Ferrari and Aston in hot water over emissions
Both Italian and British sports car makers face fines over missing EU CO2 reduction goalsAston Martin and Ferrari have both failed to meet EU mandatory agreements to reduce CO2 emissions and now face financial penalties.
The targets, introduced by the European Union’s Environmental Agency (EEA), stated that by 2015 average CO2 emissions for any car maker selling in Europe should not exceed 130g/km.
Ignoring both small-volume sports car makers, the EEA’s annual report showed that most car-makers are going far beyond the EU-enforced targets. The average CO2 emissions in Europe in 2015 were 119.5g/km – which was a 3.1 per cent reduction over the previous year.
It’s not all good news though.
GM’s European brand, Opel, as well as Ford, BMW and the Fiat Chrysler Automobile empire have all been warned by the EEA that they need to reduce emissions faster to meet the EU 2021 target of 95g/km of CO2.
Opel, speaking to Automotive News, complained that its average emissions were only a “snapshot” and that next-gen three and four-cylinder engines, plug-in hybrids and pure-electric vehicles would help it meet its targets.
Ford has also been quick to defend itself after the EEA issued its warning: “You are not going to have a linear improvement since annual fleet emissions are influenced by a number of factors including product cadence, the launch of new engines and other technological introductions” a spokesman said.
As well as criticising those who were failing, the EEA also praised Peugeot (104g/km), Citroen and Renault (both 106g/km) as well as Toyota (108g/km) for all coming close to meeting the targets years before the limit is introduced.
Interesting to note, according to the report 97.2 per cent of all registrations in 2015 were of conventional diesel and petrol-powered cars – with diesels accounting for more than half (51.8 per cent).
As far as the fines that Ferrari and Aston Martin will face, based on complex calculations that factor in the number of cars sold by how much each brand missed its target, the Italian car maker will be fined around €410,000 (A$590,000) while Aston will only have to cough up €36,370 (A$58,000).
Highest fleet emissions at present come from Jaguar Land Rover’s range of vehicles that averages 164g/km of CO2.
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