Motor industry to fail EU CO2 target for 2013

According to Clean Green Cars it seems very unlikely that the motor industry will be able to achieve the CO2 emissions objectives defined for 2013. With only four brands already below the overall EU target of 130g/km, the objective seems more and more difficult as days go by.

The claim has been made after the publication of details of the industry’s performance in the third quarter of 2010. During this period the average CO2 emitted by new cars stood at 143.35g/km. The website compares it to the 145.6 g/km of CO2 in the first quarter, verifying a cut of only 2.25 g/km of CO2 over the last six months.

Jay Nagley, publisher of Clean Green Cars website, claims that there needs to be significant cut and that, for example, the end of the scrappage scheme in the second quarter of 2010 in the UK brought an end to the easy CO2 reductions from increased sales of small cars.

Overall CO2 improvement so far this year has been marginal. Although individual models are performing better, customers are now buying bigger cars which is influencing the CO2 performance.

Jay Nagley explains: "Car manufacturers are introducing new technology, particularly in petrol engines, to reduce CO2 emissions. This is encouraging, but they are now a long way behind the curve. The chances of the whole industry hitting 130g/km by 2012 look extremely slim."

At the moment there are only four manufacturers below the overall EU target: Toyota (124.68 g/km), Fiat (124.70 g/km), MINI (128.67 g/km) and Citroën (129.99 g/km)