Ministry fines car importers over pollution data

The Environmental Protection Ministry has imposed sanctions of hundreds of thousands of shekels on importers of three major car companies for their failure to publish correct air pollution data about their vehicles.

The ministry informed the importers of Volvo, Opel and Land Rover vehicles last week that it intends to impose sanctions worth a total of NIS 600,000 – a first since the Clean Air Law was enacted, the ministry announced on Tuesday. When printing information about these vehicles, the importers failed to include vehicle pollution figures in some cases and failed to use the proper colors attributed to pollution level in others. Each importer received a sanction of NIS 200,000.

Mayer Cars and Trucks received one of the three fines for its leaflet advertisements for the Volvo V70 XC70, in which the company failed to include any pollution information about the vehicle at all, according to the ministry.

The Shlomo Group, responsible for importing Opel vehicles, published a promotional leaflet for the Opel Insignia in which air pollution data for the car appeared without colors, without any special emphasis and without a bar charting the pollution levels. Meanwhile, the information also bore the misleading name “Green Score,” the ministry said.

Eastern Automobile Marketing, owned by the Eini family, published online advertisements for the Range Rover without including any information about pollution levels.

The companies have the right to file a written complaint within 30 days, the ministry said. By law, however, all publications about new commercial vehicles must include fuel consumption data and the degree of pollution generated by the vehicles in the advertisement, according to the ministry.

The Clean Air Law aims to provide the purchaser with ample knowledge about the car he or she is researching and how efficiently and cleanly it will perform, the ministry said.