Most manufacturers are on track to meet emissions targets for new vehicles

EU rules on _CO2 emissions from EU vehicles are pushing the car industry to invest in and offer zero-emission technologies and models. And that, despite the gaps and shortcomings in the regulations.

Most car manufacturers are on track to meet the new _CO2 emissions targets that will apply for 2020 and 2021, dates when the threshold of allowable emissions for this gas (the main cause of the greenhouse effect) is drastically cut.

The achievement seems close thanks to the increase in sales of electric cars (despite the pandemic), which has lowered in a year the average emissions of vehicles put on sale; stand at 111 g/CO₂/km (it was 122 a year earlier), and they are close to the legal limit (95 g/CO₂/km)

An analysis of the European network of NGOs Transport and Environment indicates that the PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel), Volvo, Tesla-FCA (Fiat-Chrysler) and the BMW Group are already meeting these targets, sales in the first half of the year show.

For their part, Renault, Nissan, the Toyota-Mazda group and Ford have yet to fill a small gap of 2 grams of _CO2 per kilometer.

However, only sales of the Zoe in 2020 will allow 15 grams of _CO2 to be removed from the equation to ensure Renault’s compliance.

The rest (Vollswagen Group, Hundai-Kia, Daimler and Jaguar-Land Rover) will have to reach the goals through an intensification of their strategies, either by selling more plug-in electric vehicles, grouping in cooperation alliances with other brands or through these two formulas, according to T&E.

Triplicated fees

The cause of this favourable overall development is fundamentally the fact that electric cars will triple their market share this year in Europe. It is the result of the directive imposing stricter limits on the automotive sector.

Sales of electric vehicles have increased since January 1 – when emissions standards came into force – reaching 10% this year, and 15% in 2021.

Norway is an example of how fast the electric vehicle market can grow: from 6% of sales in 2013 to almost 50% five years later, in 2018.

The regulation includes various flexibility mechanisms

“Sales of electric cars are booming, thanks to EU emissions standards. Next year, or one in seven cars sold in Europe will be plug-in. EU manufacturers have once again entered the EV race, but without more ambitious _CO2 targets in 2025 and 2030, they will run out of momentum in 2022,” says Carlos Bravo, head of T&E in Spain.

Brands that expect not to meet EU emissions targets can use various easing mechanisms (shortcuts) that would allow them to achieve them.

One of the mechanisms is the partnership between brands to achieve a shared goal, an ease that has led, for example, to Fiat-Chrysler to join with Tesla (which sells few cars in Europe) in order to reduce the average volume of emissions of new cars.

Some alliances manage to meet the 2020 target with hardly any sales of electric cars and only resorting to the hybridization strategy of conventional models

Flexibility mechanisms also allow manufacturers to discard or not count the 5% of cars with the highest _CO2 emissions, something that has a greater impact on brands that manufacture SUVs.

SUVs up 39% in the first half of the year

“It is worrying to see sales of combustion-engined SUV vehicles, as lucrative as they are highly polluting, grow by up to 39% in the first half of 2020. This is encouraged by a gap in European Union regulations thanks to which the sale of heavy and polluting vehicles offers in practice CO targets.₂ more lax to car manufacturers, “laments Mónica Vidal, director of public policies and climate governance of Ecodes, member of the T&E network.

In fact, global _CO2 emissions from new cars already increased between 2016 and 2019 due precisely to the boom in SUV vehicles.

On the other hand, Mónica Vidal also highlights that half of the total electric cars sold correspond to false electric (plug-in hybrids), the limes are rarely plugged in and, therefore, in real driving conditions, emit 2 to 4 times more CO₂ of what laboratory tests show.

The result of all these gaps is that taking advantage of this type of sales of plug-in hybrids certain car manufacturers can sell thousands of cars with emissions well above 200 g / km, despite the fact that there are electrification technologies available for these models, says the study.

T&E and Ecodes consider that Spain should set the year 2035 at the latest, as the deadline for the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines, including the current technology of plug-in hybrids.

“The electric car is already establishing itself as a major player in the European market, but combustion SUV sales continue to grow like weeds. The only way to end highly polluting vehicles is to now give car manufacturers an end date for the sale of these dirty vehicles,” says Saúl López, head of strategy at T&E, who advocates including in that expiration vehicles that run on biofuels, fake electric vehicles or fossil gas vehicles, that emit CO₂ .

Source: The Vanguard