EU7 regulations set to kill off petrol and diesels by 2026

European car-makers have issued warnings the introduction of new Euro 7 emissions legislation could force them to kill off combustion-engined vehicles by as soon as 2026.

The Euro 7 regulations are set to be introduced in 2025 and have yet to be finalised.

However, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) – which represents all the major car-makers in the region – is concerned that the proposed EU7 regulations could make combustion-engined vehicles, particularly smaller models, unviable almost overnight.

Speaking to Brit mag Autocar, an ACEA spokesman said: "The ACEA believes that the emission limit scenarios presented by CLOVE [European Commission’s Consortium for Ultra Low Vehicle Emissions], coupled with the suggested new testing conditions, would in practice result in a situation very similar to a ban of vehicles powered by an internal combustion engine, including hybrid electric vehicles."

According to ACEA, the proposed EU7 rules, if left unchanged, would make it difficult for car-makers to justify development programs for smaller vehicles, blowing out costs of both petrol and diesel models.

The peak industry body also argues the regulations would put any vehicle with a high-performance engine under threat and that current technology would struggle to reduce emissions down to legally mandated levels at high revs.

Engineers also suggest combustion-powered SUVs, utes and pick-up trucks would also be hit if they tow, as an engine under load would also fail to emit low enough emissions – at least with current technology.

Industry insiders suggest that whatever the size of the vehicle, cold starts, stop-start traffic, hard acceleration and even driving uphill will all prove a huge technical difficulty.

According to CLOVE, each combustion-powered engine must come equipped with a next-generation multi-stage 'supercatalyst' to stand a chance of meeting the future regulations.

Supercatalysts are hugely expensive to develop and produce. For small petrol engines, they involve combining an initial heated electric catalyst, twin 1.0-litre conventional three-way catalysts, plus a large 2.0-litre particulate filter and a final ammonia slip catalyst.

The costs involved with incorporating the large, bulky emissions-scrubbing tech is immense. Not only is the size of the tech a huge obstacle, car-makers claim they have little time to prepare for them, with almost all existing vehicle architectures incompatible.

As well as the new hardware, EU7 is also primed to demand all future vehicles feature sophisticated on-board emissions monitoring tech that will remain compliant (and accurate) for at least 240,000km.

Once introduced, the EU7 limits on NOx, CO, particulates, ammonia, methane and NO2 will be the lowest in the world.

In response, the ACEA has branded the regulations as "very costly" and "massively complicated". It also claims that EU7 could, bizarrely, see the average vehicle use more fuel and produce higher levels of CO2 – the greenhouse gas originally targeted by ever-tightening EU regulations.

ACEA: "To drive the technology requirements to this point will severely limit the possibilities for CO2 and fuel consumption reduction and have significant uncertainties on durability and operating costs over the vehicle lifetime."