Smoke and mirrors...
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What a farce! The debate raging over VED rebates shows just how much the Government has cocked-up over green grants.
Take compliance, for example. When a manufacturer submits a new vehicle to the Vehicle Certification Agency for test it uses sophisticated gas analysis equipment to see if it qualifies for a Reduced Pollution Certificate.
But when an operator gets his hands on his lean, green truck he takes it to his local VI test station for a compliance check using the relatively unsophisticated smoke/ opacity meter. Hardly a consistent approach. And what about those rumours of testers being unwilling to climb up vertical exhausts?
The original idea was to award a /Lc= rebate for a truck whose engine met the proposed particulate emission standards "two stages ahead". Thus a Euro-2 engine would have to beat the original Euro-4 particulate level of o.o8gmkW/h to earn its fi,000. In fact most Euro-2 engines do this anyway without recourse to after-treatment kits, which cost anything up to k,000.
But by the time the UK Government had ratified the process the EC had changed the particulate limit to o.o4gmkW/h, leaving the Treasury unhappy about handing over a grant for a bog standard engine. So whose fault was that?
Instead of forever raising the bar for VED rebates the Government should realise that the only real incentive to buying a cleaner truck is to provide a tangible grant to offset the purchase price. This would encourage operators to buy new, buy green and buy early—and cut out all the nonsense with smoke and mirrors.