Car emissions scandal: The next chapter

Mercedes has once again topped the list of Europe’s car fuel economy cheats, according to a report by transport lobby group T&E. The worst offenders are the Mercedes A and E class which guzzle an average of 56 per cent more fuel on the road than is claimed in the sales brochure.

Car emissions scandal

Fuel efficiency tests are carried out in laboratories and prone to extensive manipulation, but the researchers found that even when they took into account all test loopholes, as well as those clean technologies that perform better in the lab than on the road, it proved impossible to explain fuel efficiency gaps higher than 50 per cent. This raises the question of whether Mercedes, like Audi, is detecting when the car is being tested and artificially lowering the emissions during the test.

Most car brands have an average gap higher than 40 per cent: Peugeot (45%), Toyota (43%) and Volkswagen (40%) - with the notable exception is Fiat (35%). All this means that a typical driver spends over £400 in additional fuel costs over the course of a year compared to what is stated in sales materials.

Greg Archer of T&E said: “There has been no improvement in the average efficiency of new cars on the road for four years because carmakers manipulate tests to achieve their CO2 targets instead of designing the car to be efficient on the road. As a result, drivers are being tricked and forced to buy more fuel; governments defrauded of tax revenues; and climate targets undermined. More than a year after the Dieselgate broke, we urge regulators in Berlin and the European Commission to get to the bottom of this.”

Cars are responsible for 15 per cent of Europe’s total CO2 emissions and are the single largest source of emissions in the transport sector. VW might have been exposed over its use of cheating devices, but the car emissions scandal is far from over.

Ethical insurance

The ETA has been voted the most ethical insurance company in Britain for the second year running by the Good Shopping Guide.

Beating household-name insurance companies such as John Lewis and the Co-op, the ETA earned an ethical company index score of 89.

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Twenty six years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.