Citroën Named Greenest Car Manufacturer Of The Year in UK

LONDON - October 19, 2006: Citroën’s long-term commitment to the development and production of fuel efficient, low emission vehicles has just received a glowing endorsement in the 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 Institute of Car Fleet Management, The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and GreenFleet magazine, the only publication dedicated to environmental fleet management.

Sarah Cowell, Editor of GreenFleet magazine, comments, “Citroën’s policy of developing and marketing environmentally-friendly cars that are both practical and affordable played a major part in the Company winning the GreenFleet Car Manufacturer of the Year Award, as did its philosophy of making these fuel efficient and low emission vehicles an inherent part of its model range.”

Today 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.

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.

The 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 60mpg 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 83mpg.

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.