Briefing

Monitoring and reporting of truck CO₂: Transparency and efficiency first

July 5, 2017

Today heavy duty vehicles account for around 30% of EU road transport CO₂, but as cars decarbonise, this is expected to reach about 40%. The Commission proposal on monitoring and reporting (MR) of truck CO₂ emissions and fuel consumption seeks to collect certain truck data and make it available (with restrictions) to the Commission and stakeholders. The MR regulation will support the implementation of truck CO₂ standards – a Commission proposal is due in early 2018.

One of the key lessons of the diesel emissions scandal is that emission tests are vulnerable to abuse, especially once they form the basis of regulations or taxation/tolling (as is expected for truck CO₂). Dieselgate was uncovered thanks to independent third-party scrutiny of official (lab) tests. Transparency and third party testing will be critical to avoid another Dieselgate.

While EU carmakers have been embroiled in the diesel emissions scandal, EU truckmakers were fined €2.93 billion for running a cartel – the EU’s largest ever such fine. In 2016 the Commission ruled that EU OEMs colluded to fix prices and delay the introduction of emission reduction technologies between 1997 and 2011. In this briefing T&E argues that to prevent a future cartel, the MR regulation must maximise transparency, knowing that this also stimulates competition between truckmakers and empowers truck buyers. The briefing is also available in Italian.

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