A billion in additional costs
New emissions standard already concerns VW subsidiary Traton
6/10/2023 8:53 am
From the point of view of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicle subsidiary Traton, the planned emission standard 7 is an “absolutely nonsensical package”. The shift towards zero-emission electric and possibly also fuel cell drives is too expensive. According to brand boss Vlaskamp, there are better approaches in the truck sector.
The VW truck subsidiary Traton expects additional costs in the billions for the planned Euro 7 emissions standard. “In the event that the law comes about as planned, we will be burdened with enormous costs of roughly one billion euros in the group for investing in an expiring technology. And that, although we are facing a huge transformation,” said the boss of the Traton brand MAN, Alexander Vlaskamp, the “Welt am Sonntag”.
“The proposed rules for cleaning are so strictly defined that we actually need more fuel and the nitrogen oxides are still only marginally reduced.” Instead of the new emissions standard, Vlaskamp called for subsidies for the purchase of new Euro 6 standard trucks to replace older vehicles. Car and truck manufacturers are lobbying hard against the adoption of new EU emissions standards for combustion engines.
Above all, the manufacturers expect additional costs in order to be able to comply with the rules – in view of the foreseeable shift towards emission-free electric and possibly also fuel cell drives, they consider the effort to be too high. The EU Commission, on the other hand, argues that, among other things, pollutants whose emissions are already regulated by the applicable Euro 6 standard are not covered in some areas by the test methods prescribed up to now.
Vlaskamp welcomed the increase in truck tolls planned by the federal government through a CO2 tax. “What bothers us is that some of the levy is misused.” Instead of using the additional income to expand the railway line, one should “invest more in the development of the charging infrastructure”. In addition, the toll will have no steering effect if it is already increased on December 1, 2023 – “because then neither the vehicles nor the infrastructure will be available”.