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Porsche to challenge London's £25 emissions charge

 
5 926 views Feb 19, 2008
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Porsche to challenge London's £25 emissions charge

Porsche to challenge London's £25 emissions charge

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Porsche Cars UK has taken the unusual step of taking legal action against London mayor Ken Livingstone’s recent proposal for a £25 ($50) daily charge on high emissions sports cars and SUVs that drive though central parts of the UK capital. The new scheme will come into effect on October 27, forcing vehicles with the highest greenhouse gas emissions to pay the fee every time they enter London’s Congestion Zone.

According to a statement made by the company today, the tax will have a “very limited effect on CO2 emissions” and will “damage London based-businesses of all sizes.” Porsche goes on to claim that “successful people from across the world will start to think twice about basing themselves here if they think they are going to be used as cash cows for City Hall. The proposed increase will be bad for London as a whole and will send out the signal that it is not serious about establishing itself as the best place in the world to do business.”

Part of the problem is that the increased tax of £25 applies not just to residents outside the congestion charge zone (who would have had to pay £8 previously), but also to residents inside the zone, who pay around 80p per day - an increase of around 3025%.

The London mayoral election is coming up, so Porsche also views this tax as a populist move motivated by political gains rather than a serious attempt to reduce carbon emissions.

Porsche is requesting a judicial review of the emissions charge, which allows an individual or company to challenge a decision made by a government authority. If successful, Livingstone will be forced to change his emissions scheme to something deemed more suitable by the courts.

Porsche is currently working on hybrid versions of its Cayenne SUV and Panamera sedan, but these won’t hit the market until at least 2009. It is also working to reduce emissions throughout the 911 range. The 911 GT2, for example, is not only faster than the previous model but also uses less fuel.



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Comments (5)

  1. By zlinux Posted: 2/19/2008 8:58am PST

    Viva Porsche!!!
     
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  2. By torque09 Posted: 2/19/2008 11:43am PST

    Go Porsche!
     
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  3. By chris Posted: 2/19/2008 12:16pm PST

    i think porsche under estimates just how many people will insist on doing business in london if they become the "clean city" of the future... which seems to be what theyre aiming for.porsche may get more than they bargained for... if livingston is ordered to revise the scheme, he may do so in a tiered manor, some sort of equation that affects everyone. say, pay 10 pence per g of CO2... then the prius will be charged 10pounds a day, and the porsches will still get charged 25 or more pounds a day. then EVERYONE will pay... and EVERYONE will hate porsche instead of ken livingston.

    ....porsche should start their own ECO brand.. something that uses their engine tech... but on a much smaller scale. for the HP they get out of their engines, they are some of the cleanest performance engines on the market. if they could just scale down the power... and still use their hybrid system... grab some TDI tech from VW/audi... then the VW empire could make one hell of a clean brand... from city cars to C or D class sedans...

    when greenpeace protested outside of porsche headquarters and porsche put up a banner with some stats on the amount of CO2 their cars are responsible for, it shut up greenpeace... and made them look like fools.

    but in this case, i don't know if they'll gain from this move. theyre trying to protect their rich customers while going against the majority opinion.
     
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  4. By Fritz Posted: 2/19/2008 4:29pm PST

    What's that one gas that all plants need to live called again? Man, it's on the tip of my tongue. I can taste it in my mouth. It's like it's staring me right in the face. Well, whatever it is, it's tied in with sun activity and awfully right where it's supposed to be in quantity for it to be spiraling out of control and destroying all life on Earth. However, that doesn't excuse the oil/auto companies from suppressing very old and tested, functional technology that allows ridiculous mileage per gallon and instead feeding the public this moron juice in the form of hybrids and such. There's no hope, we're all doomed, but unfortunately it's not the tailpipe emissions doing it.
     
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  5. By HECTOR Posted: 2/19/2008 7:28pm PST

    Chris:

    I wouldn't be able to afford a Porsche t-shirt, let alone one of their cars. But I don't want to see the people that can afford a Porsche be penalized for it.

    Porsche is one of the best known, best likes car brands in the world. I think the likelihood of people hating them and loving Red Ken over this controversy are pretty small.

    Red Ken is a bully, and not even an intelligent or creative one at that. As his nickname implies he's a communist dressed up as a socialist. He hates democracy - as evidenced by his close associations with the despots of the worlds like Hugo Chavez and islamic extremists - and hates laissez faire economics - as evidenced by his policies.

    And what should be of great concern to people in this forum: he has many fans among other politicians. Michael Bloomberg of NYC is one of them. Which makes me even more glad I don't live in that craphole.
     
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