Mandatory limits reduce prices

The report ‘Effect of regulations and standards on vehicle prices’ suggests that car makers find it easier to pass costs on to buyers of cars at the top of the range, but that those in the more competitive part of the market cannot do this so easily.

• Average CO₂ emissions from new cars sold in the EU finally reached the symbolic figure of 140 grams per kilometre in 2010. This was the target the car makers agreed to meet by 2008 in a voluntary agreement they signed with the Commission in 1999. That agreement prevented the EU introducing obligatory emissions standards, but the car makers’ slow progress towards their target led to obligatory standards in 2008.