Electricity firms fear the EU is about to cave in to industry pressure and ease cuts on car emissions, as Austria, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands ask the European Commission to help electrify company car fleets.
An EU push for electric vehicles won’t existentially threaten the bloc’s car industry, the electricity sector has told Members of the European Parliament in a briefing dated Monday (7 October).
The counter-lobby is pushing back against efforts to weaken CO2 emissions limits that carmakers say are impossible to meet, as MEPs prepare to discuss a “crisis” facing the automotive sector in a Tuesday debate.
“Although these heightened concerns are understandable with current market headwinds and increasing foreign competition, the policy focus has wrongfully shifted onto potentially relaxing the regulation on CO2 standards for cars and vans,” the trade association Eurelectric wrote in a briefing note sent to MEPs, seen by Euronews.
Brussels is seeking to entirely phase out petrol and diesel cars as it seeks to limit climate change. As part of that plan, the legal limit for cars’ CO2 emissions is due to fall by nearly a fifth to under 94 grams per kilometre next year — a deadline the car industry now says it cannot meet due to a dip in electric sales.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), backed up by the centre-right European People’s Party, has called for unspecified emergency “relief” from the substantial fines that carmakers, who had five years to prepare for the new limits, now face.
They want a regulatory review to be brought forward to early next year, instead of the existing planned date of 2026.
But the electricity lobby argues that acquiescing to those demands would “wrongfully call into question existing CO2 emission targets”, thereby “encouraging automakers to continue holding off on the lower-priced and smaller EV [electric vehicle] models”.
Eurelectric accused the car industry of prioritising larger and expensive electric models costing around €40,000, and “encouraging consumers to purchase their cheaper hybrid and ICE [internal combustion engine] models that manufacturers will not be able to sell later down the line”.
A spokesperson for the Commission, which recently announced a one-year delay to anti-deforestation rules following industry pressure, said the EU executive’s priority was “ensuring that those targets are met and that all the right conditions are in place that they can be met”.
Commission officials will be in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday (8 October) for a debate on “the crisis facing the EU’s automotive industry, potential plant closures and the need to enhance competitiveness and maintain jobs in Europe”.
In a recent interview with Euronews, the head of ACEA said the marketing of larger, SUV-type models was necessary to generate the profits needed to invest in the broader transition to green mobility.
But Eurelectric argues producers could expect a booming market, especially for smaller models, in the wake of new trade tariffs imposed on Chinese producers.
“Even though it is true that Europe’s automakers and the supply chain are struggling, this ‘crisis’ cannot be resolved by relaxing the regulation on CO2 emission standards,” Eurelectric wrote.
In a separate letter also sent on Monday, the environment ministers of Austria, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to demand a legislative proposal on greening company car fleets under her second term that’s due to begin later this year.
“Accelerating zero-emission vehicle sales through corporate fleet targets will surely strengthen the EU’s industrial green supply chain, by de-risking investments and creating certainty for the automotive, battery and component manufacturing sectors,” the ministers wrote.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Commission said it was aware of sluggish uptake of electric vehicles in the corporate sector, and is still analysing the feedback from a public consultation held earlier this year.
