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The start point for the best source of fleet information |
The Conservative Party should have paid a bit more attention when launching a new green website.
In the dash to be seen as the greenest party on (and for) the planet at their respective recent annual conferences, one or two of the big three political parties have, unfortunately, played very fast and loose with the odd fact along the way.
However, this is not a story about spin, but fact checking.
I was particularly amused by one item of news, generated by the Conservatives themselves, during their debate last week on the environment. No less than the Shadow Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was trumpeting a new website - www.howgreenisyourcar.co.uk - that contains environmental information about every car currently on sale in the UK. Grayling claimed it "contains the league tables that the Government will not publish".
He went on: "I discovered a few weeks ago that the Government had asked the Energy Saving Trust to produce a set of green car league tables. To my amazement I was told that ministers had refused to publish that information. So, as part of our green cars strategy, we're going to do it ourselves."
The press release closes by saying: "It is hoped that the site will become a must visit location for people looking to find out more about cars and the environment."
Being interested in cars and the environment I decided I must visit the "must visit" site and found some curious stats. Click on the 'CO2 lifestyles' button on the opening page and choose a category, and if you're a CO2 stat nerd like me you might be surprised.
The 'Vauxhall Zafira' (model and engine unspecified) is apparently the least-polluting 'multi-purpose' car with a superb 119g/km CO2 figure, although Vauxhall itself quotes its best engine on that model only managing 165g/km, and it's worst at well over 200g/km.
In the 'luxury saloon' category, the Jag XJ is listed at the top of the tree with an astounding 152g/km figure (it must be all that aluminium). The best 'specialist sports' vehicle - for all those die-hard Tories who want to live the Cameron dream where fast cars can be ecologically sound - is that well-known sports car, the Honda Insight, with 80g/km, a figure which is at least accurate for when it was still being sold - the last one registered in the UK was in 2005.
Funnier still, hot on its heels of the Insight in the 'specialist sports' section is the 'eco roadster manufacturer' Morgan. 'All models', says the site, offer an incredible Honda Civic hybrid-matching 109g/km rating, despite the Aero 8 version featuring the BMW X5's massive 4.4 V8 petrol engine under the bonnet.
“No wonder Cameron thinks the Tories will be able to get new car CO2 down to 100g/km by 2020 - according to their new website many of the cars are almost there already.” |
How does Morgan do it? It doesn't, of course - according to the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), who works with the carmakers to ensure independent CO2 and fuel consumption testing for Type Approval to sell the cars into the UK in the first place, Morgan's figures range from 164g/km to almost 300g/km.
I suspect the Government will be pretty pleased it didn't publish these league tables.
A quick call to the Tory party's (new) Transport PR revealed that she did not know where the website figures came from, but she quickly rang back to say the figures were VOSA's (the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency), so if indeed they were inaccurate, the Tories, in effect, could not be to blame.
Calling VOSA revealed that VOSA doesn't generate any CO2 figures itself. Despite doing some roadside emissions testing, they leave the CO2-crunching to the VCA - who didn't know anything about the site either. Oh and the Energy Savings Trust - who were mentioned in Grayling's original quote above - were also none the wiser, although they did have a chat about "league tables" with the Government earlier in the year.
Maybe a work experience inputter at Tory HQ with a boredom threshold is to blame? After all, some figures - notably for the Mercedes B-class - are right on the money. for one model at least.
Of course, it's not all bad. Some bits link to some useful other sites with solid info, and no-one is exempt from the odd error - data can be a bitch to handle.
But to launch howgreenisyourcar.co.uk so full of inaccuracies, over-simplifications and vagueness suggests a slap-dash approach to Tory eco transport policy that should worry all of us if they get into power.
No wonder Cameron thinks he'll be able to get new car CO2 emissions down to 100g/km by 2020 - according to his party's new website, many of the cars are almost there already.
NB If anyone's listening at Conservative HQ the VCA's website might be worth a look.
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