At Citroën we offer a wide range of low-emission car options for anyone who needs to drive within the London Congestion Charge zone. Whether you live or work in the capital, or simply need to cross it from time to time, a car that is Congestion Charge-exempt can make life simpler, cheaper and less stressful.
All roads leading into the eight square miles of the controlled zone are signposted, but with over 200 entry points it remains disarmingly easy to cross the boundary accidentally, and drivers who are unfamiliar with the capital’s busy streets are especially likely to make mistakes and incur the congestion charge. London is unforgiving; even if you stray only a few yards into the zone, you will still become liable for the full charge, currently £10 per day. Fines of up to £120 are faced by drivers who forget or don’t realise that they need to pay.
Happily, the owner of any low-emission car with a CO2 rating below 100g/km (and of at least Euro 4 emissions standard) can avoid the daily charge altogether by registering for the Greener Vehicle Discount. Drivers of zero-emission cars, meanwhile, can register under the similar Electric Vehicle Discount scheme. In either case a one-off administration fee of £10 removes the need to even think about the charge as long as the discounts remain in force, with an additional two years’ grace if the rules change in the future.
We currently offer a broad choice of cars that qualify for the Greener Vehicle Discount, starting below £8,000 for our neat and nippy little C1 city car - a perfect choice for urban motoring. The C1 is exclusively petrol-powered, while in our larger C3 supermini range we offer diesel options below the exemption barrier. In the next size up, we offer a diesel-powered C4 family hatchback with a CO2 rating of just 98g/km, and even our luxurious DS5 model goes as low as 91g/km in its diesel-electric Hybrid4 edition. For the ultimate in clean motoring, our four-seat C-Zero electric car is completely exempt from the congestion charge, naturally qualifying for the zero-emissions Electric Vehicle Discount.
London’s Mayor introduced the congestion charge exemption schemes to try to encourage people to use cleaner and more responsible vehicles when they do need to travel by car. And indeed the exemptions have succeeded in increasing the proportion of low-emission cars within the centre of London, helping to reduce overall CO2 emissions and cut the levels of harmful pollutants.
We are fully committed to producing exceptionally clean and efficient cars, so we are happy that so some of our cars meet today’s exemption criteria. We are also working diligently to produce cars that meet the even tougher targets we can expect in the future.
