CARkeys reports that French automaker Citroen has taken the wraps off a “carbon drawing down” cash-back offer. Under the terms of “GO LO CO2,” UK motorists who purchase a new Citroen with a lower CO2 emissions rating than their current ride receive £500 discounts on Citroen’s C-series of mini cars and the Berlingo Multispace MPV, or £1000 cash back Xsara Picasso compact MPV. You might consider this a cynical ploy capitalizing on political correctness to move moribund metal, but we couldn’t possibly comment. Meanwhile, despite having the lowest CO2 average of any European automaker, The Wall Street Journal reports that PSA Peugeot-Citroëns registrations in France were virtually flat in September, up just .4% over the first nine months of the year.
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Well, Peugeot’s has had a lot of success in the past few years, and they’re struggling to improve on that now. May explain the flat sales.
Kind of like Hyundai here in the states. Do “everything right”, and be “rewarded” – with flat sales.
“We have the lowest CO2 emissions” is current marketing lingo for “Because almost nobody outside of France wants to buy big and expensive cars from us we mainly sell cheap small cars”.
Does lower CO2 emmissions consider 4 passengers or 1? Carpooling increases the CO2 output by the passengers, unless they are inflatable dolls used to drive on the HOV lanes.
What ever happened to the 2CV?
I just got back from 2 weeks in Amsterdam and Prague. I was with a non car-buff friend. As we walked through these cities, he frequently asked me to identify certain cars he thought well-designed. Dunno what it means exactly, but virtually every time, the cars were either new Audis or new Alfa Romeos. Usually black, charcoal or silver; you rarely see white or tan cars in western Europe. Oh, and an amzing looking woman driving a new Dutch-reg R8 in Amsterdam was causing a traffic jam from the normally blase A-damers vying to get a look.
It looks like the retarded step-child of the previous gen Suzuki XL-7. Which itself looked like the retarded half-brother of the Chevy Equinox. Which also looked like the … you get my point.
This isn’t that big of a deal.
Robert Schwartz,
Citroen discontiniued the 2CV around the mid-1990s, if memory serves. There was an obituary on the front page of the NY Times.