German motor executives disagree on scrapping scheme

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} At the Geneva Motor Show yesterday, two rival executives in the German motor industry expressed entirely opposing views on the German scrapping initiative to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles on the road.   Under the scheme, the German government is paying Ôé¼2,500 towards the cost of buying a new vehicle to anyone who scraps a car that is at least nine years old. The scheme aims to subsidise the sale of 600,000 new cars this year, and by taking that number of old cars off the road, make a considerable contribution to greenhouse gas reduction.   At the same time, of course, it is a welcome stimulus for motor manufacturers, with German car sales rising over 20 percent already this year.   Ian Robertson, the only British member of the BMW board, has urged the UK to adopt the scheme, too, to help car manufacturers cope with the downturn and to improve the environment. "Thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of tonnes of carbon dioxide will be taken off the road," he says.   But Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of BMW's main rival Daimler, owner of the Mercedes marque, disagrees. "I am not a proponent of the scrapping scheme that is applied in Germany," he said, arguing that governments should focus on fixing the banking system, or offering loan guarantees to free up capital to car buyers and the corporate sector, rather than trying to change consumer behaviour.   Such schemes can be beneficial in the short term, he argued, but tend to store up trouble for the future.   Robertson countered that the UK should act quickly to take up the scheme, claiming the cost of the subsidy would be largely recovered by the VAT collected on the sale of the new cars.     *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *