The EU has tough fleet emissions targets and increasingly steep fines for companies that can’t meet them. It’s starting to look like auto companies are all going to come up short.
Recently, sales of EVs in Europe have been slower than expected, due in part to demand and production issues. According to a report by PA Consulting, covered by Electrek, several companies are likely to miss their fleet CO2 targets and are looking at significant fines in the near future.
Volkswagen could face a fine of €4.5 Billion ($7.4 billion) next year, which represents a third of its 2018 earnings. Toyota is in a much better position, thanks in large part to its hybrid offerings. That company is expected to be only 0.02% above its target of 94.9 g/km.
Jaguar Land Rover has a much easier CO2 target of 130.6 g/km due to the fact that it sells fewer than 300,000 cars per year in the EU. Still, they are expected to miss and could incur a fine just under €100 million ($164 million). FCA entered a multi-billion dollar pooling agreement with Tesla, but that will have a minimal impact and FCA is still expected to be almost 30 per cent above its target.
The report has some suggestions on how companies can meet the requirements. Mostly: spend more money developing better EVs. PA Consulting has reported on this for five years. Recent years were more optimistic, but this year’s report says that “manufacturers have taken a step backwards,” with some making barely any progress over 2018 data.