European Commission puts pressure on automakers
Stavros Dimas, the EU’s environment commissioner, wants to force car manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. In early February, the European Commission adopted his plan to make new cars sold in the EU subject to a mandatory average emissions cap of 130 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometre. This goal should be achieved by advances in motor technology. A guideline is being prepared. Following approval by the European Parliament and the member states’ Council of Ministers, it should be legally binding by 2012. Initially Dimas aimed for a target of 120 grams.
What remains to be clarified is what the average standard will actually relate to. So far, the Commission’s draft refers to all new cars sold in the EU. In practice, however, the rule is more likely to apply to the vehicles produced by single manufacturers. Calculated in litres, 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre correspond to an average fuel consumption of about five litres per 100 kilometres. Top-of-the-range cars consume nearly three times that amount. A Porsche Cayenne S for instance emits 360 grams of CO2 per kilometre, a Mercedes S-Class 340 grams.
Most car manufacturers will fail to meet the emission-reduction targets they voluntarily committed to in 1998. Back then, they made the pledge to the Commission that the average emission of their fleets would be no higher than 140 grams per kilometre by the end of 2008. Now, the Commission wants to act in order to prevent further emission increases in the transport sector. In Europe on average, there is one car per two persons, compared with a ratio of one to 52 in Africa. Accordingly, European cars contribute considerably to greenhouse emissions, making up 12 % of the European total today.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU pledged to reduce its greenhouse emissions by eight percent from 1990 to 2012. Although progress has clearly been made in the industrial sector, CO2 emissions have risen in the transport sector. Therefore, the EU Commission is now putting extra pressure on car manufacturers.
In Europe today, vehicles emit a little over 160 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre on average. German-made cars emit far more, because German manufacturers cater mainly to the top end of the market and their vehicles consume much fuel. For this reason, the approach of Commissioner Dimas met with hefty criticism from German automakers. In late January, the boards of BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler-Chrysler as well as those of the German subsidiaries of General Motors and Ford sent a joint letter to the European Commission, threatening to shift numerous jobs away from production facilities in Germany. Michael Glos, Germany’s minister for economics, hinted that the figure could be in the tens of thousands.
The Commission’s cap will create the greatest difficulty for those carmakers that do not manufacture small cars to bring down their fleets’ average emissions. The issue of exactly what groups of cars the guideline will relate to has to be politically resolved by the time the Commission presents its draft version in June 2008. The Commission is also currently working on a draft bill for new fuel standards.
European car buyers, however, are still drawn to large, high-consumption cars. In order to influence demand, the Commission has suggested that national governments offer tax incentives for low-emission cars and levy higher taxes on particularly dirty vehicles. Germany’s Federal Government is currently working on that kind of reform, a final decision is expected by the end of the year. The factor determining the tax rate will then no longer be engine size but rather the pollution a car causes. The Grand Coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats already agreed on this aproach in late 2005. However, there is still resistance among state governments. They are entitled to the revenue from motor vehicle taxes. Claudia Isabel Rittel