Citroën C5 Airdream in Monaco
As you might know, because of the focus that European countries are putting on CO2 emissions, most marques have created signature labels to certify when a certain vehicle is "clean" in the environmental sense. They basically take the least powerful version of the model, tweak the car aerodynamically, and install low-rolling resistance tires. Then they chose a fancy name.
Such is the case of Citroën with its Airdream label, which was seen in the C5 during the EVER Green Car Salon in Monaco last week. The C5 is a medium-sized sedan, about the size of a Mercedes E-Class, which is mated to PSA's well-known 1.6 HDi engine good for 110 HP. This allows the car to run 42 mpg US (5.6 l/100 km in mixed European cycle) and produce 149 g/km CO2. As most diesel PSA powertains, it accepts a mixture of up to 30 percent of biodiesel . Unfortunately, although it's a nice car, it can't compete with the original concept.
[Source: Leblogauto]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karl-Uwe Strunzen 1:22AM (4/02/2008)
I'd say this reinforces the idea that CO2 levels used in Europe are already outdated. This car is already much larger I'd say than what anyone really needs and the second French car of this size I've seen at 149g CO2/km. 225 today is already way overboard.
Spain, France, UK and Italy could very well start walloping drivers from 160 g CO2/km downwards as of today. Then gradually coming down to zero excise duty or congestion charge as you go down from there (or even pay a rebate as is already the case in some countries).
By the way, this is the third month in a row that SUVs and luxury car sales fall dramatically in Spain:
www.anfac.es
The sales drops compared with the same period last year are 38%, 56%, and 49% (small, medium and large SUVs) while the drop for the Jan-March period is 35%, 56% and 43%. Executives: 58% and 53%.... way to go Spain.
For France I haven't found stats by sales segment, but since the above are mainly German cars, presumably something similar is happening in France. Despite March sales being up 10% overall, VW and Audi were down 10% each, while Renault and Fiat were up 16% and 24%....
www.ccfa.fr
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Scorch 11:35PM (4/02/2008)
Who are you to say what anyone really needs? As for this car being "much larger than anyone really needs," what if they need to transfer more than two full grown adults? Econoboxes don't work in every situation and just because you probably ride a segway to work, doesn't mean that everyone else does.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 11:36PM (4/14/2008)
I was talking about Europe (this car is sold in Europe and not in the US). Statistically in Europe the cars which are most sold (and the overwhelming majority of cars) are in the A and B segments, i.e. much smaller than this. Furthermore this trend is increasing dramatically in Europe, with people choosing ever smaller cars. If one "chooses" to go smaller, then you can't really say it was "need-driven" in the first place....
let me turn the question to you another way... what makes you think that every single US citizen has a right to go for his/her "moccaccino" in a GM suburban, a hummer or cayenne?.....
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 11:45PM (4/14/2008)
there's no real problem with smaller cars..... instead of insisting on going once a month in your suburban to the wholesaler, you can go twice a month get twice the thrills of shopping..... even if it weren't just a once or twice trip, the "econoboxes" used in Europe and some sold in the US do less than half the emissions anyway. In any case it's the day-to-day and futile emissions which are really doing the most damage.....
So which one is it? Either Europeans are really stupid to have based their commuting, shopping etc (yes, believe it or not, they do the the same things with cars over there...) around efficient cars (econoboxes as you call them) or people in the US are the stupid ones for not caring less either way.....
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