You might remember that France has a tax rebate system (bonus/malus) for vehicles depending on their CO₂ emissions. As in the UK and in Spain, car sales in the first trimester of 2008 have been remarkably affected. For instance, 50 percent of car sales are of vehicles under four meters long.

The most remarkable increase has been found in the category which receives the bonus. Sales of cars that emit less than 130 g/km CO₂ were up by 13 percent. Sales of larger cars in the medium-upper segment were down by 10 percent. The biggest lost came in the upper-luxury market, where sales plummeted 34 percent.

Coming from a French perspective, this is good news: French automakers have just released small attractive models (Twingo, 207) and, on average, their models are the most fuel-efficient. PSA and Renault account for 60 percent of small car sales. The two companies get 52 percent of market share of cars that emit between 121 and 140 g/km CO₂ but only 32 percent for those in the 161 to 200 g/km segment..

[Source: Les Echos]

Austria is also changing its taxing system to "punish" the most polluting cars on the road. The new tax scheme, which is called NoVa-Reform, consists of a bonus-malus system that saves or adds taxes to cars depending on a number of factors.

The system results more complicated than the British or the Spanish ones, which rely exclusively on CO₂ emissions: Cars emitting under 140 CO₂ g/km get a "bonus" or discount from the car tax (300 EUR), but you can gain an additional bonus if you use "alternative fuels and technologies" (500 EUR) or a Diesel Particulate Filter (200 EUR). The malus system starts when your car pollutes more than 180 g/km: 25 EUR for each additional gram (initial plans started the malus at 160). If you thought this was complex, there's more: total bonus cannot result in more than a 500 EUR discount and the final car tax can't be negative, although it can be offset.

Criticism has spread considerably in Austria because a family carrier like a Volkswagen Touran with a 1.4 TFSI engine ends up paying more taxes than a Lexus Hybrid.

[Source: Der Standard (link is in German)]