Believe it or not but the British Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a second Toyota hybrid-car related ad in a month! This time it’s for a Prius TV ad that misleadingly
claims it emits less CO2 than an equivalent diesel engine family car. About a month ago, ASA pulled the plug off a Lexus RX 400h magazine advert for falsely implicating that it caused little or no harm to the environment and had low CO2 emissions in comparison with all cars.
The Prius TV commercial, created by Saatchi & Saatchi Japan, claimed "what if all cars were like the Prius, with its hybrid synergy drive technology, it emits up to one tonne less CO2 per year" On-screen text stated "1 tonne of CO2 less than an equivalent family vehicle with a diesel engine. Average calculated on 20,000km a year. Toyota Prius: CO2 emissions: 104g/km".
The problem was that, according to ASA’s investigations, the chart used by Toyota
to make the calculations held data on petrol and diesel cars as opposed to merely diesel. Moreover, while the average annual distance driven by private cars in the US was 20,000km, the average for the UK was
13,440km. CARSCOOP