January 30, 2024
Toyota Motor Corp. said today its group sold more cars than any other automaker in 2023, maintaining its lead for the fourth consecutive year as it ramped up production amid an easing chip shortage. The automaker sold a record 11.23 million vehicles globally last year, including those produced by the group’s mini-vehicle maker, Daihatsu Motor […]
January 29, 2024
The public prosecutor’s office in Limburg has announced stricter action against mobile phone use behind the wheel. From February 1st, anyone using his mobile phone or other mobile device while driving a motor vehicle will immediately have to hand in his driver’s license for fifteen days, after which a €174 fine will follow. Similar measures […]
January 26, 2024
Venice will install speed cameras for boats along its world-famous canals. The city hopes this measure will limit the speed of motorized boats and ships, make the city safer, and prevent erosion due to high boat waves. Wave motion – ‘moto ondoso’ in Italian – causes erosion of the canal walls below the waterline, damaging […]
January 25, 2024
“Despite lofty ambitions and strict requirements, most passenger cars on EU roads still emit the same quantity of CO2 as 12 years ago,” the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said in a statement. A top EU auditor reported on Wednesday that sales of electric cars in the European Union are not growing fast enough to […]
January 23, 2024
Three years after the introduction of the 30 km/hour rule in Brussels, Brussels Mobility can only present a fine balance sheet: the introduction of the speed limit has not only led to less noise pollution and a general decrease in average speeds in the capital’s streets but has also reduced the severity of accidents, particularly […]
January 19, 2024
Starting in January 2024, Valorauto, a joint venture between Stellantis and recycling specialist Galloo, will expand its end-of-life vehicle recycling service to private owners. This service offers a free and responsible solution to the end-of-life management of vehicles weighing under 3,5 tons, for both passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs), regardless of the brand […]
January 18, 2024
The Belgian federal government is poised to decide on a proposal from Minister of Finance Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) to give owners of company cars on diesel and gasoline some tax relief. The rabbit in van Petegehem’s hat adds the more modern WLTP data to the NEDC measurements, dampening the shock jump. Owners of company […]
January 18, 2024
The administrative court of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany has once again declared that the update for diesel engines Volkswagen proposed in the aftermath of dieselgate is also illegal. The homologation by the official German car agency Kraftfahrt Bundesamt (KBA) is invalid. The German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has presented the update to the court and welcomes […]
January 15, 2024
Last year, the Brussels region fined a record number of motorists who entered the Brussels low-emission zone (LEZ) with a car that was too polluting. Almost 30 000 drivers – 29 643 to be precise – were fined, an increase of almost 60% compared to 2022. In 2020, 12 321 fines were issued; in 2021, […]
January 12, 2024
A new legal framework gives Belgian police a legal basis to deploy bicycles with GPS trackers from now on. Previous limited experiments by some police zones with lure bikes were successful but time-consuming and required the intervention of the magistracy as the method could otherwise be considered a provocation. The city of Ghent, in particular, […]
January 08, 2024
According to market research ordered by Mobia, the Belgian car buyer will be more impacted by a premium to buy an electric car than by the eventual expansion of LEZ zones. Mobia, the overarching association of car sector federations Febiac (new car market), Traxio (second-hand car market), and Renta (car leasing and renting), has done […]
January 03, 2024
At least 22% of new cars sold by manufacturers in the UK this year must be zero-emission. New rules requiring car manufacturers to sell a minimum proportion of zero-emission vehicles have come into force, the Department for Transport (DfT) in the UK announced. The mandate became law on Wednesday. Zero emission means, in practice, that […]
January 03, 2024
According to a draft document the Italian press agency ANSA could lay hands on, the Italian government is playing around with the idea of subsidizing the private purchase of electric vehicles from 6 000 to 13 750 euros. The condition is to scrap a Euro 2 car or even older, and it would only apply […]
January 02, 2024
Taxi drivers at Brussels Airport in Zaventem think the mandatory language requirements are too strict, so they went on strike for two and a half hours last Friday. The Flemish government wants to impose an oral and written test of Dutch (level B1) on drivers from 1 July 2024. “The bar is far too high,” […]
December 29, 2023
The Škoda Enyaq 60 GO is the latest of a series of electric vehicles in Belgium that sees its bare price plunge with an attractive €6 310 to get under the €40 000 threshold set by the Flemish government to be eligible for the 5 000 euro premium. But that twenty-million-euro pot will only benefit […]
December 29, 2023
Some EV experts and sector federation Traxio say there is an urgent need for a reliable battery test and the appropriate certificate to regulate upcoming sales of second-hand electric vehicles. Recent tests of battery packs in second-hand full-electric vehicles have shown that batteries still can be in good shape after years of use and can […]
December 29, 2023
American powertrain manufacturer Cummins has to pay almost $1,7 billion as a fine for selling devices that can bypass emissions sensors. The US Department of Justice sees this as a direct violation of the Clean Air Act and has imposed a fine, which is the second-largest in the history of the Act, which was installed […]
December 26, 2023
The Brussels government and the board of directors of the Brussels public transport company MIVB/STIB have signed the new 2024-2028 management agreement. The agreement provides for an 11,9% increase in supply so that MIVB/STIB can count 457 million passengers by 2028, or over a third more than 2022. Indexation of fares is provided, but for […]
December 26, 2023
Toyota is not experiencing its best week ever, on the contrary. At its daughter Daihatsu, part of the Toyota Group, serious fraud has been discovered running already for decades. Toyota has recalled more than one million vehicles in the US with a possible airbag safety issue. On Thursday, the Japanese Ministry of Transport started an […]
December 21, 2023
The General Court of the European Union has annulled the billions in aid approved by the European Commission to French airline Air France-KLM during the coronavirus health crisis. According to the court, the EC “erred” at the time. France, the major shareholder of Air France, helped the airline in 2020 with a 4-billion-euro state guarantee […]
December 21, 2023
The harmonization organization SAE International (created by the Society of Automotive Engineers) published a corresponding document that turns Tesla’s de facto North American Charging Standard (NACS) into a harmonized connector standard. The development prompted the Department of Transportation (DoT) to look into infrastructure funding. Volkswagen is also joining the band for good. The ‘SAE J3400 […]
December 20, 2023
The city of Antwerp will adjust its low-emission zone (LEZ) regulations and postpone the next tightening of the standards from 2025 to 2026. The city will also take additional social measures and increase the number of day passes per year (from 8 to 12). By relaxing the rules, diesel cars with Euro 5 standard (or […]
December 19, 2023
Negotiators from the EU Parliament and the EU member states agreed on the new emission limits for cars, buses, and other (heavy) vehicles, commonly known as the Euro 7 standards. As the original proposals of the European Commission have been weakened by both the member states and the EU Parliament, reactions to the final decision […]
December 19, 2023
The German government announced a direct halt of the environmental bonus in 2024 after it had to compromise its budget for the coming years. First, it sounded like Germany would phase out EV incentives earlier than planned; now, it has been scrapped entirely as of last Sunday. “We will phase out the environmental bonus, i.e., […]
December 18, 2023
GM daughter Cruise, a robotaxi company, is said to have fired one out of four employees. That’s approximately 900 people and 24% of all full-time equivalents (FTE). Most of these employees work in the non-technical part of the company. Last Thursday, an email explaining the decision was sent to all personnel members. Strange accident The […]
December 18, 2023
On Friday, the Belgian Federal Council of Ministers will consider the final details of a Royal Decree to ban nitrous oxide, the so-called ‘laughing gas’. The product’s sale, import, possession, transport, and purchase will be prohibited unless it concerns a medical, technical, or nutritional application. Nitrous oxide has become a popular drug among young people. […]
December 15, 2023
Flemish and foreign truck transport has already generated 565 million euros in kilometer taxes this year – 21 million more than last year and 35 million more than in 2021. Together, all trucks covered 3,3 billion kilometers. In addition to the revenue from the levy itself, there were 12 million euros in fines, bringing the […]
December 15, 2023
The French government has unveiled its new plans for subsidizing the electric transition. Next to the details of the social lease at €100 per month for households with a fiscal income inferior to 15 400 euros, it also published the final list of cars eligible for the new Ecobonus. Windfall for the local manufacturers as […]
December 15, 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron has launched his promised ‘social leasing’ system for electric cars at 100 euros monthly for those on the lowest incomes. In doing so, he is fulfilling an election campaign pledge that takes effect on January 1st. It would involve at least 20 000 to 25 000 deliveries in 2024, but after […]
December 14, 2023
Federal Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) has presented the new code of public roads. The current Belgian road code was about half a century old and outdated in some areas, hence the need for an update in the now rapidly changing road traffic in which there is, for example, 80% more cycling, said the minister. […]
December 13, 2023
By 2032, Brussels Airport’s noise impact would drop by 12% despite growth in passengers and cargo volumes. That’s according to the environmental impact report (MER) accompanying the new Brussels Airport environmental permit application. More modern aircraft making less noise and quieter landing techniques would decrease the nuisance. By the end of March, the Flemish government […]
December 11, 2023
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has imposed an excess tariff for heavy cars parking within the city’s boundaries. If her proposition, the so-called ‘SUV fee’, is adopted by public vote, these vehicles will have to pay triple the price. There’s no exemption for zero-emission drivelines. The people will vote on the 4th of February. Paris […]
December 06, 2023
The Mechelen court finds Flemish public transport company De Lijn guilty of structural discrimination against people with disabilities. Four wheelchair users had gone to court after their complaints to De Lijn itself were unsuccessful. They will now each receive compensation of 650 euros. De Lijn is studying the verdict and is considering possible next steps. […]
December 05, 2023
The CEOs of five of the world’s biggest shipping companies called at the COP28 for an end date for fossil-only powered newly built ships in an ‘unprecedented’ joint declaration. They urge the global regulator, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to create regulatory conditions to accelerate the transition to green fuels. The five are Danish A.P. […]
December 05, 2023
The initial goal for Norway was to achieve a 50 percent market share for zero-emission trucks by 2030. Still, the Norwegian parliament (Storting) has asked the government to go for the full 100 percent in the 2024 budget agreement. This makes Norway the first country to set a concrete deadline for combustion-powered trucks. Whereas the […]
December 05, 2023
There will be no specific validity restriction on driving licenses for the over-70s in Europe. They will also not undergo mandatory medical checks to renew their driving licenses. European mobility ministers in Brussels agreed on this. Europe thus leaves each member state free to decide on any shorter period of validity of driving licenses for […]
December 04, 2023
The deal between the French multinational and the Belgian government on the lifetime extension of Belgium’s two youngest nuclear power plants, Doel 4 and Tihange 3, has been fully finalized. According to federal Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Groen), the 1 500-page contract will be discussed at the various federal vice cabinets this week, […]
November 30, 2023
From December 1st, 2023, the Flemish government won’t allow a tolerance period of one year anymore for replacing defective diesel particle filters but will shorten that period to three months. The two other Belgian Regions – Brussels and Wallonia – that agreed to the same one-year tolerance will return to a limited 15-day tolerance period […]
November 27, 2023
Municipalities will soon be allowed to install fixed speed cameras and average speed checks in bicycle streets. The Flemish government has decided this, reports the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, among others. It is already happening in some Flemish municipalities. In the Bodukap police zone in the Antwerp region, for example, 22-speed pedelec users were recently cautioned […]
November 27, 2023
The new fiscal rules for pickups, making them no longer exempt from registration taxes and losing the low annual road tax prerogative, have significantly affected their registrations this year. In Belgium, their popularity among private customers has dropped to a historically low level. In the first ten months of 2023, only 969 pickups were registered […]
November 23, 2023
The speed limit on the Paris Ring Road will drop from 70 to 50 km/hour. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced this during the presentation of the capital’s new 2024-2030 climate plan. Moreover, a lane on the ring road will be reserved only for taxis, public transport, and carpooling. The new speed limit on the périphérique […]
November 23, 2023
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced the full open-sourcing of its original Roadster design and engineering, making R&D documents accessible to the public. This move comes over a decade after discontinuing the original Roadster, which kickstarted the Tesla business and served as a mule for fund-raising. Insiders wonder whether this move is tied to the […]
November 23, 2023
The EU Parliament has voted on new CO2 standards for trucks and buses and is now ready for negotiations with the EU member states. The Parliament has largely adopted the positions of the EU Commission but added a loophole for e-fuels in trucks. The MEPs agree with the Commission’s proposal presented in February that only […]
November 22, 2023
“If leasing companies electrify their fleets earlier, 18 million more households in the EU will have earlier access to cheaper EVs and save on their car spending,” claims the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E). “At current electrification rates, 33 million households in the EU will have access to second-hand electric cars from today until 2035,” […]
November 21, 2023
A 70 km/hour speed limit will now apply on the middle or central lane on roads in Wallonia with markings for bicycle paths on both sides. So, reports Sudinfo and La Libre Belgique. The Walloon government’s decree, which sets the speed limit, was published in the Belgian Bulletin of Acts. The rule was already in […]
November 17, 2023
The Flemish government has released final details on the conditions for its planned EV subsidy scheme. One of the more remarkable rules is that discounted cars are eligible, which could affect the price cap of 40 000 euros for some models. Savvy dealers, granting targeted discounts, might shift more EVs than expected under the new […]
November 14, 2023
In 2022, 540 people died in Belgian traffic – one out of three fatalities was a cyclist or pedestrian. This score is far from the target of 320 road deaths by 2030. “Not enough has happened in road safety in the last ten years,” says Karin Genoe, CEO of Traffic Safety Institute Vias. “Many measures […]
November 10, 2023
The members of the European Parliament have voted on the proposed Euro 7 emission standards as foreseen. The original proposal had been watered down by fierce lobbying from all sides, and the final result was a compromise that left almost everybody unhappy. The EU Parliament will now enter trilogue negotiations with the EU Council and […]
November 09, 2023
Brussels’ nineteen municipalities want to introduce a tax on electric charging points on public roads, like fuel stations are currently taxed in most of them. This was discussed at the Conference of Brussels Mayors on Wednesday. The logic behind introducing the tax is that the municipalities would otherwise lose revenue from parking fees. An agreement […]
November 09, 2023
Switzerland is stepping on the brakes and will eliminate the tax exemption for imported electric vehicles. The move aims at bolstering tax revenue for its road infrastructure. The Swiss Automobile Importers Association reacts with disappointment and fears that it will undermine the uptake of electric mobility in the country. The exemption policy has been in […]
November 08, 2023
Cars that are highly ‘self-driving’ will not be allowed to drive on Belgian roads for now. Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) remains interested in self-driving cars, but there is still too much uncertainty regarding safety. Among others, his Flemish colleague Lydia Peeters, the French-speaking liberals MR, and the mobility organization Touring are unsatisfied with the […]
November 08, 2023
The NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) is furious. The European car manufacturers (ACEA) are fiercely contesting the future Euro 7 standard because it would cost too much. Still, they’ve hiked the prices of their cars substantially, especially of the smaller ones, says a new T&E analysis. “Europe’s five biggest carmakers have raised the prices of […]
October 30, 2023
Cruise, the robotaxi subsidiary of General Motors, has lost its permit to deploy its self-driving cars in California with immediate effect. The decision from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) follows after investigating a pedestrian accident. Waymo, the competitor to Cruises, can still operate paid driverless rides. To re-install public faith in self-driving technology, […]
October 27, 2023
Belgian courts may force people who commit serious traffic offenses to take a reintegration course from 2024. The aim is to reduce the risk of recidivism, which is currently very high. “It is necessary to take effective long-term measures to correct this dangerous behavior behind the wheel,” says federal Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo). He […]
October 25, 2023
Taxes on EVs should be reviewed soon. If not, the Belgian state will miss out on €1,5 billion yearly tax revenues by 2030. So argue economists Bruno De Borger and Stef Proost, attached to the universities of Antwerp and Leuven, respectively. After all, EVs also create congestion costs, and by taxing them less, they indirectly […]
October 17, 2023
The proposal of the EU to cut CO2 emissions of heavy trucks and buses by 90% from now until 2040 is getting a mixed response from the industry and environmentalists. European car manufacturers federation ACEA wants supporting targets for the infrastructure and transport companies, while Transport & Environment (T&E) feels the short-term targets are too […]
October 16, 2023
The Belgian driver still has a foot that is too heavy. For example, over half (55%) drive too fast in built-up areas at least once a month. One Belgian in four also uses his cell phone behind the wheel. E-step users are also indifferent. Half of Belgians (49%) say they have driven two on such […]
October 13, 2023
According to the highest European Court, an e-bike is not a motorized vehicle. Speed pedelecs and other electric bicycles are, therefore, not covered by compulsory insurance for motor vehicles because they are not driven exclusively by mechanical power. That is what the European Court of Justice states in a judgment in a Belgian case. The […]
October 12, 2023
It all started with one street three years ago. But by 2025, the low-emission zone in Stockholm that will ban all vehicles on gasoline and diesel will expand to twenty living zones and cover 180 000 square meters in the heart of the Swedish capital. The ruling parties call it one of the most ambitious […]
October 10, 2023
Nearly 10 major European cities, including Paris, Brussels, and Rome, have petitioned the European Parliament, demanding stricter standards for air quality and exhaust emissions. The 27 EU member states approved in September a watered-down regulation. This has yet to be negotiated with the European Parliament, which has not yet determined its position. The 27 do […]
