnet has been the second shortest running production car in the history of Aston Martin after the 2012 Aston Martin Virage, which was only produced for a year. The Cygnet was cancelled due to disastrously low sales, with the car reaching only 150 units in the UK (approximately 300 in total) rather than its annual target of 4000”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_iQ#Aston_Martin_Cygnet
@BIC
UK car tax for cars registered after March 2017 is £150pa regardless of engine size/official CO2 output from year 2 onwards. There’s a £10 reduction if it’s “alternative fuel” (hybrid/plug-in hybrid/LPG/CNG) and a £320 “Luxury” premium in addition to the regular tax for anything whose list price is over £40k. The premium is payable in years 2-6. That’s list price, not what is actually paid. For cars with 0g/km official CO2s (i.e. pure battery-electric and hydrogen) the rate is £0 regardless of list price. In the first year the “showroom tax” is based on official CO2s. So the larger engine/luxury taxes both apply but never at the same time.
Note that while the £150/£320 rates are going up every year because of inflation, there is apparently no inflation in list prices because the £40k is the same as it was in 2017. So is the £10 reduction for alt-fuel. Funny that.
For cars registered between 2001 and 2017 there is banding based on official CO2 emissions. But HMG were not raking in enough money on that system because car manufacturers discovered that gaming the New European Driving Cycle was way too easy. WLTP is only marginally more difficult.
You have to go back to cars registered in early 2001 or before to get tax bands based on engine size, apart from grey imports that do not have a homologated EU equivalent (most commonly Japanese and American domestic models).
Yes, I had that model in mind when scribbling the post. Didn’t use it, well, just because.
The solution is for JLR to buy a microcar manufacturer like Aixam.
Not sure if that’d be a wise move. They sell ’em here but, unlike the French version with it’s pokey 350cc motor the Dago model steals a 50cc two-stroke from a moped. So recognisable by it’s deafening high pitched rattle under acceleration & belching clouds of smoke. They put out more CO2 & particulates than a Scania.
Here in P the advantage of an Aixam is that it’s not a car. Lower taxes and registration etc. So, if it’s not a car then it won’t count against car fleet numbers.
Well, assuming law is that integrated of course….
All of this shit is heading to car grabbing and us plebs back on Shanks.
So entire motor industry needs to stand together. And set its own standards for car emissions and MOTs etc. Every way the state could hassle car owners. They then inform the state those are the standards for good now and they can fuck off with their fiddling. They need to make public that they know the eco-freaks plans and that they will defend their industry. Ask the public to turn out and put fists in coppers faces if needed.
It would be great if oil companies would join in and set a very low fuel tax rate and say to the state–“this is it-all you are stealing–accept this or its nothing”. I am sure they have been too long up the state’s arse however.
Might mean we’re going to get (more?) Tatas sold in UK . That said they look awfully a lot like toyotas so might not be allowed.
Engine size isn’t only what drives emissions etc. I use a 1300 car that achieves at best about 12 mpg. Mind, that when racing it….
Sell the car without engine. No emissions. Simple.
Then provide an after-sales engine install business.
The extra cost of the later install more than saved in the tax not applicable for zero-emissions sales. (I had a complete engine rebuild done for around £2k, so a pruductionm, with newly assembled parts should be half that labour, or less: no remove, no disassemble,no repair. Just install as you did before, but in a different shed, with a different logo on the gate.)
Dear Mr Worstall
Taxes on the car itself work out higher per mile for fewer annual miles – incentive: drive more.
How a car is driven affects miles per gallon significantly.
How a car is maintained affects miles per gallon significantly.
If the objective is to reduce emmissions, a tax on the fuel is all that is required.
DP
‘Jaguar Land Rover facing fines as it lags behind in pollution reduction
Britain’s biggest carmaker has the widest gap to close in reducing CO2 emissions, according to one campaign group’
By Alan Tovey, Pollution Exhaler
You’ve got to be dumber than a red brick to think that CO2 is pollution. Tovey is a tool.
“If the objective is to reduce emmissions, a tax on the fuel is all that is required.”
Pls, DP, don’t suck up to Timmer.