The European Parliament (EP) has adopted a draft law that proposed setting a higher target for reducing EU fleet-wide emissions for new cars by 20% by 2025 and by 40% by 2030, which is much higher than the previous objective of 30% set by the European Commission (EC) with 2021 as year of reference.
As per the new objective, European car manufacturers exceeding the CO2 emissions targets will have to pay a fine to the EU budget. They will also have to ensure that zero and low emission vehicles (ZLEVs, electric cars or vehicles which emit less than 50g CO2/km) account for 20% of the market share of sales of new cars and vans by 2025 and 35% by 2030.
This move is meant to accelerate the market uptake of electric and other low emission cars. Transport is the only major sector in the EU where emissions are still rising and the European Parliament is expecting to accelerate the decarbonation of the entire sector shortly