According to an environmental organization, the automotive industry can certainly achieve the climate targets set for the EU in 2025. Increasing sales of electric cars will play a major role in this, as the analysis by the organization Transport & Environment (T&E) shows.
Specifically, it is about the so-called fleet limits, i.e. the EU’s climate targets for the automotive industry. For manufacturers, limits are set for CO2 emissions per kilometer – for the average of all vehicles registered in the EU in a year.
This means that by registering more electric cars, theoretically more combustion engines that exceed the limit values ​​can be registered without exceeding the values ​​overall. Manufacturers have to pay a fine for emitting too much CO2.
According to the analysis, the manufacturers’ progress towards the 2025 targets is uneven. While leading manufacturers of electric cars such as Volvo Cars have already achieved their 2025 targets, T&E predicts that the German automobile group Volkswagen will miss the target by 19 grams of CO2 per kilometer. By comparison, the study assumes that Mercedes-Benz will emit 14 grams of CO2 and BMW just 0.4 grams too much CO2.
Car industry calls for delay
Some voices from the automotive industry are currently calling for a postponement of climate targets. One of the reasons for this is that demand for electromobility in Europe is falling short of expectations. VW Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch recently said: “Electromobility will prevail, but it will take more time. That is why the CO2 targets for 2025, 2030 and 2035 must be adjusted and brought into line with reality.”
“Our industry is working with all its strength and creativity to achieve the goals,” a spokesperson for the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) said when asked. “But our innovations and investments can only have maximum impact if the environment is right, if climate protection is developed with, not against, the industry and the people in our country – and if the corresponding framework conditions are right.”
The industry association is calling for a review of the attainability of the EU climate targets for newly registered cars, planned for 2026, to be brought forward and for framework conditions to be adjusted if necessary. An internal paper from the European industry recently expressed the view that the industry would not be in a position to comply with an impending tightening of climate targets.
Sales of electric cars to increase according to analysis
According to T&E’s analysis, electric cars are expected to achieve a market share of 20 to 24 percent next year. Electric cars would therefore contribute an average of 60 percent to the CO2 reduction that car manufacturers must achieve next year, according to the study. The calculations are based on sales in the first half of 2024 and sales forecasts.
“According to current forecasts, electric cars will account for almost a quarter of new cars sold thanks to a flood of new, affordable models,” says Sebastian Bock of T&E Germany. While electric cars are expected to make the largest contribution to achieving climate targets in the analysis, some manufacturers are also dependent on sales of hybrid vehicles.
At the moment, however, things are not looking good for electric cars, at least on the German market. According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, around 69 percent fewer electric cars were newly registered in August than in August of the previous year. The drop was 24.4 percent for cars with diesel engines and 7.4 percent for cars with petrol engines.
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