I am sure that everyone will be getting all over excited by the world's first diesel plug-in hybrid, the Volvo V60 D6 AWD.
That’s because it does remarkable things, in Pure mode the car is powered solely by its electric motor as much as possible.
If the battery pack has been recharged with electricity from renewable sources, its range is up to 31 miles with no carbon dioxide emissions from the tailpipe. When dieseling along its CO2 emissions (NEDC, mixed driving cycle for certification) are just 48g/km, and it has a total range of up to 560 miles.
When working together the diesel engine and electric motor have a total power output of 285bhp and maximum torque of 640Nm. The electric motor's lightning-quick torque delivery contributes to the car's acceleration from 0 to 62mph in 6.1 seconds.
All this comes at a price of course. Except that the price is being subsidised by you and me. The government's Plug-In Car Grant (PICG) donates £5000, so the bottom line price is £43,775 on the road. Why? A car that is successful doesn’t need this help. Volvo admits that it has sold its initial allocation of 1000 worldwide.
So we give £5000 to a foreign car company rather than, say, spending it on home soil. I could glibly suggest mending the roads near me with it, but surely we could loan it to some clever engineers.They could develop and invent the next big British transportation thing. That’s what needs subsidising.
Unless you have any better idea about how to spend those daft eco subs…
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Eco subsidies are stupid?
No. I don't think so.
Maybe the scheme isn't a bad one?
The government has a clean conscience because the subsidy lets everyone know that it is trying to promote cleaner and more efficient transport, so the box is ticked. And like the scrappage scheme, it doesn't actually cost the taxpayer anything because it's offset by the VAT payment on the car sold.
Right now most low emission cars are too expensive to produce to become mass market and make a significant difference to the global fleet. So I don't think the govenment subsidy is necessarily a bad thing. The fact that mainly foreign companies are exploiting it is a separate issue but an inevitable one given that there are no significant British owned manufacturers remaining.
And let's not forget that cars like the Volvo V60 D6 may not exist were it not for similar subsidies in other countries which have encouraged the manufacturer to produce it.
Yes we do need them, here is why....
The car industry relies on branding to sell cars. Those brands are associated with certain things, eg speed, performance etc. The public at large is heavily influenced by the brands and key messages that they bring - eg they will buy the bottom of the range BMW due to its association with the top of the range M5. Equally and speaking generally other influences are driven by things such as celebrity and their association with a product. It seems to me that in addition to this there is still a head in the sand attitude to energy in the ground (oil) and needed need to conserve it by using other forms of energy, such as sustainable ones.
Until the buying public have demonstrated by their car buying choice actions that they understand this, subsidies are very necessary to influence choices made in showrooms. Examples of this include those for plug-in and charging points.
There are cars on the market already that are headed in the right direction but more investment is needed. There are also vehicles on the market that are obscenely fast which are being preferred to those with very clever and expensive technology to conserve fuel, but are being ignored because a certain TV car show host has labelled them as 'uncool'. Change will only ever be gradual but we have to make it. What we value is important