SUVs targeted by new weight tax in France

SUVs registered in France will confront a new excess weight tax, designed to get companies to slash down on CO2 emissions.

Introduced by the country’s ecosystem minister Barbara Pompili, the scheme will see cars weighing additional than 1,800kg taxed at a amount of €10 (all over £9.14) for each more kilogram, according to national news agency France 24.

Pompili tweeted: “The excess weight tax that we are producing sends a powerful and needed information to get into account the environmental impression of the heaviest automobiles. The heavier cars get, the additional products and electricity they eat, with additional air pollution.”

The new tax will be launched in the 2021 French spending plan and will not implement to electric cars. The very best-promoting SUVs from French brand names these as Peugeot and Renault weigh significantly less than 1,800kg, but more substantial luxurious products from German brand names like Mercedes and Audi will be affected.

The cars with the maximum CO2 emissions presently confront levies of up to €20,000 (all over £18,267) in France. In spite of this, the state has found a slowdown in its reduction of CO2 emissions, with large SUVs having the blame.

The WWF (All over the world Fund for Nature) statements SUVs were being the next-greatest supply of greenhouse fuel boosts in France in between 2008 and 2018, with the airline marketplace the most important. It is also correct, nonetheless, that profits of SUVs in Europe have improved substantially over that time, mainly at the price of other kinds of automobile. 

According to France 24, WWF claimed: “The 4.three million sold in France in that decade have the exact same carbon footprint as twenty five million electric compact cars.”

A French Governing administration supply advised AFP (Agence France-Presse) that the excess weight tax “is meant to stimulate persons to steer clear of quite large and major products, but also to stimulate the marketplace to get its overall ecological footprint into account and not just emissions”.

Do you consider the British isles need to elevate taxes for SUV proprietors? Permit us know in the opinions below…