Today’s announcement by the Volkswagen Group that it plans to sell 70 electric models and make 22 million electric vehicles in the next decade is a game changer for the automotive industry, Europe’s federation of green transport NGOs has said. While the plan is not perfect it is a clear indication of the future of carmaking and governments should now put in place green taxation and charging infrastructure to aid the transition, Transport & Environment (T&E) commented.

EU governments and MEPs have agreed to spend €7 billion of the bloc’s transport infrastructure budget on more sustainable projects like electric vehicle re-charging points and upgrades to rail signalling. The projects will need to be co-financed by member states, meaning public spending on green transport infrastructure will be much higher. Transport & Environment (T&E) said that, as EU member states deliberate on a draft strategy to fully decarbonise European transport by 2050, last night’s deal on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) makes that target more achievable.

The US has become the second largest electric passenger car market in the world [1], selling 361,000 EVs in 2018 (a 2.1% market share) and relegating Europe to the third place with 302,000 cars (or a 2.0% market share), new analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) shows. China continues to top the ranking with over one million EVs sold last year and an EV market share of 4%.

The new car CO2 emissions test is producing unreliable results making it unfit for setting vehicle taxes at the moment, new data analysed by Transport & Environment (T&E) shows. This supports the European Commission’s evidence last year that carmakers are manipulating the new WLTP test to make their emissions look worse until 2021 and thus make CO2 reduction targets in 2025 easier to comply with. Governments should hold back on basing taxes on the new test and instead prepare a more comprehensive overhaul of vehicle taxation that accelerates the uptake of electric cars, T&E said.[1]