MEPs have sent a signal that car makers will have to meet fuel efficiency targets by both 2020 and 2025. Although the decision still has to be confirmed by the full European Parliament, EU member states and Commission, the move lays down a marker that the average new car should need less than three litres to drive 100km by 2025. Environmental groups have welcomed the vote, but say it does not go far enough to drive zero-emission cars into the market.
An analysis of market forecasts for low-carbon cars suggests the take-up of electric vehicles will have a very slow take-up over the next decade. The analysis, Powering Ahead by the Ricardo-AEA consultancy, says the total number of plug-in hybrid and pure battery-powered cars being sold each year in the UK by 2020 will not exceed 200 000 and may even be as low as 40 000.
The gap between what cars emit in reality and what they are officially measured as emitting has grown to nearly a quarter, and continues to grow. A report by T&E says this gap and its growth is caused by car makers’ manipulation of testing procedures, and it explains how this is done. T&E says the current test regime is not fit for purpose, a new test should replace it by 2016, and follow-up checks should be carried out on cars to show their results are consistent with the official test results.
An international study has warned the EU that it risks getting an important detail wrong in plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. The International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) says basing the EU’s emissions standards on the weight of a vehicle will make it much harder and more expensive to achieve targets and instead a vehicle’s ‘footprint’ should be the guiding factor.
A report commissioned by T&E and Greenpeace suggests the EU can more than halve its existing carbon dioxide emissions from new cars with existing technology. The report, by the British consultancy Ricardo-AEA, says the right mixture of electric, hybrid and conventionally-fuelled cars will enable Europe to reach a target of 60 grams per kilometre from the average new car in 2025.
EU targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from cars are too easy and not providing enough of an incentive for car makers. That is the message from T&E’s annual report "How Clean are Europe’s Cars?" published earlier last month.
A new report for the Commission suggests about a third of reported carbon dioxide emissions reductions from new cars since 2002 have not happened. T&E says this results in drivers being ‘cheated’ out of the benefits of lower fuel costs, as well as higher emissions of greenhouse gases.
T&E’s Belgian member Inter-Environnement Wallonie (IEW) has warned that the EU law requiring car manufacturers to give information on CO2 emissions from new cars has no teeth. IEW has given up a four-year fight, during which it complained to the Commission on several occasions that car makers are blatantly ignoring directive 1999/94, which makes it obligatory to give fuel economy and emissions information where new cars are sold.
The European Commission has gone back on a series of commitments to reduce the environmental impacts of road vehicles. T&E says the climbdown carries the fingerprints of lobbying by the automotive industry, but will not help Europe’s car makers in the long term.
