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Audi Tastic May 26, 2009 4:02 PM

Scrappage will have this effect anyway - the majority of the cars being bought via scrappage are at the £6 - 8k end of the market, very few £60k AMG's will be purchased via the scrappage scheme. These nearly all have lower than average emissions by virtue of small engine sizes.

It will however, only last the 3 months or so until the money runs out so only have a temporary effect anyway.

TegTypeR May 26, 2009 4:08 PM

This is an old argument, but still relevant in this case.  Why are we fixated with CO2 production within the UK only?  It is a global problem, which needs a global solution.  With what you are saying, you are still overlooking the fact that producing a new car creates CO2.  Fair enough, that production is only a small amount in the UK, but each of these "eco replacement cars" sold has created a shed load more CO2 than if "scrapped cars" had been kept running for another couple of years.

Uncle Mellow May 26, 2009 7:04 PM

Low carbon vehicles - Eco Cars - have to be attractive ownership propositions to succeed. I would never buy an electric car , any more than I would buy an electric lawnmower , but for many people doing local urban journeys the prospect of a car with low servicing requirements and less to go wrong will be attractive so long as it is affordable. Things are starting to happen in this area and this will reduce CO2 in cities.

 I am told that stockpiles of coal generate spot-fires , and China has huge stockpiles of coal to supply its power stations. Apparently the CO2 produced by coal spotfires in China exceeds the CO2 produced by motor vehicles in the USA.......

230SL May 26, 2009 8:33 PM

One of the things that perhaps people downsizing to a more economical car is the thought they might have an accident with a larger car, so what about a one percent purchase tax for every 100kgs over 1000, when you get to 1500 perhaps two percent, of course I sometimes wonder what our total emmisions are compared to a volcano, though I have always hated waste (am always daydreaming at Audi A2s in the classifieds) so I perhaps pretend to be green instead.

Will86 May 26, 2009 8:58 PM

Well said Teg! There is far more to 'global warming' than CO2. What about cows for one? They produce a fair amount of methane every day which is about 23 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Should there be a milk and beef tax? Its even worse if you have leather seats in your car! The government as we all know, pick and chose easy targets to be labelled as bad for the environment.

ordinary bloke May 26, 2009 11:00 PM

For Gordon Brown's dream of an island "populated" by nothing but electric cars at any time in the foreseeable future, never mind the time scale he's thinking of, he should have urged Tony Blair to implement the building of more nuclear power stations, and also increase funding to research into practical fusion reactors, about 12 years ago - in fact the day after he took office as PM. But since he didn't urge Tony to do anything of the sort, and doubtless wouldn't have funded it in any case, we'll never achieve any of his current targets. Why we have to go to the expense of achieving "green-ness" is beyond me - we are such a small island and our impact is so small that whatever we do won't have any appreciable longterm effect anyway.

MrTrilby May 27, 2009 2:55 PM

Teg, "It is a global problem, which needs a global solution" strikes me as a fancy way of saying I'm all right Jack, why should I bother doing something when I can make it someone else's problem. A global problem implies we should all take responsibility, rather than bury our heads in the sand and pretend our contribution doesn't matter.

You also claim "each of these replacement cars sold has created a shed load more CO2 than if scrapped cars had been kept running for another couple of years".

What are you basing that claim on? There are a range of figures bandied about for the CO2 produced during the manufacture of cars, but they all seem to suggest that the CO2 produced during manufacture is much smaller than that produced by the use of cars during their life. The SMMT seem to think that the average UK car produces 700kg of CO2 during manufacture. That's less CO2 than is produced by a Prius over a mere 5000 miles. That sounds like a strong argument in favour of scrapping old gas guzzlers in favour of something more efficient. Made even stronger if you consider that a more modern car will also be much cleaner - something that is significant on a local scale in terms of air quality in towns and cities.

www.green-car-guide.com/.../report-emissions-continue-to-fall.html

Uncle Mellow May 28, 2009 9:34 PM

My central heating produced lots of CO2 . Solution - I threw out the boiler and replaced it with a high efficiency condensing boiler . I did NOT need to demolish the house.

Why scrap cars high in CO2 when replacing the engine with a nice BMW diesel engine would do the trick , without causing so much harm ? Or , to get a government grant , use a new Ford diesel motor , made in Dagenham , England.