Moving the Green Goalposts...

I was very surprised to read of the plans announced by Transport for London (TfL) that they were intending to tighten the carbon emission threshold for vehicles to be eligible for exemption from the London Congestion Charge.

The C-Charge as it is known is now well-established and despite having many detractors for increasing the costs of doing business in the city it has definitely had an impact on reducing emissions across London. It undoubtedly has worked but what TfL should have foreseen was that many people who need a car for commuting, work etc. would invest and switch to one of the growing number of vehicles with emissions below the current 100 g co2 km threshold such as the Smart diesel, Fiat 500 or Toyota Prius. Anyone who has been to London recently can’t help but have noticed the number of Smart cars on the streets. The resulting increase in the availability and variety of options for charge-exempt vehicles has seen a  rise in congestion as more people have more cars able to move without penalty throughout the city.

TfL now have a public consultation underway where they intimate their plans to lower the exemption level to 75 g co2 km. This would mean that only fully electric cars would be eligible to avoid paying the congestion charge. Whilst this may seem sensible to help a) further drive vehicle emission reductions and b) reduce congestion - it may have the opposite effect...

Firstly, this move would undoubtedly and rightly anger the many motorists who chose to invest in a low emitting vehicle either for green or economic (or hopefully both) reasons. They chose to pay the large cost upfront for a low emitting car rather than paying the congestion charge on a daily basis. That investment calculation would be shattered if the congestion charge level was altered. They would then face the double impact of having paid a premium for a low-emitting car at the start and then face the congestion charge anyway after the goalposts were moved.

Secondly, many people who may now be considering paying the extra to secure a low emission car as opposed to a ‘regular’ car will likely feel that there is no benefit to doing so. They may then decide to take the cheapest option at the purchasing stage - potentially a clapped out second-hand banger that belches smoke and carbon - in expectation of an increased day-to-day driving cost in future - “I’ll save now because I’ll need to pay later”. You could argue that buying the low emission car would still make sense due to better fuel economy but still this move may see more vehicles kicking out high emission in the congestion charge zone - completely defeating the aims of the scheme.

Thirdly, the impact on the still fledgling market for adoption of low-emission vehicles would be huge. London is a massive city with tremendous clout on many levels and if this change was made it could drive large numbers of potential customers away from this growing part of the car market, killing the wider adoption of lower emission vehicles and stifling innovation and competition amongst the respective manufacturers. The demand that has clearly been established by the charge would vanish overnight. Yes, it may encourage wider adoption of fully electric vehicles but there are very few options out there for these and they are not cheap and charging networks are still in their infancy, despite the best efforts of companies such as Ecotricity.. 

In conclusion, surely TfL should be waiting until low emitting vehicles have become the norm before making a change to the threshold? They must have modelled out the implications and expected impact of putting in a congestion charge that rewarded use of low carbon cars - if they didn’t, then that was very short-sighted. I said as much in my consultation response and would encourage anyone to make their voices heard too...the link is below:

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/congestioncharging