New rules on carbon dioxide emissions from cars

More regulations from Brussels are to affect our drivers. Stavros Dimas, the European Environment Commissioner, is proposing new emissions limits for new cars from the year 2012.An announcement will be made on 24 Jan 07.

European makers signed a voluntary agreement in 1998 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25% over a ten-year period, to an industry average of 140 gms of carbon dioxide per kilometre.

They will not meet that target. So far it's gone from 186 to 162gm/km in 9 years, an improvement of about 3 gm/km per year.

The new limit would require car makers to reduce the average carbon dioxide emissions across the range of cars they sell to 120 grams per kilometre in 2012.

In 2005, 97% of cars exceeded this figure, including ordinary family cars. This means that more price rises are on the way for motorists and car manufacturers.

You can get a good idea of the carbon dioxide emission of a car from the miles per gallon. More than 60 miles per gallon and your vehicle probably meets the limit.

Figures for some cars, in grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, from various car and environment websites, are shown below. Those marked with an asterisk are my estimates based on fuel consumption or carbon dioxide emission and may be out by 2-3 percent.

PETROL
CO₂ mpg
374...20* Range Rover
324* 21 Audi S4 Avant
324...21* BMW X5
313* 24 Nissan 3502 Roadster
213* 32 BMW Mini Cooper
200* 34 Nissan Versa
200* 34 Hyundai Sonata
184...37 Ford Focus five-door
179* 38 Honda Fit
174* 39 Toyota Yaris
136* 50 VW Fox supermini
136* 50 Fiat Panda
133* 51 Honda Civic

118 56.5 Daihatsu Sirion
116 57.6 Smart Roadster
115 58.8 Vauxhall Corsa
114 58.9 Daihatsu Charade
113 60.1 Smart Fortwo
107 61.3 Peugot 107
109 61.4 Honda Civic Hybrid
109 61.4 Citroen C1
109 61.4 Toyota Aygo
104 65.7 Toyota Prius (petrol-electric)

DIESEL
CO₂ mpg
250* 30.0 Ford Ranger Thunder
183* 41.0 Audi A4 Cabriolet
134* 56.0 Peugot 407

120.. 62.7 Peugot 206
120.. 62.7 Peugot 207
119.. 62.8 Ford Fiesta 1399cc
116.. 64.2 Ford Fiesta 1560cc
115.. 65.6 Vauxhall Corsa
113.. 65.7 Citroen C2
109 ..68.9 Citroen C1
109 ..68.9 Toyota Aygo

ND COMMENT:
Penalising car manufacturers when China is commissioning a new CO₂-emitting power station every week for the next 20 years? Seems odd to me.



More official figures found since writing this page:
Fiat Panda 127g/km, Renault Clio 139g/km, VW Golf 163g/km, BMW-330 174g/km, Ford Mondeo 182g/km, Merc-E320 202g/km, Porsche 911 Carrera 266g/km, Range Rover 4.0 389g/km. My estimates are quite close, and the figures are approximate anyway.

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