The car industry is demanding loopholes in the EU car CO2 law that would halve the bloc’s ambition of selling only zero-emission cars in 2035. That’s according to T&E analysis of a leaked position paper by the European car industry lobby ACEA.
Carmakers are demanding more than 10 loopholes, including counting cars that run on alternative fuels as zero emissions. It also wants the EU to halt its efforts to count the pollution of plug-in hybrid cars accurately.
Swiss cheese
The EU is under pressure from carmakers to weaken its car CO2 targets when it reviews the legislation this year. According to the ACEA paper seen by T&E, cars running on so-called carbon-neutral fuels, such as biofuels or e-fuels, would be counted as emitting 0 grams of CO2 per kilometer.
This loophole alone would cut the share of EV sales by 25% in 2035, as manufacturers could continue selling high volumes of highly polluting combustion engine cars.
Lucien Mathieu, cars director at T&E, said: “This position is a disgrace. It will completely undermine the investment certainty needed for Europe to catch up in the EV race. Turning the EU’s most important automotive regulation into a Swiss cheese will not restore the industry’s competitiveness.”
“It is a cynical attempt to dismantle a central pillar of Europe’s climate law. If the Commission capitulates to these demands, it will only hand a further competitive advantage to Chinese automakers,” he added.
Target halved
ACEA’s demand to cancel the 2027 ‘utility factor’ for plug-in hybrids would reduce electric car sales by 10%. Giving carmakers CO2 credits for scrapping old cars would reduce the ambition by a further 6%. Credits for CO2 reductions in car production and the use of certain technologies would reduce EV sales by 6%.
Counting small EVs as more than one EV sale, with extra credit if made in Europe, would reduce ambition by 1%. Together, the loopholes demanded by ACEA mean that carmakers would only have to achieve a 52% EV market share by 2035.
ACEA’s list of demands comes as the EU Commission is under pressure from carmakers to speed up its review of the EU car CO2 law. Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said that a legislative proposal will be published by the end of 2025.
Lucien Mathieu again: “Carmakers are, on the one hand, calling for a drastic acceleration of the review and, on the other, don’t have a clue about what they want. They ask for a shopping list of flexibilities and loopholes, but don’t allow any time for proper evaluation of these options.”
“They want to go faster, but they don’t even know in what direction and don’t want people to have the time to even think about it. This is a recipe for disaster.”
Lobby machine at full blast
Once again, European car manufacturers have turned to what they’re very good at — influencing policymakers on things that could be harmful to them or difficult (read: costly) to implement on time.
And the authorities seem to listen only to the car industry. The meeting, for example, between German Chancellor Merz and the German car industry today aims to hear from all stakeholders. Additionally, apart from the OEMs, suppliers, dealers, sector federations, and unions are also invited.
The big absentee? Representatives of electromobility. Apparently, our policymakers discuss electromobility extensively, but when it comes to decision-making, alternative voices are not sought or even feared.
In an era where the Chinese threat is still growing and the energy transition needs a new impetus, EU carmakers have again chosen to create confusion for customers and sell an old, polluting technology — the internal combustion engine — as a symbol of an ‘open technology spirit’.
