T&E's report on why basing new car CO2 standards on vehicle weight would be counterproductive has been updated.
In this briefing, T&E explains that using vehicle weight as the attribute to base car CO2 standards on has serious negative consequences for safety, emissions and costs. Weight-based CO2 standards in America have led to weight increases of 13 to 28 per cent. And contrary to the conventional wisdom, Japanese weight-based fuel economy standards failed to break the trend towards heavier vehicles.
Furthermore, T&E argues that the car’s ‘footprint’ (track width multiplied by wheelbase), as used in the definition of new American light truck fuel economy standards, is the best available alternative car attribute.
The best solution overall, however, is to apply the same CO2 standard to all cars.
The decision to create a Europe-wide carbon price was right but creates significant political risk. The good news is it can still be fixed.
It's about time the EU requires parts of key products to be made locally – and nowhere is this more urgent than in the battery sector.
Interactive dashboard: which countries have the greenest tax systems?
Yearly publication analysing and comparing the car taxation systems across 31 countries in Europe.