Crisis mood in the auto industry: An internal paper from the industry warns of job cuts and billions in fines. An emergency article that was already used during Corona is supposed to help.
In view of the tense situation in the car industry, an internal paper from the European car industry warns of the loss of millions of jobs. The industry is not in a position to comply with an impending tightening of EU climate regulations, says the letter, which was made available to the German Press Agency in Brussels. “As a result, the EU industry will be faced with fines running into billions.” Anyone who wants to avoid fines has “little choice but to significantly reduce production, which threatens millions of jobs in the EU,” it says.
The background to this are the so-called fleet limits. These set a limit for the CO2 emissions of cars. This limit must not be exceeded on average for all vehicles registered in the EU in a year. This value is currently 115.1 grams of CO2 per kilometer, per vehicle – measured using the so-called WLTP test procedure. It is set to fall to 93.6 grams in 2025 and to 49.5 grams in 2030. Manufacturers must pay a fine for emitting too much CO2.
The paper states that one way to avoid the penalties is to stop the production and sale of more than two million cars with combustion engines. That would be the equivalent of the output of eight factories. This would mean the loss of millions of jobs. To prevent this from happening, it is proposed to use an emergency article that was already used in the case of Corona. The EU Commission could thus postpone the introduction of stricter requirements by two years.
When asked, the European Automobile Association (ACEA) said that the association was aware of the document. It was not an official document from the lobby association. According to dpa information, the letter is authentic and is circulating within the European automobile industry. The financial services provider Bloomberg had also previously reported on the internal document.
Source: Stern