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Official industry CO2 figures will be challenged from next year when new telematics technology will be able calculate the exact amount of carbon dioxide emitted by each car.
The impact of a driver on a firm's carbon footprint will be revealed with lease firm ALD Automotive's latest ProFleet2 telematics system, allowing fleet managers to measure exactly how fuel-efficient their drivers really are.
From next autumn, ALD's remote diagnostics system will be upgraded to send more information from the car's electronic brain, including fuel used. That's then translated to a CO2 figure.
The upgrade should also let ALD identify fault codes on the car's computer, and potentially fix the problem via the computer equivalent of a text message.
"Cars are mobile servers. They transmit huge amounts of data," said ALD fleet management controller Rhys Harrhy. "Now 25% of components are electronic, by 2010 it'll be 40%."
Around 46,000 of ALD's ProFleet cars are fitted with a special transmitter that plugs into the car's diagnostic port and relays information back to ALD, and onto the driver and fleet manager. The car records and sends details such as mileage, speeds and idling time.
The new tech will be backed by a rating scheme to let fleet managers identify drivers who speed, over-rev the engine or drive inefficiently.
The CO2 reader could expose the discrepancy between official figures - used for BIK tax - and the real world. "If a frugal driver finds he's in the next band down, he could potentially argue for lesser tax," said Harrhy.
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