The ecological penalty could literally explode in 2024

Each new year has its new tax turn. In a few weeks, the government should present its roadmap for next year, and thermal vehicles should be further penalized.

Indeed, according to the newspaper The echoes, the government should once again lower the threshold for triggering the ecological penalty. We would thus pass from a threshold of 123 in 2023 to 118 g/km of CO₂. The list of thermal cars escaping the penalty will be further reduced, and some models will even be entitled to the double penalty, since at the same time, still according to Les Echos, the weight penalty will also harden and go from a trigger threshold of 1.8 to 1.6 tonnes.

Thus, several thermal SUVs, including some bestsellers such as the Peugeot 3008 and the Renault Austral, should pay the price.

The penalty will soon be uncapped

For lovers of sports cars, German flat-six or beautiful Italian V8s, the note should be even higher in 2024. Indeed, as Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, had announced in May last, the penalty will no longer be capped.

Thus, the ceiling of 50,000 euros in penalties in force this year should disappear and certain models will be applied a penalty fully proportional to their CO emissions₂. We could therefore approach 100 000 euros in some cases.

This is certainly enough to significantly increase the market for used luxury and prestige vehicles, but also certain “tax optimization” solutions with the resurgence of foreign license plates.

Companies also in the sights of the government

And no one should be spared this new turn of the screw. Indeed, the government also intends to tax company fleets more, in particular those who still buy diesel models, even if they are increasingly rare in the catalog of manufacturers. The government wants to accelerate the greening of fleets and “encourage” companies to change strategy with more taxes on both CO emissions₂but also on the age of the vehicles.

All of these measures should bring more money into the coffers, since these new taxes could bring half a billion euros to the State. At the same time, the ecological bonus reserved for electric cars should be toughened next year, with in particular the exclusion of models that have “too strong a CO2 impact₂“, in other words those produced outside European borders.

Read also :
• Trucks of the future: electric or with hydrogen?
• Tesla: the first copy of the Semi has been delivered
• Renault Trucks will launch new electric trucks