Europe postpones compliance with anti-pollution measures until 2027

One of the main fears that until recently most car manufacturers in Europe had was the so-called CAFE regulation (clean air for Europe, or Clean Air for Europe), an anti-pollution plan that planned to reduce CO₂ emissions this year by 15% compared to 2020 levels. In other words, manufacturers had to face a maximum emissions limit of 93.6 grams of very high emissions this year in 2025.

Well, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced that this measure will be relaxed to ensure that manufacturers can meet the planned objectives and do not have to pay fines this year. But what does this relaxation mean?

The initial idea behind the CAFE regulations was that by 2025 manufacturers would have to record average emissions of 93.6 grams of CO₂ per kilometre, a figure that they had to maintain until 2027. This figure would then be reduced to 49.5 grams. 2 In principle, the sale of combustion cars was prohibited in the European Union.

But to achieve the first objective, that of 93.6 grams, it was essential that manufacturers managed to sell approximately between 20% and 25% of electric cars that same year. A figure that did not represent any problem for manufacturers such as Tesla or BYD, but that in many cases was simply impossible to achieve due to the slow implementation that the electric car is experiencing.

The regulations will have to be complied with, but over three years.

In reality, the announced change is not a removal of the regulations, but simply a relaxation that gives manufacturers some leeway to meet the targets. Thus, if it was originally planned that this year all brands exceeding 93.6 grams of CO₂ per kilometre would pay 95 euros for each gram exceeding this amount (multiplied by each vehicle sold), now the emission control will not be carried out every three years, but directly in 2027.

Manufacturers can therefore exceed 93.6 grams this year without facing any fines, but they will have to make up for it over the following years in order to reach the correct average by the end of this three-year period. Fines would therefore be applied in 2027 to all those who have not been able to achieve an average of 93.6 grams of CO₂ per kilometre between this year and 2027.

spoke of the risks of having to impose fines of more than 15 billion euros on manufacturers and of the labour problems that would be caused by reducing the production of combustion vehicles in order to achieve the objectives of the CAFE regulations.