Peugeot Citroën CEO Proposes Payouts for Scrapping Older Cars
22 June 2005
The Independent. The CEO of Peugeot Citroën is promoting a pan-European plan to provide financial incentive to car owners to scrap older, more polluting vehicles.
Under the plan, governments would provide a €1,000 (£665, US$1,212) payment to the car owner which could be used to buy a brand new car or a newer second hand one. (Or to go into the owner’s pocket.)
Jean-Martin Folz, the chief executive of the French car manufacturer, said it would be a much more cost-effective way of cutting pollution from cars than offering incentives to buy new energy efficient vehicles such as Toyota’s Prius hybrid model which has both a petrol engine and an electric one.
M. Folz insisted that the primary purpose of the scheme would be to tackle carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles and not to help the industry sell more cars.
Whether or not that is actually the purpose of the proposal, it does highlight a problem in the way of any large-scale changes in the efficiency and emissions profiles of national fleets—the legacy car issue.
More efficient cars will only become mainstream when they compete and beat current cars on either a financial basis or they create a better driving experience. Governments can help by offering incentives to buy these new technologies to help them reach economies of scale. But for the CO2 problem. This should be controlled by emmissions inspections. For example: take away having an exemption for older cars. Or another thing the govt. could do is support "plug-in" hybrids. This Peuguet idea seems like a way to sound as if they care about the environment and maybe sell some more cars.
Posted by: paul | 22 June 2005 at 09:53 PM
This seems in line with Amory Lovins/RMI's ideas in Winning the Oil Endgame
John
Posted by: John Norris | 23 June 2005 at 01:26 AM
^
Beat me to it. I wasn't sold on the idea then, and I'm still not.
As long as people need food, shelter, and medicine, it seems crazy to pay for people to scrap working vehicles. I understand the math/science behind it, but it just rubs against the grain, and there's no way that a voter base could ever get behind it.
Want to get rid of junker cars (ignoring antiques for the sake of clarity)? Don't completely grandfather laws. In other words, lets say that the emissions standards increase in the year 2000: don't make it so that all cars made 1999 and earlier are expempt for their lifetimes. Instead, say that by 2005, all cars made before 1985 have to either (a) be up to 2000 standards, or (b) be significantly improved, to pass inspection. In 2006, it becomes all cars pre-1986. Etc.
The "range" of 20 years is negotiable, as is the (a) up to standard or (b) significantly improved. The point is that you don't have to use carrots -- you can simply use sticks. Sticks cost less.
Posted by: stomv | 23 June 2005 at 05:32 AM
Scrapping instead of restoring old cars ignores the environmental impact of manufacturing new cars. Its more than just tailpipe emissions. There is the impact of mining, milling, and smelting new metals. There is the energy used and the emissions generated there. Granted that recycling reduces some of the impact and France is a big user of nukes there is still the factor that new cars use much more aluminum than older ones.
The way to lower emissions lies more in cleaner fuels such as E85 and CNG which older cars ought to be converted to use.
Posted by: tom | 23 June 2005 at 07:02 AM
^ There's no reason to think that the programme proposed wouldn't be recycling as much of the auto materials as possible... and while that isn't 100% efficient (from a materials or energy perspective), it's better than nothing.
Posted by: stomv | 23 June 2005 at 09:41 AM
DEAR SIR/MADAME,
WE ARE OF THE BISCAM AUTO COMPANY FOUND IN CAMEROON.WE WISH TO ENQUIRE WHETHER WE CAN HAVE SECOND HANDED PEOGOUT ENGINES FROM YOU.WE HAVE AVERY HIGH DEMAND FOR IT NOW.
BEST REGARDS
DR NDIP JACKSON
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Posted by: NDIP JACKSON | 17 November 2005 at 03:18 AM
DEAR SIR/MADAME,
WE ARE OF THE BISCAM AUTO COMPANY FOUND IN CAMEROON.WE WISH TO ENQUIRE WHETHER WE CAN HAVE SECOND HANDED PEOGOUT ENGINES FROM YOU.WE HAVE AVERY HIGH DEMAND FOR IT NOW.
BEST REGARDS
DR NDIP JACKSON
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Posted by: NDIP JACKSON | 17 November 2005 at 03:19 AM
we intened to import one 40" containers scrapping peaugot used cars from marseille to port said please advise and confirm.
b.rgds.
mohamed yakout
Posted by: mohamed yakout | 14 May 2007 at 08:00 AM