Europe has, and will likely remain, far more aggressive with emissions-cutting measures than we are here in the United States. Strict climate-related regulations on the Old Continent mean that gas vehicles – even those that we consider relatively efficient here – are extremely expensive and difficult to find. That’s how the 2024 Toyota GR Yaris, a car powered by an (admittedly powerful and turbocharged) three-cylinder engine, costs nearly double its sticker price in France.
Motor1 reported that the 2024 GR Yaris starts at 46,300 Euros, but its emissions add another 45,990 Euros to that price. The WLTP standard (think EPA equivalent), which European vehicles are measured against, estimates emissions of 190 grams per kilometer for the car, leading to that absurd fee. That effectively makes the car more than 92,000 Euros with the manual transmission and almost 109,000 Euros for the newly introduced automatic variant.
Electric vehicles have become an unnecessarily politicized product in the U.S., but it’s clear we should all be thankful that we’re not facing steep taxes and penalties for continuing to buy gas vehicles. We might face extreme dealer markups and have a hard time finding cars like the GR Corolla (we don’t get the homologation Yaris) or the Honda Civic Type R (costs almost $90k in The Netherlands), but we at least are not taxed again after shelling out the cash for a performance car with a gas engine.
[Image: Toyota]
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