A third of Britons plan to be greener in 2008, a new survey claims. Honda reckons that the extreme flooding that blighted many parts of the UK last year has prompted more people to take a bigger interest in environmental matters – including the sort of car they drive.
If true (and let’s face it, polls like this can easily be skewed by the line of questioning), the survey suggests that Brits are more prepared than ever to pick a cleaner car. The most popular green resolutions were to recycle more in 2008, save energy and buy cleaner, more efficient products. The survey also named our eco role models – Prince Charles topped the list of green icons, followed by David Attenborough and Bill Oddie.
Honda is clearly commissioning this type of research to bolster its own green credentials. President Takeo Fukui announced before Christmas that hybrid cars would account for 10 percent of its global sales by 2010.
In addition to the Honda Civic Hybrid (its only petrol-electric car on sale in the UK), it will launch a new global hybrid model in 2009 and a new hybrid sports car based on the CR-Z concept shown at Tokyo. We’ll see the latter at the Detroit show in January 2008.
Honda launched the world’s first production fuel-cell car last year. The FCX Clarity is being leased to a handful of customers in the US and Japan.