A green Golf - wishful thinking or reality?

Posted by petespeller — 20 August 2012 at 10:26am - Comments
Greenpeace activists display a banner reading "CO2 Das Problem" at the VW factor
All rights reserved. Credit: Michael Loewa / Greenpeace
Greenpeace activists display a banner reading "CO2 Das Problem" at the VW factory in Wolfsburg, Germany

Don’t you just hate it when someone has the power to make a real difference, but won’t use it? Take Volkswagen for instance. It’s Europe’s biggest car maker, eager to display itself as a friend of the environment and known worldwide for its high standards of engineering.

Yet for years VW has failed to put its money where its mouth is and commercially produce cars that are both cheap to run and emit far less CO2 than the rest of the market.

Instead it has added these features to its ‘concept’ cars, producing a new one almost every year but never bringing it to market. The way to make these improvements is simple. You just apply existing efficiency technologies which reduce a car’s weight and wind resistance and it can be done without making compromises around safety, comfort or performance.

How do we know? We’ve just published a report using VW’s most popular car – the Golf – the new edition of which is due on the market soon - as an example.

It shows how If VW focused its energy on producing efficient cars (rather than say exciting PR campaigns) the new Golf could save consumers money at the gas pump and help prevent catastrophic climate change.

Surely this year – which has seen the most significant Arctic sea ice melt on record – it’s finally time for VW to get its priorities straight?

So if over the coming weeks you hear gushing stories about VW’s new ‘green’ Golf VII - don’t believe the hype.

In fact, we think we’ve found footage of what’s really happening behind the scenes at VW. It’s on a website that Volkswagen seem to have set up to promote the new green Golf VII ‘Jedi Edition.’ Could this be a trap?.

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