• Bookstore

Some car manufacturers are claiming that this is an unrealistic target and are calling for more time, but in a report published this week, leading car industry expert Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis from Cardiff University claims that these targets are achievable.

The report maps out a strategy for compliance, but highlights that the trend towards heavier and higher performance vehicles at the luxury end of the market is a key stumbling block. Dr Nieuwenhuis points out that in order to make these vehicles compliant a great deal of expensive re-design would have to take place. Hybrid technology and alternative fuels alone would not be enough; weight reduction would be needed to reduce CO2 emissions to the required levels.

The impact of weight reduction strategies could split the market between vehicles very similar to those available today emitting below 130 g/km, available at price levels similar to today's, and a new breed of larger vehicles using lightweight technology, which would be more expensive than their equivalents today.

"The net result could be a decline in sales of some of these vehicles within EU markets. Alternatively, we could see an emergence of smaller, lighter specialist cars, luxury cars, SUVs and MPVs," said Dr Nieuwenhuis.

The report also highlights clear advantages to such developments. "Reduced running costs due to greater fuel efficiency are an obvious benefit, but there are others," explains Dr Nieuwenhuis. "Large luxury cars tend to lose value quickly compared with small hatchbacks, for example. This is due to the fact that used car buyers tend to be less affluent, thus less able to afford the high running costs of heavy cars. If luxury cars were smaller and lighter, their appeal to the used market would rise, thus boosting residual values. This would impact on the overall lifecycle costs of luxury cars, making them generally more economically competitive. Not only would customers benefit, but so would manufacturers as higher residual values would boost their brand image."

Dr Nieuwenhuis recommends that some of the industry's concerns could be addressed by means of a gradual roll-out of the 130g/km limit, based on the logic that the climate system is affected by total volumes of CO2, not industry averages. He suggests that in the first phase, the limit could apply to vehicles produced in volumes of more than 200,000/year. In the next phases this limit could be reduced to 100,000 a year.

It was recently reported in the German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, that Porsche is "considering legal action" if the 2012 targets are agreed. The makers of larger, higher-emissions cars, including Porsche, have said the planned regulation favours companies that make smaller compact cars, which commonly have lower emissions levels. German carmakers, in particular, produce a larger number of powerful cars that would make it harder for them to reach the 2012 target than carmakers based in Italy or France.

The Porsche spokesman said the regulation would distort competition. "We would have to take legal steps," Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.