Paul Barker's blog: 5 December - A mission to make emissions more real-world

Date: 05 December 2014   |   Author:

We've got to the point with our own long-term fleet that we expect to be in the region of the urban economy figure, and any fleet of a decent size will have its own method and evidence, or taken advantage of the latest fleet telematics software, which can in some cases even go as far as to plot fuel economy against a nationwide basket.

Then there's the worry about what new CO2 figures for every car on sale will do to benefit-in-kind tax bands. There are a series of currently unanswered questions about how the new CO2 figures, which are certain to be higher, will be implemented, and whether, for example, BIK bands will move upwards with them to avoid company car drivers being hit with massive monthly increases.

And that's assuming all cars, across petrol, diesel and hybrid, move by the same amount - which in my opinion is unlikely because the current test is perceived by some to favour hybrids. This means we'll need a lengthy transition from old to new, or potentially running both side by side, to avoid unfairly penalising drivers for decisions made under regulations that will have been superseded.

This story has a way to go before the industry has the clarity it needs on which to base buying decisions for more than a million cars per year.

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