EU lobby urges stricter emissions standards for company car fleets

EU Corporate Fleet Emissions Policy Debate

Feb 23 (Reuters) - The European Union should make companies include more environmentally friendly vehicles in their corporate fleets, and exclude low-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrids from quotas, environmental group Transport & Environment said on Monday.

Proposed 2030 Fleet Quotas

The European Commission proposed in December that EU states introduce new zero- and low-emission quotas for corporate cars and vans from 2030, after long negotiations with the industry resulted in a plan to backtrack on its effective ban on new combustion-engine cars from 2035.

T&E asked in a position paper that the targets aim for zero-emission vehicles - which include fully electric and hydrogen-powered models - to make up a 69% share of corporate fleets by 2030, up from 45% in current estimates, and that they exclude low-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

Plug-in Hybrids Under Scrutiny

The group says real-world emissions of plug-in hybrids, which can be powered with electricity or fuel, are higher than values from regulatory tests show, especially as company car drivers receive fuel cards and have no incentive to charge their battery instead of using their combustion engine.

It estimated that corporate sales of plug-in hybrids would more than double in four years with the current proposal.

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Projected EV Sales Impact

The EU could achieve more than half of the EV sales it targets by 2030 and support carmakers if it tightened its rules on cars bought by large companies, T&E said.

Subsidies and Tax Benefits

The paper added the EU should stick with a plan to abolish subsidies for petrol and diesel company cars, which it says amount to more than 42 billion euros ($49.5 billion) annually, and limit tax benefits to EVs made in Europe to help domestic carmakers.

"It's in the European car industry's interests that they get this done right," T&E Clean Fleets Manager Sofie Grande y Rodriguez said in a statement.

From 1.2m to 1.9m EU-made EVs

The Commission's current proposal would lead to 1.2 million extra sales of EU-made electric cars in 2030, but would mostly leverage already existing market trends and fall short of current trajectories in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden, T&E said.

Corporate Share of Car and Van Sales

Its more ambitious targets for corporate fleets, which account for about 60% of new cars and 90% of new vans sold in the bloc, would increase that number to 1.9 million, it said.

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(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Jan Harvey)