The ecological penalty rules will change very soon and new car models will be affected.
Bad news for buyers, many models, including the best-sellers of the brands that manufacture them, will see their prices increase very soon. The fault is the new ecological penalty scale which, for 15 years, has increased the purchase price of the most polluting vehicles when they are first registered. Like every year, this penalty will evolve in 2024, with new, stricter criteria, demonstrating the government’s desire to continue its policy to “decarbonize the roads”.
While the threshold for carbon dioxide emissions per kilometer traveled was previously set at 123 grams to avoid additional costs, the State decided to lower it to 118 grams. Five grams less may not seem like much, but it’s enough to push many car models, some of the most popular with French motorists, to the wrong side of the barrier.
Thus, from January 1, 2024, the date of entry into force of the new scale, the queens of city cars which are the Renault Clio, the Peugeot 208 and the Dacia Sandero will be more impacted by the ecological penalty than they were previously. For the Clio, whose fifth generation model went through the restyling box this year, the additional purchase cost will be between 50 and 125 euros depending on the engines concerned.
The 208, after having flirted for a long time with the limit of the authorized CO2 emission threshold, will see its price increase by 75 euros for its entry-level version equipped with a 75 horsepower engine. Concerning the Sandero, assembled in Morocco or Romania, on average you will have to pay an additional 100 euros to afford the gasoline-powered city car.
While there is nothing crazy about these increases, there is still a few dozen or even hundreds of euros more to plan for in a budget that is already significantly impacted for many households by price inflation. To console yourself – or at least try to do so – it is always possible to find worse elsewhere. So, for sports car enthusiasts, the bill will be considerably higher in a few months. Take the example of an Audi RS5 Sportback whose CO2 emissions with its V6 engine are estimated at 203 grams per kilometer. Between December 31, 2023 and January 1, 2024, his penalty will increase from 24,720 euros to…60,000 euros. Seen like that, small city cars aren’t doing so badly.
