European automakers reduced average new car emissions by 2.5 percent to 132.4 grams per kilometer in 2012, putting the industry on track to meet binding emissions goals for 2015, according to a report by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E).
The EU’s 2015 target is for new cars to generates emissions at or below 130 g/km. Toyota, Volvo and Renault all achieved their 2015 targets in 2012, the report says. Fiat, BMW, General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen and Hyundai are projected to meet their 2015 target this year. Mazda and Honda need to significantly accelerate their progress to hit their emissions targets by 2015 and avoid penalties, the report says.
The report, How Clean Are Europe’s Cars?, says both premium and mainstream car makers are poised to achieve 2020 targets of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer without requiring so-called supercredits, which are for very low-emission cars. Supercredits allow manufacturers to count each low-emissions vehicle as more than one car, watering down the overall CO2 reductions based on fleet averages.
The report also found companies have been able to achieve progress in reducing emissions in both official tests and on the road. However, some companies are excessively relying on using flexibilities in the testing procedure to achieve artificially low results, the report says.
Only five companies — Toyota, Fiat, Ford, PSA and Volkswagen — have achieved real-world emissions reductions of more than 10 percent. Meanwhile, Daimler and General Motors have achieve barely more than 5 percent real-world improvements.
Earlier this year, T&E published a report highlighting the growing gap between CO2 emissions measured in official tests and those achieve by most drivers on the road.
The EU reached a compromise deal in June 2013 that ensures all new cars manufactured in 2020 and beyond will emit no more than 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. Each manufacturer will have an individual target for reducing CO2 emissions, under the rules outlined in the agreement.
Germany sought to delay the emissions rules in an effort to protect its luxury car makers, such as BMW and Daimler, which would see their costs increase and profit margin margins shrink under the stricter new rules.