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Europe’s vans to be speed limited now and more fuel-efficient by 2025

The European Parliament’s environment committee has sent a strong signal that it wants Europe’s vans to be more fuel-efficient than they are now. MEPs voted for a carbon dioxide emissions limit of between 105 and 120 g/km by 2025, down from 181 g/km in 2010. The 2025 target would equate to fuel consumption of 4 to 4.5 l/100km. The specific figure should be defined in 2017. The committee also voted to limit the speed of all new vans to 120 km/h from the start of next year.

MEPs set standard for 2025 new cars

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. 

ICAO looks like wasting EU’s gesture

The EU has finalised the text of its ‘stop the clock’ concession on the inclusion of emissions from intercontinental flights in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, although the chances of the gesture being wasted by members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) look greater with each day that goes by.

Electric cars slow to catch on

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.

EU car emissions test ‘deceiving customers’

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.

60 g/km by 2025 is possible with existing technology

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.

Action on charging points to help electric vehicles

The EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas has floated the idea of the EU legislating to oblige member states to provide more charging points for electric vehicles. The proposal came as part of a ‘Clean Power for Transport’ package launched last month that looks to encourage a greater take-up of alternative-fuel vehicles by the public. T&E said it was ‘a small but largely welcome step’ in the right direction.

10 questions for 2013 to test how important sustainable transport is for European leaders

Opinion by our Director, Jos Dings

A new year has come, full of new challenges and opportunities. Fortunately, for now, Europe seems to have averted the worst emergencies. This should allow for some less ad-hoc and more strategic thinking about recipes to get ourselves out of the woods.

MEPs support sustainability and unsustainability at the same time

MEPs are voting for more sustainability with one hand and unsustainable projects with the other. That is the message from a group of NGOs after MEPs voted to strengthen sustainability safeguards for infrastructure projects that could receive EU funding, but at the same time voted to support certain transport projects that will take Europe further away from its sustainability goals.

Campaign to save international rail

The World Carfree Network has written to the Commission to express concern about the future of cross-border rail services after a mass of cutbacks in international trains. It says the new timetable that came into effect on 9 December saw an end to all direct trains between Barcelona and Milan, Barcelona and Zurich, Bucharest and Belgrade, and Brussels and The Hague. There are also severe cutbacks in other transnational services, notably in the six countries of the former Yugoslavia.

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