London wants to reduce vehicle emissions. Fair enough. They've got a plan to install a large number of charging stations, which I'm all for. They've also got a plan to hand out grants to motorists to buy specific types of vehicles, which is idiotic. If they want to subsidize low emissions, regardless of whether I think that's a good use of public funds, they should do it solely based on the desired result. Instead they are dictating criteria for the cars: "Only battery electric, plug-in hybrids with emissions of less than 75 g/km, or hydrogen fuel cell cars will be eligible."
Why not just say any car with less than 75 g/km CO2 emissions qualifies? If that's your goal, why does it also have to be a specific type of car? [Don't dictate solutions!] Are they worried someone will build a car that runs on compressed carbon monoxide? A fabulous unintended side effect is that the public will end up subsidizing £87,000 pound electric roadsters. Another example: the guy who trades in his ancient transit van spewing out 350g/km of CO2 for a 91g VW Polo BlueMotion TDi gets nothing, whereas the guy who trades in his 91g VW PoloBlueMotion TDi for a 75g hybrid gets £5000.
Even with the grant, it will be much cheaper to buy a dirtier car than a pricier iMiev or other eligible electric vehicle. This is public grant money funnelled to, well, people like me, who already can afford £25,000 cars. It's idiotic and unconscionable.
1 comment:
so it is not Just the US's Federal Government that is "idiotic and unconscionable". Some things are universal.
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