Emissions rebates and surcharges

(Screenshot from Todayonline website on 8 Feb 2012, 10.20am, for awareness purpose only)

Starting Jan 2013, the government will be giving rebates to people who buy low emission vehicles, including the hybrids, and in July the same year, the government will be imposing surcharges to people who buy vehicles with high emissions, particularly the performance and the luxury cars.

Something that made sense very long ago but only implemented now. Still, implementing is better than no implementing, especially when rebates are concerned.

If this is successful, that is, in controlling the high emission cars and encouraging the low emission ones, it could even as a benchmark to use to indicate how much road tax perhaps we have to pay. Road tax now is currently determined by engine cc which makes no sense as the bigger the cc, it takes more the road or it pollutes more.

Road tax, in its simplest form, should be tax paid to use the road. So, theoretically, the bigger the car, the more tax one has to pay. However here, a 1.8l or 2.0l 320i, a 2.5l 325i, 3.0i 335i or a 4.0 litre M3 (all with the same 3-series body pay different level of tax from over $900 per year (1.8l 320i) to close to $4000 per year (M3).

Little wonder then, why manufacturers are turbo-charging all engines to ensure that engine displacement (cc) is kept to the lowest as possible while still offer reasonable / high level of performance.

Back to the emission tax or rebates, here's some cars which qualifies for the rebates or the surcharge in the small pink table on the website:

Rebates (in different tiers):
Lexus CT200h, Prius 1.5 and 1.8
Toyota Wish, Honda Fit. BMW 116i Alfa Mito


Surcharges (in different tiers)
Audi A8, BMW 7 series, Merc S class, XF, RS5 etc are amongst those that need to pay a surcharge from July 2013

I am pretty sure there will be more hybrids but will there be less 7-series, S-class?  After all, 7.5K to 22.5K extra for the 'face' of the businessman may be nothing to him. Let's observe...