European Commission ambitions far removed from today’s reality, says ACEA

Eric-Mark Huitema (pictured above), director general of the ACEA, explained: “Unfortunately, the European Commission’s vison is far removed from today’s reality. Out of the 243 million passenger cars on EU roads in 2019, less than 615,000 cars were zero-emission vehicles (battery electric cars and fuel-cell electric ones combined).”

This represents 0.25% of the whole car fleet, resulting in the need for a 50-fold increase in zero-emission cars in circulation in just 10 years.

Huitema added: “Despite industry investments in such vehicles and their growing market share, not all the right conditions are in place to make such a massive leap. The Commission should match its level of ambition for rolling out infrastructure across the EU with its ambition for reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles. It is quite simple: the higher the climate targets become, the higher targets for charging points and refuelling stations should be. Unfortunately, we still see a mismatch between these two elements at EU level.”

Urgent charging point growth needed

According to the Commission, three million public charging points would need to be operational by the 2030 deadline to properly facilitate the transition. However, the ACEA pointed out that there were less than 200,000 charging points in place across the EU in 2019, which would require the deployment of 15 times more infrastructure over the next 11 years.

Huitema added: “Experience has shown us that a voluntary approach to infrastructure targets does not work. While some EU countries have been very active, others have done little or nothing. A review of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (AFID) really must include binding infrastructure targets for member states.”

While the deployment of infrastructure has seen strong growth, the total number of charging points currently available across the EU at the end of 2019 falls short of what is required. Furthermore, only 28,586 of those points are suitable for fast charging, meaning that just one in seven points in the EU is a fast charger.

Similarly, there are just 137 hydrogen filling stations across 12 EU member states, but 16 countries do not have any at all.

In addition to the clear issues surrounding infrastructure, the ACEA stated that other instruments would be required to encourage consumers to switch to zero-emission mobility such as more aggressive carbon pricing, the continuation of fleet renewal schemes and supportive measures for up- and re-skilling workers to facilitate the transformation of the sector.

For example, currently in the UK just one in twenty technicians working in garages and dealerships are certified to safely maintain and service battery-powered cars according to the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI).

In an open letter from the IMI, Professor Jim Saker and Steve Nash – respective president and chief executive officer of the IMI – stated: “In order to work on any car that has an electric battery – fully electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid – requires a completely different set of skills to those needed to work on a petrol or diesel vehicle.”

In the ACEA’s closing remarks, it stated that as a result of the decarbonization efforts, new cars would become more expensive for many Europeans at a time when they have less money to spend due to the economic impact of the pandemic.

This risks not only affecting the affordability of mobility, but also driving up the average age of cars, thus slowing down fleet renewal.