EU proposes CO2 targets for light commercial vehicles
7 May 2013
The Environment Committee of the European Parliament approved a draft report confirming the 147 g/km CO2 emission target—as agreed among the stakeholders three years ago—to be reached by 2020 for light commercial vehicles (LCV) such as vans. Today’s average CO2 emissions from LCVs are at 203 g/km.
The adopted report also includes indicative targets for post-2020 CO2 emissions: a range of 105-120 g/km from 2025. This LCV proposal follows the recently adopted proposal for future CO2 emission limits for passenger cars.
These emission limits are the average maximum allowed for van makers registered in the EU. Under the proposal, the scheme should apply to manufacturers producing more than 1,000 vehicles a year.
Manufacturers would have to produce—in addition to older, heavier or less fuel efficient models—a sufficient number of more fuel efficient models to achieve a balance of 147 g in 2020.
To achieve this, manufacturers could use “super credits”, which assign a favorable weighting to LCVs that emit less than 50 g of CO2. The Committee proposed that each of these extra fuel efficient vehicles would count as 3.5 vans in 2014, falling to 1.3 from 2018 to 2023. However, the number of vehicles taken into account when applying these multipliers must not exceed 1% per manufacturer.
The Committee also voted an amendment requiring manufacturers to equip new vans with devices restricting their maximum speed to 120 km/h, starting from 1 January 2014. The rapporteur, Holger Krahmer, opposed this amendment on the grounds that road traffic regulations are under the jurisdiction of the member states, not the EU.
The adopted report also says that the new, world harmonized light-duty test procedure (WLTP) should replace today’s NEDC procedure in EU law “as a matter of urgency”, if possible by 2017—a call that was also included in the CO2 proposal for passenger cars.
The proposal has to be voted on by the full Parliament and has to be endorsed by the Council of Environment Ministers. The rapporteur, Mr. Krahmer, was given a mandate to enter into first reading negotiations with the Council.
Source: EU Parliament