By paying an £82 application fee and £27 per year licence, owners can avoid paying the £8 per day Congestion Charge – which is planned to rise to £25 per day for the highest polluting vehicles in 2008.
The investigation found 31 Bentleys, 18 BMW X5s, 52 Range Rovers, and eight Rolls- Royce Phantoms, among others, registered as private hire vehicles.
Jay Nagley, publisher of Clean Green Cars, said it was absurd that a private hire vehicle with a V12 engine does not pay the congestion charge when a family doing the school run with a Renault Espace 2.0T Auto is liable for the full £25 fee.
"The logical move would be to stop exemptions for any minicabs that fall into Band G – that way no-one would have an incentive to register their luxury car as a minicab.”
A Transport for London spokesman said there could be an investigation in to the report. “If information were brought to light to suggest abuse of the system, Transport for London and the Public Carriage Office would investigate this fully."
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