Queensland Shadow Environment Minister Rosemary Menkens introduced legislation to State Parliament on 19 Apr 07 to give concessions to people who own the environmentally friendly cars. The Queensland Liberals are saying that registration should be free for people driving hybrid petrol or electric cars. Under the Opposition plan, free registration would be phased out when 100,000 hybrid vehicles were registered.
While any initiative that encourages people to buy environmentally friendly vehicles must be applauded this one does appear a little short sighted. We’re not sure the Minister has done her homework. Under this scheme the owners of Lexus RX400h (8.1 L/100km combined) and GS450h (7.9 L/100km combined) would be eligible for free registration. There are plenty of plain old petrol and diesel engined cars available in this country that offer better fuel consumption than that! The thirstiest of Volkswagen’s diesel Golf models uses 6.1 L/100km on the combined cycle and there must be countless other small cars and motorcycles that are similarly efficient.
Surely a more equitable approach would be to offer free registration to anyone registering a vehicle, not just cars, that produces less than some well defined maximum emission level. That would at least be a small step in the right direction.
Filed under: Cars, Electricity, Hybrid, Motorcycles, Rants |
Envirofuel 
The next step may be the “plug-in” hybrid… unlike the electric cars of the 1990s, none of today’s hybrids needs to be plugged in – but if plugging were an option it would be a good idea.