New cars from 2020: Further CO2 cutback
How’s that going to work?
Fortsetzung des Artikels von Teil 2
“Did limits interest anyone before?”
This is a question for Giese. The answer: because in future there will be penalties if limits are exceeded. Prats is also convinced that today’s drivers would take a closer look, and prefer cars with low CO2 emissions. That would be fine but not that probable. Because “buyers used to look at brochures and the figures they found were wrong”, says Giese. And Weyer says everyone knew the given consumption was “fiddled” — a worldwide phenomenon. Consumers have got used to being “diddled”.
Adlkofer: “The wrong consumption figures have been stated for 15 years. Consumers have known that for ages, and still didn’t react.” Uwe Bröckelmann: “They were only comparison figures, nobody ever claimed they were any different. The brochures always said something like ‘consumption acc. to 70/220/EEC’.” The figures were good for marketing, and OEMs definitely used them.
Spot landing
“The companies will make a spot landing. If the statistics aren’t right, company cars will in future no longer be diesels but mild-hybrids”, reckons Adlkofer. Nevertheless OEMs must expand their portfolio, which can be a problem. With only an i3 and an i8 you do not produce the targeted CO2. So OEMs will adapt their portfolio to reach this 95 g.
But Weyer also thinks it is possible that things can change again. Because as soon as the penalties are gone, OEMs would forget all about this strategy. At the moment “the effort to achieve the CO2 target is less than the penalties if targets aren’t achieved”, says Weyer.
Back to the spot landing. How is that to work by changing the portfolio? One possibility of course would be taxation of the different vehicles, although that is not a direct matter for the automobile industry — lobbying is only an indirect way. Bröckelmann like Adlkofer is convinced that the CO2 goals will be achieved. His explanation: “Leasing rates can be controlled. There’ll be more mix of vehicles.” In other words, in future we will see a certain share of fully electric vehicles, a further of cars with 48-V technology, then full hybrids, and hydrogen-fueled vehicles, plus of course the combustors.
Bröckelmann is convinced that the portfolio will become more diverse, and not head in one direction. Not everyone will drive electric, that is not possible. Meaning that the semiconductor industry must serve a bigger product portfolio. To begin with that sounds like many opportunities, but on the other hand it soon becomes clear that the volume the semiconductor industry would like to see is far, far away. Getting back to spot landing. It can be expected that industry will now optimize its vehicles for the new driving cycle; in this case one can only hope that the means are legal.
- How’s that going to work?
- Is there a future for diesel?
- “Did limits interest anyone before?”
