Vehicle emissions

Recently Volvo has just completed an emissions assessment for both its fossil-fuelled cars and its electric cars, and when everything is taken in to account there was no difference. However, if coal was used to generate electricity then the electric was worse.

So with this in mind the most sensible thing to do to reduce emissions is not to force electric cars on people but encourage the national fleet to be upgraded in a timely manner.

Giving subsidies to take the pre2000 cars off the roads would be a start as post-2000 are Euro 3 standard which has the emissions at almost 50 per cent of the 1995 standard and Euro4 which is after 2005 is lower again and since then only small decreases in emissions are made.

So perhaps giving those who own pre-2000 cars a subsidy to upgrade to lower emission modern cars would actually achieve a lot more in all ways. Jeremy Talbot Waitohi