According to a poll by FairFuel UK, used car values could have fallen by £35 billion due to a lack of factual accuracy in the diesel debate.
FairFuelUK has raised concerns over way the 'dirty diesel' issue has been debated and claims that it has unfairly focused on diesel passenger cars, with the negative media causing used values to fall by billions of pounds.
It points out that, for example, the London Assembly Environment Committee found that diesel cars are responsible for 11% of NOx while gas central heating causes 16%.
It also argues that goverment policy decisions such as a high frequency of diesel buses on Oxford Street, granting 175,000 private hire licenses and widespread road narrowing are have also contributed heavily to air pollution.
In a FairFuelUK poll of 11,000 drivers, 94% of respondents said they feel deceived by past government policy, while 75% believe that the Government has no solution to lowering emissions.
FairFuelUK’s founder Howard Cox said: "Thirty-seven million UK drivers want DEFRA to review solutions to lowering emissions that don’t involve ineffectual and malevolent knee-jerk tax hikes.
"There are proven effective methods to improving air quality which FairFuelUK has presented to them. Will they have the guts to produce a long term sustainable plan or will this new Government succumb to inaccurate emotive headlines and fleece hard working motorists and small businesses instead?"
Guest - 20/06/2017 15:16
Previous UK governments didn't mislead people over diesel. They just responded to a drive to lower CO2 emissions and were not focused on all types of emissions. The danger we face now is an over reaction away from diesel even in areas where diesel is appropriate. The current pre announcement of a diesel decision in November is causing the retail diesel market to stagnate, with buyers sensibly either delaying the purchase until after the announcement, or going for a petrol or PHEV, BEV. The government said it has taken note that many vehicle owners were taking diesel because of government incentives, and were not looking to "punish" those decisions made in good faith. So we will see. But to the article, it is true that the uncertainty is causing RV's to drop a little, and oddly the RV's of petrol vehicles doesn't seem to have increased.