New Renault Megane dCI as Green as Hybrid

Press Release

Hybrids more expensive and no greener than diesel says Renault

Moves by Honda and the RAC Foundation this week to try and convince the British public that you can “save money with Honda hybrids” and that “British drivers don’t understand greener cars” backfired somewhat with the revelation that Renault’s new Megane range includes new dCi diesel engines which match all the low emission and fuel consumption claims made for hybrid cars whilst costing between £3,550 and £5,050 less.

“British drivers don’t understand greener cars” said Honda at the launch of its new Civic Hybrid – “Yes they do” says Renault “which is why they buy thousands of Mégane dCi diesels every year giving them the same environmental CO_2, Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) and fuel consumption benefits as a hybrid”. Yet with prices for a Mégane five-door Hatch dCi 86 starting at only £12,750, that’s an astonishing £3,550 less than the new Honda Civic Hybrid and £5,015 less than the cheapest Toyota Prius.

The facts

The hybrid cars offered by Honda and Toyota work by offering two power units – one petrol and one electric. Petrol engines are less efficient than diesel engines which are not popular in their home country of Japan so by mating a small electric motor to a small petrol engine they can improve the environmental performance of their car.

In Europe however, many years of diesel engine development has seen turbo chargers and common rail injection improve the efficiency of diesel engines leaps and bounds to the point where a petrol/electric hybrid offers no advantage but the cost and complexity of having two power units adds greatly to the price and servicing costs.

Same VED tax band

The Government has announced new VED bands to reduce the tax for low emission cars with a £65 reduction for Band A cars emitting less than 100g/km of CO₂ and a £35 reduction for Band B for cars emitting between 101 and 120g/km.

Widely assumed to be a band for only hybrids and supermini diesels, both the Mégane dCi 86 and dCi 106 fit in this category with CO₂ emissions of 120g km compared to 109 g/km for the Honda and 104 g/km for the Toyota. Mind you, the Mégane is an exception as you will not find any other cars of this size like the Ford Focus, Vauxhall Astra or VW Golf in this VED band. Mégane is the only car in this class with emissions as low as 120g/km.