LCVP Webinar reveals which car-makers are making CO2 info easy to find on their websites

Important new research has been revealed this week by We Are Futureproof and our partners in promoting cleaner cars.

At a special ‘webinar’ on Wednesday 27 January, Dr Ben Lane presented the results of his study of car-makers’ websites, showing how well each manufacturer is doing in providing CO2 information to its customers

We Are Futureproof, the Energy Saving Trust and Friends of the Earth Europe have come together to fund Ben’s research, via his consultancy and research company Ecolane.

Sorely needed, we all agreed, because car-makers and advertisers consistently object to rules putting CO2 information on adverts by arguing that consumers would rather use the internet to find out the fuel efficiency of cars.

We’re not convinced by this. Figures on efficiency and emissions can be provided in a few words of text or a simple graphic, both of which are easily included in artwork for ads (and our previous research showed a graphic was much better at conveying the info).

We argue that this data should be included everywhere a car is promoted, including adverts AND websites

New regulations since 2008 mean that CO2 info has to be included on billboard and magazine adverts, and we’ll be reporting on how well advertisers have complied with these soon.

But the regulations don’t yet cover websites. So, the question remains: if the web is the preferred way for car-makers to give us efficiency data,  just how well are they doing?

Ben’s study has looked in depth at how easy the public finds using the websites of all major car manufacturers in the UK.

Seventy-nine volunteers attended research sessions in person and 363 people carried out some very clever online tests, which tracked their mouse clicks and timed them as they tried to find CO2 figures for specific models.

Altogether more than 1,000 interactions with car-makers websites were carried out, making this a robust survey of the current state of things.

The average time taken to find the data ranged from 74 seconds for Lexus to 469 seconds for Alfa Romeo - nearly 8 minutes!

Manufacturers of lower carbon vehicles were found to be no more successful in accurately informing users of their websites of CO2 information than manufacturers of high emission vehicles.  Smart, Nissan and Alfa Romeo were found to be the ‘bottom three’ in terms of accessible carbon emissions data.  These sites tended to have lengthy look-up times in finding CO2 values and over-use of Flash technology and PDF downloads to convey information.

Mini, Kia, Lexus and Honda websites were those that participants found easiest to access CO2 information. The average time taken to find the data ranged from 74 seconds for Lexus to 469 seconds for Alfa Romeo - nearly 8 minutes.

According to Marian Spain, Director of Strategy at the Energy Saving Trust: “Nowadays most people do initial online research when looking into buying a new car. This research shows that in many cases, finding out the running costs of cars and their impact on the environment from the car manufacturer website is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Cars account for one sixth of all the UK’s carbon emissions. The gulf between the most efficient family car and least efficient family car is two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and £1,000 a year – that’s worth knowing about. At the same time, even manufacturers of low-carbon cars aren’t making the efficiency of their vehicles at all clear. I want to see the straightforward fuel economy label next to every car model viewed online so people can make informed choices.”

Our call for change is also supported by Consumer Focus. Their spokesperson Lucy Yates told us: “Clearly the car manufacturers have a long way to go if they are to help consumers make greener choices. Only half of consumers were able to find accurate information about a car’s CO2 emissions on the manufacturer’s website.

“The industry must provide clear, credible information as standard so it’s easy for consumers to compare a car’s green credentials.”

While the webinar has now passed, the full research report has been published and is available for download here.

Sian, for We Are Futureproof