New study on progress to lower carbon emissions in passenger cars in Europe

John Reed, Motor Industry Correspondent of the Financial Times reports on a study by a leading environmental pressure group on the progress being made to lower CO2 emissions in passenger vehicles.

Carmakers ‘on track with EU carbon goals’

Carmakers are close to complying with the 2015 carbon dioxide targets set by the European Union, and are even on track to meet a tougher CO2 threshold set for 2020, a leading environmental pressure group will claim in a study to be published on Wednesday.

The report, conducted by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) and based on an analysis of manufacturers’ average CO2 levels, will underscore the effectiveness of Europe’s regulatory drive to cut cars’ carbon emissions.

The findings will also, T&E says, conflict with carmakers’ earlier claims that it would be difficult or impossible to meet the emissions standards set by Brussels as it seeks to cut greenhouse gas levels from transport. “European carmakers are well placed for hitting 2020 targets,” the group’s report will say.

T&E has found that the car industry as a whole cut its average CO2 emissions by 3 per cent in 2011 to an average of 136 grams per kilometre, within easy reach of the 130g/km carmakers are being asked to reach by 2015.

Toyota, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat already reached their 2015 target four years ahead of schedule, but Mazda has farthest to go with a 12 per cent gap to close, the group says.

As carmakers prepare for a tougher 95g/km target Europe is planning for 2020, all of Europe’s carmakers except for Daimler are in the top nine on CO2, T&E says.

“When the regulation was first set in 2008, all the relaxation the motor industry called for was really nonsense because they have comfortably overachieved what they intended to,” says Greg Archer, T&E’s programme manager for vehicles. “Some have achieved their targets four years ahead of schedule.”

The bottom six largely consist of Asian manufacturers. Mazda, BMW and Honda “negative outliers”, cutting their fleet’s emissions by just 1 to 2 per cent.

T&E has argued against adjustments to CO2 rules such as “supercredits” for electric cars and does not include such exemptions in its distance-to-target figures. “Carmakers are therefore even closer to meeting targets than these figures suggest,” T&E’s report will conclude.

The group says that carmakers’ ability to “over-comply” with Europe’s CO2 rules reflects the easiness of the target, but also is a result of the fact that carmakers are manipulating their figures by testing cars in ways that are unrepresentative of real-world driving conditions.

The latter claim is likely to be contentious and could, if true, have repercussions for automakers. In the last month South Korea’s Hyundai and Kia apologised to consumers and announced plans to compensate them after admitting they overstated the mileage per gallon on more than 1m cars sold in North America.