The European Commission’s “Fit for 55,” regulatory proposals are intended to secure a European Union (EU) economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction of at least 55% by 2030. One of the regulatory proposals adopted by the EC is to amend the mandatory CO2 emission targets for new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (vans).

This paper reviews recent developments in the European passenger car market and assesses the implications for the proposed post-2021 CO2 emissions targets.

This briefing paper provides an overview of CO2 emission levels of new passenger cars in the European Union in 2020 based on a preliminary dataset recently released by the European Environment Agency.

With introduction of the EU’s first CO2 standard for new passenger cars, official type-approval emissions decreased at a rate of about 3.5% per year, compared to about 1.2% prior to regulation. The 2015 target of 130 g/km was met well in advance by manufacturers.

Applying the ICCT Roadmap Model, three scenarios were modeled to assess the required level of type-approval CO2 emission reduction for new passenger cars and vans: Adopted policies: Average new car CO2 emissions decrease by 15% by 2025 and 37.5% by 2030, relative to 2021. For vans, the reduction is 15% by 2025 and 31% by 2030, relative to 2020.

This briefing paper identifies several possible levels of stringency for the post-2021 CO2 standards in the European Union for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles and compares them against economy-wide greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030 and 2050, as well as the 2050 target for transport sector emission reductions in the EU Green Deal.

This report provides an overview of the CO2 emission levels of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (vans) in the European Union and Iceland in 2018 and manufacturers' performance towards their 2018 CO2 emission targets.

Four years on from the Dieselgate scandal - which exposed the failure to curb toxic air pollution from cars and shook confidence in EU emissions regulation - Europe is in the process of setting a new pollutant emissions standard for light and heavy duty vehicles.

Many energy consuming consumer durable goods, such as home appliances and vehicles, are subject to energy efficiency or greenhouse gas standards.

The new light-duty CO2 standards require the European Commission to monitor the real-world fuel and electric energy consumption of light-duty vehicles. In order to do this, the European Commission must develop a procedure to transfer the data recorded by soon to be mandatory on-board fuel and energy consumption monitoring devices (OBFCM).