Press releases

Car drivers “clueless” on CO2

There’s no doubt about it. New cars are becoming increasingly cleaner and less environmentally damaging than ever before.

Many of today’s cars produces one twentieth of the emissions of older cars made without catalytic converters.
But when it comes right down to it, do modern motorists have any idea about the real levels of CO2 emissions from their motors?

Can they tell the difference between what a Ferrari blasts out into the atmosphere set against the emissions of a relatively humble Peugeot 307?

In most cases, according to a major new nationwide emissions survey by breakdown service Autonational Rescue, the answer is a resounding.

NO, sorry we CAN’T!

In fact, it has to be said, the survey shows that most car drivers are pretty clueless on emissions.

Drivers were asked if they could tell the difference between particular models of six vehicles chosen to represent the spectrum of CO2 emissions, namely:

• Suzuki Wagon R,
• Chrysler Voyager,
• Jaguar S-Type,
• Land Rover Defender,
• Ferrari Modena,
• Peugeot 307.

Autonational Rescue’s marketing manager Ronan Hart explained: “We asked motorists across the UK to match up the CO2 emission figures – from 129 right up to 440 – with six individual cars.

“And in every single case, even with the poor performing Ferrari (at least in terms of CO2 emissions) most people got it hopelessly wrong.”

In total, just one per cent of motorists got all six possible answers correct.

While 7% guessed correctly on four cars and 32% got just one car’s emissions’ right.

But approaching a quarter of all motorists failed to guess a single answer correctly!

Britain’s motorists were ‘most successful’ with the answer for the 2005 Ferrari 360 Modena - with 40% of all motorists guessing the right 440 high level of emissions for that car.

But even that answer - for the worst performing car included in the survey -- meant that 60% of all motorists still got it wrong.

Added Ronan Hart at Autonational: “It’s a question of educating the audience.

“More manufacturers should put CO2 - and other types of vehicle emissions - higher up their agenda when marketing these vehicles to let potential buyers know more about the environmental impact of their cars.

“And by choosing a new car with lower emissions motorists will not only be helping the environment, but they will actually save money. For example, charges for company car and road tax are now based on CO2 emissions.


“In some cases, with cars like the class-leading Peugeot 307 Diesel and the Jaguar S-Type, motorists can find that the CO2 emissions are much less than they would have thought.”

• You can test a motorist’s knowledge of CO2 emissions by using the chart below (keeping the answers shown in brackets hidden):

For more information about Autonational Rescue, the car breakdown service with the no claims bonus, call 07000 999 911

Issued by CPR Works
Tel: 01902 680068
Contact: Jenny Carr/Roger Eversley
E-mail:jenny@cpr.co.uk
Web: www.cpr.co.uk

Back