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I've always wanted to own an open top sports car and wondered if I could drive one while still keeping my Low Carbon Champion status intact. So, is it possible to drive a sports car AND reduce your carbon footprint? I did some research to find out . . . .
Seeing as the Telsa electric supercar (above) was a little (!) over budget, I started looking into the Smart Roadster. Most people are pretty familiar with the Smart Car but I'd never heard of the Roadster model.
It ticks all the boxes; two seats, mid-engined, real wheel drive, striking looks and the all important open top . . . . . . but what about the eco-credentials? Well, I'm going to compare the Roadster with both the car it has now replaced - a 1994 VW Golf and the other car in our household a 2002 Skoda Fabia Estate. Neither of these cars are considered real 'gas guzzlers' so I thought that any CO2 savings would be small.
In 2008 average new car emissions were 158 g/km (4.2% less than the 2007 figure and 16.8% down on the 189.8g/km base level in 1997). Bear in mind though that the average age of a car in the UK is 7 years so the real average figure for all cars is a fair bit higher.
Emmisions (from SMMT & *Autotrader):-
- Golf* - 228 g/km
- Skoda - 173 g/km
- Smart - 121 g/km
Defra figures (2005) put the average at 178g/km for petrol engines and 170g/km for diesel. So the Skoda is pretty much an average car in terms of CO2. The statistics for the average mileage of drivers in the UK vary between 9200 miles and 12000 miles per year so in order to calculate the CO2 savings I'll take 10,000 miles (16,000 km) as a rough figure. Now to the number crunching . . . CO2 saving of Smart compared to an average petrol car:- 178-121 = 57 g/km. multiplied over 16,000 km:- 57 x 16000 = 912,000g or 912 kg/year. By my rough calculations, if you've got a pretty average car of around 4 years of age and do 10,000 miles per annum - you can buy a sports car and still save nearly a tonne of CO2 emissions over a year . . . . wow! What's more, if we compare the Smart to a car more like the old Golf, the savings increase to nearer 2 tonnes/year. Just don't use it as an excuse to drive twice as much!
Tagged in: CO2 Reduction