I've just sent an email to my Brexit party MP:
"Dear Ms Ansell,
The commissioning of Clean Air and Low Emission Zones means that only vehicles that are certified to EU4 and above can drive within these zones without charge. However there are many, many vehicles that are certified as EU3 but whose emissions are lower in all instances than the EU4 standard. Models that fall into this category are all petrol VW/Seat Lupos/Arosas, VW Polos and Audi A2 cars built between 1998 and about 2003, as a minimum. When the owner of such a vehicles applies to TfL or one of the CAZs they are invariably told that their vehicles do not comply and they will have to pay a charge, even though their cars meet the EU4 standard.
Is it government policy to penalise early adopters of cleaner technology? At present, I own two diesel cars, one a 1999 Lupo 3L and a 2001 Audi A2 1.2Tdi. Both meet the EU4 exhaust standard but are treated by the DVLA as EU3. In Germany both cars qualify for a green plakette, which is what an EU4 car would qualify for. If you apply for a Crit'Air certificate in France, what you get is determined by the EU value on your V5; if that is not present (as is the case with both my V5s), your certificate will be determined by the year of first registration. Therefore in France our Lupo 3L would get an EU2 certificate and the A2 an EU3 certificate, despite both meeting the EU4 standard. I have attempted to get the DVLA to update both V5s; after a three month wait they sent me new V5s, again without any EU classification! The table below shows the two car's emission values along with the EU4 standard:
| Measurement | 1999 Lupo 3L | 2001 Audi A2 | EU4 standard |
| CO g/km | 0.222 | 0.228 | 0.5 |
| NOx g/km | 0.220 | 0.240 | 0.25 |
| HC+NOx g/km | Not Listed | 0.261 | 0.3 |
| Particulates g/km | 0.023 | 0.021 | 0.025 |
So to sum up, in Germany both cars are considered EU4, In the UK EU3 and in France, one as EU2 and one as EU3. These standards are meant to be Europe-wide, so why are they applied differently in different countries? Before you say anything about Brexit, this was the case before Brexit. That the Lupo 3L only qualifies for an EU2 certificate in France is entirely due to the abject failure of the DVLA to place any EU classification on the V5.
Your government likes to talk green and do the opposite. A case in point is the Green Homes Grant; a miserable failure managed by a company based in the USA! There were 123,000 applications by the time that the scheme was abandoned, but only 28,000 vouchers had been issued and only 5,800 energy efficient measures had been installed! Is it because such schemes run counter to the ideology of the Brexit party or that you just don't like spending the money?
While on the subject, when is the government going to tackle the problem of the illegal blanking of the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) on diesel cars and the removal of their catalysts? Companies are allowed to advertise these services under the fig leaf that this is allowed for off-road use. This also begs the question of why this is allowed for off-road use, as if people were not subjected to this source of pollution? Cars with their EGR blanked off emit something like 40x more pollution.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...MIyqes4fW44wIVTLTtCh1NeQ7-EAMYASAAEgK7z_D_BwE
Currently there is absolutely no testing for the presence of catalysts or a working EGR system in diesel cars.
Yours sincerely"
My expectations are low, very low, especially considering who the Minister for Transport is!
RAB
