The problem is not 2024, which despite the drop in electric car volumes i builders will close without incurring sanctions due to the insufficient reduction in average CO2 emissions of the newly registered fleet, but the 2025.
An investigation reveals this Dataforcean analysis and consultancy firm operating in 27 countries globally, which suggests fines of “hundreds of millions of euros” for large automotive groups operating in the Old Continent, in particular for the European ones. Starting next year the new parameters which require a significant reduction in the dispersion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: up to 19% for cars, from 116 to 93.6 g/km, and up to 17% for light commercial vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes (from 185 to 154). The penalty is 95 euros for each additional gram compared to the targets set multiplied by the number of new registered vehicles. In 2021, car manufacturers had to shell out around 550 million euros for failure to achieve the targets.
The main way to achieve them is to increase the registrations of low-emission vehicles, i.e. electric And plug-in hybrids (although in the latter case the actual usage data tells a different story). Pricesnegative situation, autonomyinfrastructure of recharge and above all the progressive reduction of incentives (especially in Germany, where they were cancelled a year early) are slowing down the spread of less polluting cars (on the road) and relaunching the sales of those powered by internal combustion engines, for which the marketing ban still remains starting from 2035.
In the first half of the year, 243,000 more cars were sold in the 27 countries of the Union plus Iceland and Norway than in the same period of 2023 (+4.3%), mainly due to the success of the Full Hybrid. BEVs and PHEVs had a negative impact, with 9,000 fewer delivered. “Despite ambitious targets, progress has been minimal this year,” the Dataforce report states. “Emissions in the first six months of 2024 were higher than in the whole of 2023,” a year in which the 10 groups examined remained under the limits, avoiding fines.
Even for the current year, despite the group Volkswagenthe Alliance Renault, Nissan And Mitsubishi And Ford are slightly above the indicated parameters, Dataforce excludes fines. Seven manufacturers are already in compliance and those just mentioned should have no problem lowering the average emissions by one or two grams.
The situation, as mentioned, will change radically in 2025 with the entry into force of the more restrictive values. The only ones already safe are the American Teslawhich only has zero-emission cars on its price list, and the Chinese Geelywhich in Europe in addition to Polestar And Link & Co. check Volvowhose rapid conversion has led to a higher share of “alternative” registrations (56 g/km of CO2 average emissions in the first half of 2024).
Based on current data, the closest to achieving the 2025 targets is Toyota (105), but not even BMW (106) and Hyundai/Kia And Mercedes-Benz Group (108) seem to be so far away. The most complex situations are those of Ford (125) and of the Volkswagen Group (123), but also the Franco-Japanese Alliance Renault, Nissan And Mitsubishi (114) and the same Stellantis (113) will have to make an effort to avoid fines.
In the opinion of Dataforce, for a builder that offers no solutions Full Hybrid a 37% share of BEVs and PHEVs is needed (the EU average of electrics alone was 13.3% in the semester, down from 13.8% a year ago). Otherwise, even 23% of electrics and plug-ins could be sufficient. As had already happened in the past, manufacturers can also “group together” to reduce average emissions: in 2021, for example, FCA, later merged into Stellantis, had reached an agreement with Honda and Tesla, to the full advantage of the American company which puts significant sums in its balance sheet thanks to this item. According to Dataforce, the so-called “pooling” could be resurrected in 2025.
For Tesla This hypothesis adds to the good news coming from Brusselswhich would reduce the duties on cars manufactured in Shanghai, effective from July 5, but in reality not yet collected. For the American manufacturer the burden would be reduced to 9%. Downward corrections would also be expected for Geely (from 19.9 to 19.3%), for BYD (from 17.4 to 17%) and SAICowner of the MG (from 37.6 to 36.3%). Vehicles manufactured in China by the joint venture of the Volkswagen and BMW groups would be subject to the duties foreseen for “collaborating” companies, and therefore reduced from 36.3 to 21.3%.
