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28th Febuary 2008

In an increasingly acerbic war of words on the proposed revisions to the London Congestion charge opened by Porsche, the company yesterday criticized the London Mayor Ken Livingstone for not publishing the full results of an opinion survey on the revisions to the London Congestion Charge that it opposes. Later, a spokesperson for the Mayor of London said a survey conducted by Porsche itself had no validity: “The questions put to a small sample of Londoners failed even to mention that the £25 CO2 charge will only be paid by cars with the very highest carbon emissions, or that the cleanest vehicles will not have to pay any charge.”

"The survey also did not even bother to mention that the purpose of the scheme is to tackle climate change,” the Mayor’s office added. "Participants in the survey were thus given totally misleading information about which vehicles would be affected and why a higher charge was being proposed. This survey, is part of a campaign by a blatantly vested interest, a luxury car manufacturer with high CO2 emitting cars.”

The Ipsos MORI attitudinal survey for TfL published in December, and based on a sample of 3,620 Londoners - seven times that in Porsche's poll, with around half of those resident in the existing congestion charging zone - found that two-thirds of respondents were in favour of the proposal upon which Transport for London has consulted, with 38% strongly supporting it. Only 21% opposed the scheme.

It is this poll whose results Porsche said this week should be released in full, and the failure of Ipsos MORI to do so was said to have been referred to the British Polling Council, which is reportedly investigating the matter.

Friends of the Earth's Director, Tony Juniper joined in yesterday, saying, “Porsche has founded its business on the promotion and supply of highly polluting vehicles. Along with the rest of the German car industry they are desperately resisting the strong measures needed to tackle the car industry's contribution to climate change. Instead of spending time and energy battling these popular initiatives, such as the congestion charge, it would be more appropriate for Porsche to put its effort into making a new generation of much less polluting vehicles.

FoE noted that of the 46 models and variants in Porsche's range, 44 fall into emissions band G and will face the top £25 daily congestion charge. Porsche's Cayenne Turbo S emits 378g of CO2 per km.

It is Porsche’s contention that the revised congestion charges would make very little difference to vehicular CO2 emissions within the congestion zone.

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