Fiat has become the first manufacturer in Europe to reduce its average CO2 emissions from new cars sold to below 130g/km, six years earlier than the Europe-wide goal set by the EU.
Fiat’s average CO2 emissions from cars sold in Europe in the first half of 2009 were 129.1g/km, according to figures released by automotive advisory leader JATO.
The Italian firm was ahead of Toyota, which had average CO2 emissions of 132g/km and Peugeot, which had average emissions of 134.5g/km.
It has achieved this figure partly due to the success of its LPG-powered vehicles, of which it has sold 65,000 across Europe so far this year. The average CO2 emissions of these cars was 115.8g/km.
Lorenzo Sistino, CEO of Fiat Automobiles, said: "Improving the environment is not a goal for the future, but something we can do right away.
"New engines are being introduced – like the innovative Multiair technology on petrol engines, making them capable of guaranteeing up to 10 per cent lower CO2 emissions, and the new generation of common rail Multijet diesel engines that will make their debut on the Punto Evo and that will be gradually adopted on all of our group’s cars."
Europe's top ten manufacturers for low CO2 emissions:
1. Fiat - 129.1 g/km
2. Toyota - 132.9 g/km
3. Peugeot 134.5 g/km
4. Citroen - 138.1 g/km
5. Renault - 138.9 g/km
6. Ford - 140.4 g/km
7. Opel/Vauxhall - 149.5 g/km
8. VW - 152.5 g/km
9. Audi - 162.6 g/km
10. 178.8 g/km
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Re: Fiat emissions lowest in Europe
Yes, though Fiat are obviously doing a good job the stats are not necessarily focussing totally on the right thing. The cars themselves aren't totally responsible for the polution, it's through their use and as miecio states it's not a perfect comparison. The stats could be made more valuable by comparing average car sold within each class but even this wouldn't be totally accurate - if a customer decided to buy a smaller, premium car instead of a larger mass market car with worse pollution this downscaling would cause a postive environmental benefit which wouldn't be totally explained in class-comparison figures.
Where Fiat (500) and BMW (Mini) should be congratulated is for moving customers who would have previously bought a more polluting larger car into a smaller more efficient category. They're doing a good job of making small cars desirable.
Re: Fiat emissions lowest in Europe
Is it really such a huge achivement? Fiat sells mostly small cars like 500, punto and panda, which emit less CO2 due to their weight and engine capacity. Therefore we shouldn't compare Fiat with Ford or VW, because their best sellers are much bigger.