Citroen Greenest Manufacturer of the Year

Yes, Its not Toyota or Honda with their civic cars, instead its Citroen. Yep, don’t panic, I am not going French on you, I didnt pick the award! Nevertheless, Citroen deserve it for putting in so much resources into developing cleaner and better cars. So it has been finally awarded in the YK’s 2006 GreenFleet Awards, with the company being named “Car Manufacturer of The Year”, ahead of runners-up Toyota and Honda.

The GreenFleet Awards are designed to promote ways of reducing emissions and of increasing awareness, among those responsible for transport procurement, about making greener fuel and vehicle decisions.  The Awards were judged by representatives from the UK’s Institute of Car Fleet Management, The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and GreenFleet magazine, the only publication dedicated to environmental fleet management.

Citroën offers one of the most fuel efficient and lowest emission-producing product ranges around.  No less than three of the four lowest CO2-emitting diesel cars available in the UK are Citroëns.  Importantly, the environmental benefits of these models are available at affordable prices, helped by an innovative customer offers programme.

A major Citroën innovation, designed to reduce emissions and save fuel in stop-start urban operation, is its unique Stop & Start technology, which switches the engine off when the car is at standstill.  This year the C2 supermini joined its larger sibling, the C3, in benefiting from this useful and affordable technology in the UK.

Citroën also pioneered the fitment of self-regenerating particulate traps.  The Company’s acclaimed Diesel Particulate Filter System reduces levels of particle emissions to virtually immeasurable levels, and is available on a whole range of the Company’s latest diesel models.

Across the board, Citroën continues to offer customers the benefits of its fuel efficient, low emission HDi diesel engines, available in vehicles ranging in size from city cars through to full size people carriers, executive saloons and even vans.

In the UK the Citroen C1 is indicative of the work that Citroën is doing on this front – in both 1.0i petrol and 1.4HDi diesel forms, the C1 returns ultra-low CO2 emissions of just 109 g/km as well as over 60 mpg on the official combined cycle.   At the same time, the 1.4HDi C2 Enterprise has laid claim to the title of Britain’s most economical van – in a recent, independently-organised fuel economy test, it returned an incredible 83 mpg.

Continuing Citroën’s policy of offering greener alternatives to all buyers, the company recently announced that all of its HDi diesel engined cars and light commercial vehicles can be run on up to 30% bio-diesel without any modification.

And looking to the future, Citroën this year unveiled its environmentally inspired C4 Hybride HDi, a test bed of advanced hybrid technology designed to reduce fuel consumption and lower emissions.  It features a 1.6HDi diesel engine coupled to an electric motor plus a particulate filter and Stop & Start technology.  The result is a C4 that could stretch a gallon of fuel for a remarkable 84 miles whilst keeping CO2 emissions down to just 90 g/km.

In Australia, Citroen is introducing these low emission cars, starting with the Citroen C5 in sedan and wagon forms, followed by the Citroen C4 HDi. These will be followed in 2007 by diesel versions of the new Citroen C4 Picasso people mover and a new version of the Citroen C4 HDi with a new self shifting gearbox that boosts ease of use without any loss of economy or increase in emissions.