The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) the UK motor industry body has said during 2010 in the UK that 56% of new cars sold had carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions below 140g/km.
Year-on-year the CO2 emissions on new cars are falling having dropped by more than 3% over the 2009 figures and since 2000 a combined drop in CO2 emissions of over 20%, this from data from the annual SMMT’s New Car Carbon Dioxide report for 2011, released today.
Even though a small part of the overall market, Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFVs) a total of over 22,000 between hybrids, EVs, and dual-fuel vehicles were sold in 2010 representing for the UK new car market for 2010 just over 1%.
Toyota and Lexus, offering the largest selection of hybrids in the UK had over 70% of the AFV market and the overwhelming majority of AFV’s – 96% were petrol-electric hybrids with a notable trend to diesel-powered cars in the marketplace
The overall UK vehicle parc (the total of existing and new vehicles on the roads) due to the presence of lower emitting new vehicles has significantly reduced the CO2 levels (7.8%) since 2000 and almost 3% since 2009.
The reduction of very high polluting vehicles is due to changing fleet or trade-ins and thanks to new vehicles via the important legislation. All these lowering even though the number of vehicles has increased and the average distance travelled has increased
