Europe’s corporate car and van fleets should become greener and more electric faster than the European Commission has proposed, the two socialist lawmakers leading the European Parliament’s work on a forthcoming regulation have said.
The EU executive has set out targets requiring companies to increase purchases of zero- and low-emissions cars and vans by 2030 and 2035, including sub-targets exclusively targeting all-electric vehicles. The precise targets are proportional to gross domestic product of a given member state.
But in their draft report, first circulated on Tuesday, German socialist Tiemo Wölken and his French counterpart François Kalfon have increased the 2030 targets, raising the bar for fully electric cars and vans in particular.
Their amendments would increase the minimum shares of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from 31% to 37% in less-developed countries, while companies in the wealthiest member states like Denmark or Belgium would have to ensure that 70% of cars purchased are all-electric models, up from 58% in the Commission’s text.
The proposals would also allow EU countries to reduce their clean corporate vehicles goals by up to 5 percentage points if companies start offering their employees e-bikes instead of cars.
For 2035, when the EU car market should already be widely decarbonised, Wölken and Kalfon cancelled the combined zero- and low-emission vehicles’ targets, and raised those exclusively targeting CO2-free cars and vans up to 99% in richer countries.
Left-right split
“With this regulation, we can deliver investment certainty for the electric transition of the EU automotive sector,” Wölken said in a statement.
Kalfon said pushing the electrification of corporate fleets would create a thriving second-hand market three years down the line. “This is key to making electric cars affordable to middle-and low-income households.”
The Socialists & Democrats group members are pulling in the opposite direction to Massimiliano Salini, the conservative EPP group member tasked with drafting a report on planned reforms to CO2 standards for cars and vans.
The amendments outlined in Salini’s report on a proposal that would already roll back a ban on the sale on new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 would drastically reduce the ambition of the bloc’s transport electrification policy.
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