ONE of the things I picked up from the Energy Saving Trust’s Fleet Hero awards on Tuesday evening was how difficult the entries had been to compile.
They are, it seems, not a simple piece of work. So it was something of a shame for those people at Citroen and Volkswagen who came away empty-handed.
Steve Chater from BMW – who picked up the Industry Supplier Award – told me that he’d put the whole entry together himself: “It did take some time, but then I guess we have a lot to say,” said Steve.
Although, given that Steve is boss of BMW’s corporate and business sales division, he should know a lot about CO2 reduction. As he demonstrated.
“We’ve introduced a number of both 1 and 3 Series models below the 120g/km threshold,” said Steve, warming to his theme.
“This means company car drivers only pay 13% company car tax. And with the new BMW 320D EfficientDynamics we have the only premium compact executive model in the sub-110g/km segment, which means businesses benefit from 100% first-year writing down allowances.”
No wonder Steve couldn’t stop smiling. But the key achievement for me is that BMW has managed to reduce the environmental impact of their cars, but without diluting the dynamic performance for which the marque is so well known.
Producing exciting premium cars is one thing, of course. But when you’re a mass producer of cars and vans, the pressures are rather different.
So all credit to Ford for picking up the Innovation in Car and Van Manufacture Award.
No wonder, then, that another man smiling was Kevin Griffin, Ford’s director of fleet operations. Kevin picked up the award, which was as much for Ford’s progress with its vans – low emission ECOnetic Transits, for example – as it was for the low emission cars the company now produces.
“I’d like to think Ford has always tried to take a greener route,” Kevin told me.
“We’ve invested in green technology at every stage, everything from LPG to electricity. So it’s good to get recognition for what we’ve done, particularly with ECOnetic and our new EcoBoost engines due for the new year.”
If you’ve not come across EcoBoost (yet another series of caps and lower case to remember!) the engine delivers fuel consumption and emission reductions of 20% compared with conventional petrol engines. it uses a combination of direct injection, turbo charging and and variable valve timing to achieve this. Look out for the SCTi (Sequential Charge Turbo injection) badge to identify it on Ford cars.
Back to the Fleet Hero awards. I mentioned to Kevin that there was heightened anticipation about the awards this year.
“Oh, I agree. The Energy Saving Trust has really put fuel and emission saving on the road map. It’s now cool to talk about CO2.”
Expect even fiercer competition next year, then.
