Scrappage scheme boosts super mini sales and cuts CO2

And top of the UK sales tree are vehicles classed in the 'super mini' category, although by no means all of them have UK factories to benefit from the boom. US-owned Ford (22,609 new UK registrations in the three months to the end of September) and South Korea's biggest car firm Hyundai (21,291) lead the way. Toyota (15,869), Fiat (13,597), Kia (12,772), Vauxhall (12,475 and VW (11,686) are the only others to make five figures. However, SMMT spokeswoman Sara Lee points to the wider economic benefits of the scheme, including the boost it provides to the economy beyond manufacturing and the consumer confidence it engenders. SMMT regularly publishes scrappage incentive registration figures and has collated further data to provide this extra detail on vehicles bought through the scheme. Commenting on the data, SMMT chief executive Paul Everitt said, "Since launching, the Scrappage Incentive Scheme has provided a welcome boost to new car registrations. Not only is it helping to reduce average CO2 emissions, but it is putting safer vehicles on our roads. The scheme should help to sustain demand into 2010 and have a positive impact on UK manufacturing and new car registrations during the first half of the year." SMMT said new cars registered through the scheme had an average CO2 value of 132.1g/km. This was 10.9% below the average of all new cars registered between May and September, of 148.2g/km, and 27.4% below the average CO2 of the scrapped car. The average CO2 emissions of old cars scrapped through the scheme is estimated to be 181.9g/km. The average age of scrapped vehicles is 12.6 years.