New clean-car rules too costly, say dealers
5:00AM Monday May 28, 2007
The Government wants to set new emission standards.
New measures to tighten emission standards for imported vehicles will not work as most people cannot afford the approved cars, the Motor Trade Association says.
The Government wants to update existing standards for new vehicle imports, tighten standards for used imports and to test used vehicles when added to the national fleet.
The new standards would not affect vehicles already registered.
But MTA communications manager Andy Cuming said the proposal would not achieve what the Government wanted.
"Simply put, most of the people looking to update their older cars could not afford the cars being allowed in. There is an enormous number of vehicles that must be replaced so that our national fleet is at what is now deemed to be the acceptable standard.
"This is the result of close to 20 years of a virtually total deregulated vehicle importing environment. There are 2.6 million vehicles registered, and their average age is 12 years."
More
here .