Consumers would pay a little extra for low pollution cars
Fri 27 July 2007
View all news
A third of consumers polled in a European survey believe that there should be regulations to allow only less polluting cars while a further third favour tax breaks to promote more fuel efficient models. Most people surveyed said that they would be willing to pay more to use less polluting transport, though most of them would not be willing to pay more than ten per cent extra.
Over 25,000 EU citizens in all 27 EU member states responded to a Eurobarometer survey on EU transport policy.
Nine out of ten respondents believed improved public transport would be the best solution to reduce traffic in their area, while a quarter said they switched to public transport as their primary method to save fuel. Some 40 per cent of respondents believed money collected from road users should be spent on investment in public transport.
The other main findings of the survey were:
- The majority of EU citizens (51%) name the car as their main mode of transport, followed by public transport (21%), walking (15%) and motorbike (2%).
- Most EU citizens (78%) share the opinion that the type of car and the way people use them have an important impact on the environment.
- When asked how they have tried to save fuel in the past, more than half of the respondents said that they had tried to do it either by adapting their driving style (57%) or by walking or cycling more (56%). Fewer respondents used public transport more often (26%), or changed to another car which consumes less fuel (25%), while 16% did not use any of the methods indicated in the questionnaire and 4% of them applied all the methods mentioned to save fuel.
- According to 36% of EU citizens, the best method to encourage the use of biofuel is to make it cheaper via tax incentives. The second most preferred (32%) measure is to define compulsory standards for manufacturers to produce cars that use biofuel.
Related Links
< Back to news list