Four EU nations call for combustion heavy duty vehicles phase out

The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Luxembourg call on the European Commission (EU) to set an end date for new trucks and buses with combustion engines. The push comes ahead of stricter CO2 standards for heavy duty vehicles (HDV) due in February and echoes similar sentiments of some in the industry.

Recalling, for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, the EU bodies had already decided upon the end of new cars with combustion engines from 2035.

An increasing number of European manufacturers in the heavy duty segment have already made public commitments to increase the roll-out of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) in the near future. The technology is there.

In the four coutries view, to be consistent with the European Climate Law and to support Member States to achieve their Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) targets, the proposal should contain three core elements:

1. A 100% zero emission target for new HDVs in the EU, in line with the EU objective of climate neutrality by 2050.

2. A strengthened 2030 target, building on the ambitions expressed by frontrunning OEMs and fleet owners.

3. Application of the CO2 standards to more vehicle categories than covered under the current scope. The current CO2 reduction targets are only applicable to a small share of freight vehicles on the road, leaving almost 35% of emissions out of scope.

A couple of weeks ago United States (US) also released its blueprint to decarbonize its transportation sector . Recalling, the US blueprint categorizes the initiatives in terms of long term opportunities and indicated the following two among the greatest ones:

• electric light duty vehicles

• hydrogen long-haul heavy trucks

Last year, members of the the European Parliament proposed that by 2026 electric charging pools for cars would have to be deployed at least every 60 km along main EU roads and every 100 km for hydrogen refuelling stations.

The European Commission’s proposal, scheduled for this February as part of the new Green Deal , would replace the EU’s current requirement that manufacturers ensure a 30 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 compared to 2019/2020 levels.

Click at the image below to read the communiqué from these four EU countries . And here (link) you can read "Trends in electric heavy-duty vehicles" by the International Energy Agency.