Dear Porsche (judicial.review@porsche.co.uk),
I’ve recently visited your website for the Judicial Review of the increased congestion charge for London. At a time when the world is becoming more environmentally conscious, Porsche is showing itself to be an utter relic, moving its business into heavier and more polluting vehicles like the Cayenne, and trying to buy its way out of environmental regulation through legal threats.
London has improved so much through the use of the congestion charge. Even as a motorist I can recognise the benefits of vastly better traffic flow, meaning you can now actually drive or bus somewhere quicker than walking, and that you can actually breathe without it turning your snot black by the end of the day. This change would make the charge even more effective, and I’d wholeheartedly support that.Your arguments about harming drivers of family MPVs are pretty laughable, given that you don’t make them yourselves and feel you need to hide behind them rather than your own sports cars and monster-SUVs to get any sympathy for your case. Families won’t move from one large car to two smaller ones as you say, they’ll move from one large gas guzzler MPV to one large normal MPV if anything. More likely families won’t be driving in London anyway – there’s not a lot of point taking a family outing to town in the car, and family cars tend to be used more within their own areas outside zone 1. You also claim that it will hit small traders harder, and whilst Westminster probably does have a couple of Porsche-plumbers in its rich list, this is just a bit silly – unless you’re counting private equity firms as ‘ordinary small business people’.
The charge is a big jump, yes. This is because the kind of people who can afford a Cayenne need a more proportional disincentive to have the same effect as the rest of the population – they can afford to write off £8 without thinking about it.
I’m not surprised you’re not allowing public comments on your campaign site. Please butt out of our great world city, and let its democratically elected administration (for now at least) keep it that way. Put some effort into cleaning up your own act instead, and you could avoid the extra charge for your drivers in a way which would benefit everyone.
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Get you facts straight. The average Porsche has a much lower environmental impact and is a damn sight less polluting than you are inaccurately suggesting. More than 50% of all cars made by Porsche are still running – this in contrast to the massive number of volume cars that are scrapped at around 10 years or less. Boxsters, Caymans and 911s have similar fuel consumption to many 2.0l people carriers. Porsche owners do well below the average mileage per annum. Sounds like Porsche envy to me.
Thanks Andy. That’s my point really tho. Sure a boxster is so nicely put together that it’s no worse than a family MPV, but come on – it’s a piddly little 2 seater, it’s not exactly apples for apples with something that lugs around the whole clan and their bags. Porsche really don’t have so much to crow about in any case. They’re doing less than Lexus say, who have thought enough to make a hybrid SUV for people who feel they really have to have an SUV in town – as hefty as the Cayenne but much better sitting about in London traffic.