Reducing emissions from light commercial vehicles

Publication date: 03 November 2009

The European Commission put forward its proposal for a Regulation setting emission performance standards for new light commercial vehicles and minibuses. What's at issue?

As part of the Community's integrated approach to reduce CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles, the European Commission put forward a proposal for an emission performance standard. Similar to passenger cars, this proposal aims to set average emissions per kilometre for light commercial vehicles, LCVs or category N1 vehicles in EU jargon. Classed as "goods" vehicles they have a gross vehicle mass (GVM) of up to 3.5 tonnes.

"Most of these LCVs are derivations from passenger cars. They are often leisure vehicles. That's why our clubs have databases on these vehicles," explains Wilfried Klanner, the FIA European Bureau's Technical Director. "And due to the climate change efforts, we must limit CO2 emissions. We do have a regulation for passenger cars. The next step is a similar ruling for light vehicles," says Klanner.

"On the passenger car side, we have so called target lines. This means the emissions should not overrun a certain CO2 target line depending on the curve weight of the vehicle plus the driver. This is still an open question for light commercial vehicles," adds Klanner. "Our proposal for LCVs is not an average for heavier cars. The stringency should be constant over vehicle weight. We want the same decrease of CO2 for all vehicle categories," says Klanner.

The FIA European Bureau called on the Commission to set tough emission reduction targets based on an analysis of today's CO2 emission behaviour of light commercial vehicles. A constant 14% CO2 emission reduction target line, based on the kerb weight, would be a good solution for the near future. Long term targets could be developed on the same principle but with increased reduction figures.

Klanner notes that the FIA position, based on ADAC's database of light commercial vehicles, has been backed up by an independent study commissioned by the European Commission. "They came to the same conclusions. That's proof that the findings are accurate," says Klanner.

The technical director is, nonetheless, worried that car manufacturers may try to slow down the adoption of emissions performance standards for LCVs. "Car manufacturers argue that there is so much competition in the LCV field over past decades that there is a battle for lower consumption, much more so than for passenger cars," explains Klanner.

"Car manufacturers say it is not possible to get further significant emissions reductions for LCVs. But that's not true." Klanner points to the fact that some LCVs are already meeting the new emissions target lines proposed by the FIA and others.

In these difficult economic times, member states may seek to protect their own plants manufacturing light commercial vehicles. "There will be a fight as this area is not harmonized at the moment," says Klanner.