Toyota Ireland MD wants "Amnesty" for high CO2 cars

E92

Hmm, this wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that next year Toyota will have some very low CO2 cars on the way; the new Avensis, 1.33 Auris(presumably the Corolla will follow suit in due course), the facelifted Yaris, the iQ, Urban Cruiser and the fact that the current models are not exactly very competitive in petrol guise now would it:rolleyes:?

Seriously though, what do you make of Dave Shannon's idea?

Do you think that this is exactly the sort of thing that will help give the secondhand market a bit of a lift?

He has also revealed that they will be continuing to represent Toyota here for many years to come and that the new CO2 tax system was introuduced in a way that "wasn't right" and that (surprise surprise) "they didn't tell us how they were introducing the most dramatic CO2 regime in Europe until we had already ordered our cars for 2008". Everyone else was in the same boat too but not everyone else is down 23.2% on last year either and lost market share while competitors have gained market share(like Ford).

And of course equally unsurprisingly he thinks hybrids are the way forward, and of course Toyota have a big advantage over everyone else on that one blah blah blah. He is totally right there. Hybrids are regrettably where we are heading towards, even though we are all aware of the many failings of hybrid cars, like cost, complexity and inability to live to up quoted economy claims. Still though I'd rather hybrids than no cars at all.

Full story below from IrishCar.com

'Amnesty' call for high CO2 cars



The Government must give some form of 'amnesty' in relation to higher CO2-emitting second hand cars currently clogging up the forecourts of dealers.
That was the view expressed by Toyota Ireland MD Dave Shannon last night, when he also said the CO2-based taxation was introduced in this country in a way that 'wasn't right'.
"I think the drive to reduce CO2 is absolutely the right thing to do, and the industry made the Government aware of the best way to do it here," he recalled. "But they didn't take that option, and they didn't tell us how they were introducing the most dramatic CO2 regime in Europe until we had already ordered our cars for 2008."
Looking to Toyota's business in Ireland he revealed that the Irish distributor had recently signed a new contract with the carmaker to represent Toyota in Ireland 'for many years to come'.
In relation to the current difficulties, he said the Irish motor industry 'will be OK'. "We've been here before. It is a resiliant industry, we will learn from the difficulties and we'll come out the stronger for it."
Toyota itself has a number of new models coming on stream in 2009, including the iQ city car and new generation Avensis, along with the Urban Cruiser, all in the early part of the year. The new generation Prius hybrid will be coming along towards the end of the year. "I firmly believe that hybrid is the way forward, and while our competitors are all working to get hybrids on the road we in Toyota have a 7-10 years lead on them."

Guy:Incognito

E92 wrote: »

Do you think that this is exactly the sort of thing that will help give the secondhand market a bit of a lift?."

Cant see how. Even if they gave an amnesty and brought the prices (and even the tax) down to the same as the diesels it wouldnt make a difference if people arent buyign diesels at the prices they have them at anyway.

unkel

He'll just have to bite the bullet and sell the old high-CO2 stock at a realistic price. Would a 40% discount get rid of most of them quickly?

fastrac

Its the same old story as the auctioneers who tried every trick in the book to keep up rip off prices long after the buyers had backed off.As the earlier poster said Drop your prices and they will come back.

E92

unkel wrote: »

He'll just have to bite the bullet and sell the old high-CO2 stock at a realistic price.

Yup.

It's called capitalism: sink or swim folks!

While part of me knows that all the importing in the UK is doing our car industry enormous damage and is causing decent people to lose their jobs, not to mention send money out of the country in a time of recession, probably the worst possible time to be doing such a thing, reactionary comments like the ones above, and the SIMI's appalling attitude towards the whole thing leave me very disappointed.

Unfortunately I know what the SIMI are like only too well, and it gives me nothing but the greatest of pleasure to see some of them well and truly in serious doo-do.

There is absolutely no innovation, nobody grabbing the bull by the horns, nobody trying to do things better. Most depressingly nobody seems to even want to try and instigate change. Instead get everyone else do your donkey work - nobody seems to have reported this but the Finance Bill has introduced a number of changes obviously designed to please the SIMI and make it more difficult to import. One of the things you now have to do is get a car NCT'd when importing, for example. There are othjer changes as well designed to promote protectionism for the dealers too.

Instead blame the public for buying where there is far superior value to be had, blame the Governmemt for the VRT changes(which the SIMI/car dealers etc specifically asked to be introduced 6 months after the Government announced them), blame everyone but yourselves.

In short they want all the benefits of capitalism when things are going well but when the things start to go badly they want us to go back to socialism and protectionism and try and force us to buy cars here which of course will mean we as consumers will be forced into paying more by removing competition.

old boy

me thinks he is feeling like joe soap has been for too long, screwed.

245

E92 wrote: »

He has also revealed that they will be continuing to represent Toyota here for many years to come and that the new CO2 tax system was introuduced in a way that "wasn't right" and that (surprise surprise) "they didn't tell us how they were introducing the most dramatic CO2 regime in Europe until we had already ordered our cars for 2008". Everyone else was in the same boat too but not everyone else is down 23.2% on last year either and lost market share while competitors have gained market share(like Ford).


The Government must give some form of 'amnesty' in relation to higher CO2-emitting second hand cars currently clogging up the forecourts of dealers.
That was the view expressed by Toyota Ireland MD Dave Shannon last night, when he also said the CO2-based taxation was introduced in this country in a way that 'wasn't right'.

From what I heard, the SIMI lobbied to have the CO2 changes delayed to facilitate the sales of existing stocks of higher CO2 emitting cars - that's why the change was flagged early but only introduced in July. All would probably have been ok apart from the credit crunch which put the tin lid on it all. Current lack of supply of the 1.6 TDCi may indicate how high stocks were in general (the 1.4 petrol Focus being the beneficiary of Ford's situation).

jonnygee

I cant see the government including road tax rates into any amnesty, this would go against the whole idea of the new system. There still seems to be a fair amount of these "unsaleable" cars around yet though so someone needs to figure out how to get them down to a price that will get them shifted.

ninty9er

jonnygee wrote: »

I cant see the government including road tax rates into any amnesty, this would go against the whole idea of the new system. There still seems to be a fair amount of these "unsaleable" cars around yet though so someone needs to figure out how to get them down to a price that will get them shifted.

They could allow the importers a tax amnesty to put them in a crusher, but I don't see a VRT or motor tax amnesty coming any time soon.