Aygo Environmental Awareness

[anup_cfc]

Having been at Live Earth yesterday and seen a few SMARTS being advertised outside the stadium I thought why isn't the Aygo being trumped as the practical solution to Climate Chaos.

Even though both cars have similar Fuel Economies they Aygo is far cheaper, more practical with a boot, rear seat and more importantly a boot you can use. But the Aygo has less CO2 emissions which is the killer blow as far am I am concerned.

With the push of promoting environmental responsibility with realistic changes to our lifestyles surely downsizing from a mid sized hatch to an Aygo makes more sense then going to the more expensive less practical SMART.

Also compared to the Prius the Civic Hybrid I still find the Aygo an all round better car to have if you want to be ethical in your purchases with it being built at a highly efficient factory with low cost but high quality build as its aim.

I would just like to know what other people thing about this, I know we are all biased towards the Aygo but some thoughts would be welcomed.

[Jan van de Wouw]

Over here Smmart is advertised as "the car with the lowes CO-emissions world wide",

but they "forget" to mention that they're talking about their little DIESEL.

And Diesel is taxed extra over here, so they're not that cheap.

On top of that the "from" price mentioned is for a Petrol-engined one...

Daihatsu advertises its Cuore as "the lowest emissions on a Petrol engine"

and boasts CO2-compensation for its first year of use.

As Daihatsu is owned by Toyota I think they'll leave the Aygo be.

Personally I think the Aygo is aimed at a whole different crowd than

the Smart, a crowd that doesn't really care about emissions (yet).

At least that's what I gather from local advertising for the Aygo and its competitors...

[daveyjp]

The new revised smart has just been launched hence the advertising.

"more practical with a boot"

The smart has a larger boot than the Mini. Usable space is about the same as the Aygo and actually more practical as the bottom half swings down so you don't have to lift everything into it. We used to use our smart to go weekend camping!

Fuel consumption is a tiny part of how green a car is - building it produces far more CO2.

[Jazzy Jase]

Agreed about the practicality of the Smart. I helped move a 28 inch CRT TV last week. It wouldn't fit in my Aygo as we couldn't fit it through the boot opening. It went in the back of my mates Smart no problem.

I also agree that Toyota should be doing more to market the Aygo as an environmentally friendly car. They seem to be focusing on it as a funky car for young people. I guess they don't want to eat into sales of the supposedly eco-friendly Prius!

[Lisa26]

I don't really see any adverts for the Aygo except the 'Sponsors of T4' thing....

[anup_cfc]

I haven't seen the Smart close up but it does appear from what people say that it is more practical, shame about only 2 seats though.

And yes the Aygo really needs to be marketed as a green alternative alongside the Prius. After all it costs far less and has the same environmental statistics to show for it. I think Toyota would also attract far more young drivers if they raised the green issue more instead of just sponsoring T4.

[adilmon]

At the moment, a fundamentally CO2 conscious motorist will be probably be guided towards the £23k Prius instead of a £6,500 Aygo, which is wrong. That said, consumers aren't always silly enough to buy a new car without doing some homework before they go to the showroom. Aygo is selling very well in the UK.

I think the advertising on T4 is designed for those people who often say "Daddy bought me this car".