Automakers on track to meet CO2 emissions targets
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Automakers are expected to easily meet the European Union's CO2 emissions target to 130 grams per kilometer by 2015. They also are on track to comply with the tougher 2020 fleet goal of 95g/km, a report shows.
Average CO2 emissions from all new cars sold in Europe fell 3.3 percent last year to 136g/km. That means automakers need to cut pollution by another 4 percent to meet the EU target in 2015, data from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) shows.
Fiat, Toyota and PSA/Peugeot-Citroen had fleet emissions below 130g/km in 2011.
"All available evidence points towards carmakers in Europe heading for very significant 'over-compliance' with the CO2 regulation and most are hence likely to hit the 130g/km CO2 target for 2015 several years in advance," the T&E report said.
Individual targets
While the automakers as a whole are on track, companies such as Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda and Daimler will have to work harder than their peers to meet their individual EU targets, or face fines.
Mazda must decrease its CO2 by 12.5 percent to 128.3g/km by 2015 while Daimler has to cut its emissions by 9.9 percent to 138.3g/km within the next four years, according to a ranking based on the percentage of reduction in CO2 that each carmaker has to achieve by 2015 (see bottom of the page).
PSA and Toyota already have met their EU-mandated target, according to the data, while Fiat, despite having Europe's lowest fleet emissions in 2011, still has to trim 0.3 percent from it total.
'Weak' target
The green lobbyist group has been critical of automakers, arguing that the CO2 target was too easy to meet. T&E's report says that before the current goal became legally binding, it was postponed or weakened four times. The last change took place in 2008 when automakers convinced the EU to push back the deadline for reaching 130g/km to 2015 from 2012.
"Our previous reports have shown that 2015 targets are weak," T&E's report said. "The reason they over-comply is partly because they are manipulating the test results to artificially lower the official data and partly because carmakers are planning for the stricter 2020 target," T&E said.
The Brussels-based group's report mentioned that an analysis of fuel consumption data shows that drivers only got half of the promised reduction in fuel costs from new cars purchased from 2006 to 2010. T&E said it plans to publish more information regarding the differences between fuel economy data released by the automakers and real-world results.
T&E said that the results of its study do not take into account loopholes such as "eco-innovations," "supercredits" and special provisions for carmakers with per-annum sales of below 300,000 units.
You can reach Bruce Gain at brucegain@gmail.com.
