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Across Europe, ten percent of new registrations in 2021 were battery electric vehicles.
Photo: Slavek Ruta / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO
According to preliminary estimates, all major car manufacturers will have achieved their climate targets set by the EU by 2021.
This emerges from a report on the European car market published by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCP).
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The ICCP is a non-profit organization that scientifically evaluates the environmental compatibility and energy efficiency of various means of transport.
In 2015, she made the diesel scandal surrounding the manufacturer Volkswagen public.
"We estimate that all major manufacturers (pools) have met their CO₂ standards for 2021," said ICCT Managing Director Peter Mock on Twitter.
The "over-achievement" of the goals can be estimated at four grams per kilometer on average, this value may be even higher.
Penalties are therefore not expected.
"It's impressive how effective the EU regulation is," wrote Mock.
The manufacturers have also achieved the goal because the proportion of battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids has continued to increase: above the annual average, every tenth newly registered vehicle is an electric car, and these are produced with zero grams of CO₂ emissions counted.
Nine percent were plug-in hybrids.
In 2020, these values would have been six percent for new battery-electric vehicles and five percent for plug-in hybrid vehicles.
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In order to comply with the specified emission values, the car manufacturers have used a number of – legal – tricks.
The ICCT report cites the formation of so-called pools with other manufacturers as a key element in ensuring compliance with the regulations.
An example is Tesla: The company has formed a pool with Honda and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to ensure compliance with the goals for both Honda and JLG.
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In November, the think tank Transport & Environment published a study on the "loopholes" used by the car manufacturers Daimler and BMW to meet the climate targets.
For manufacturers who build particularly heavy vehicles, weaker CO₂ fleet limits apply.
Without this special feature, Daimler and BMW could not achieve their EU targets for 2021, it was said at the time.
Plug-in hybrids are also generously taken into account.
But if these are not charged, they often emit more CO₂ than vehicles with fossil combustion engines.
These loopholes reduced the effectiveness of the EU directives to promote clean vehicles.
Transport & Environment therefore called for significantly stricter climate protection limits for the coming years.
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