Honda has said it would continue to build and sell cleaner cars in the United Kingdom, despite the government’s announcement on Thursday (8 June) that it would not implement a low carbon car grants scheme.
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The automaker’s own research said 35% of people think the government is most responsible for making sure they drive cleaner cars. Asthma sufferers are even more convinced – 71% with asthma think the UK government is not doing enough to reduce traffic fumes.
Honda (UK) marketing chief Jeff Dodds said: “It will be difficult to convince motorists in this country to adopt cleaner cars without low carbon grants, but regardless, we will continue to develop today’s hybrid technology, and tomorrow’s fuel cell vehicles.
“Hopefully, at some point in the future, the British public will be given further incentives to drive cleaner cars.”
Honda’s newest low emissions vehicle, the recently launched Civic Hybrid, emits just 109g/km of CO2. The FCX, Honda’s fuel cell car, produces zero emissions and is currently in development in Japan and the USA.
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By GlobalDataThe UK government’s decision came just days after Department for Transport representative Steve Gooding told a press conference in London to launch a new PSA Peugeot Citroen diesel hybrid prototype that “specific incentives for hybrids, diesels or petrol, is something that we would approach with caution.”
He was responding to a question from just-auto asking if the UK government planned to offer incentives such as tax breaks, free parking and sole occupancy of ‘car pool lanes’ already available to hybrid drivers in the US.
Gooding said that the “main distinction we draw is through the vehicle excise duty [the UK’s annual ‘road tax’ paid by all vehicle owners] where we have differentiating bands… in a reasonably linear manner.” (The amount paid rises according to the vehicle’s CO2 output.)
Gooding added: “We are operating through some quite tight constraints at the European level and state aid rules constrain what we can do by way of providing incentives.
“We need to be active… not just thinking about a particular tax incentive or particular financial incentive for people at the point of purchase but doing what we can throughout the chain to encourage development of the vehicles, get them in the market, educate people and make clear there’s a saving to be had by buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle in the first place.”
Graeme Roberts
