Federal Europe is currently working on plans to fine car manufacturers for every vehicle they produce that exceeds the finger in the air figure of 130g/km of Carbon Dioxide emissions.  The fine is expected to be £68 per gramme.

Of course, with this being the EU, the regulations are ridiculously ill conceived and designed to benefit only the largest continental producers.  The limit of 130g/km is an average across their entire product range so a large manufacturer just needs a couple of token low carbon matchbox cars to bring its average down, even if they produce a 4 litre V8 monster.

The example I’ve been given by Mike Nattrass MEP (good luck in Crewe & Nantwich, Mike) shows just how ridiculous the new regulations are.  Jaguar and Land Rover have been sold by Ford to Tata.  Across Ford’s entire product range they have managed to stay below the 130g/km limit – even when they produce cars like the 4.6l, 300bhp V8 Mustang or the 5.4l, 550bhp V8 Ford GT.  Tata, however, don’t have a range of toy cars like Ford to bring down their average so they will have to pay fines on every Jaguar or Land Rover they produce.  A 2l diesel X-Type Jag will attract a fine of £1,292 per car whilst a V8 Range Rover will attract a whopping £16,728 fine per vehicle.

So what will happen to Jaguar and Land Rover?  They simply won’t sell anything with a tax like that on top of the price of the car so they’ll just shift production outside of Federal Europe, jobs will be lost and a piece of history will come to an end.

The British government must be worried at the loss of jobs and the inevitable loss of Land Rover and Jaguar from these shores?  Liebour MP, Richard Burden, asked the Treasury and got the following garbled and essentially meaningless message:

I am happy to assure him that the Government are aware of the points that he makes and are keeping a close eye on the progress of discussions about the development of EU regulations in Europe

Wow!  They’re “keeping a close eye on the progress of discussions”.  Here’s a suggestion – have some discussions of your own.  Perhaps something along the lines of “this is a stupid fucking tax and there’s no way you’re destroying our economy with your punitive and utterly pointless eco taxes so fuck off back under your rock you clueless facists”.  Or words to that effect.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Tax, Transport, Federal Europe