Car manufacturers on target for 2015 emission cuts

Car manufacturers are on target to meet their 2015 emission targets, after it was revealed that CO2 emissions from new cars are down four per cent in 2010.

The results, collected in June and now verified by the European Commission, are the first of their kind, as 2010 sets the benchmark for CO2 regulations on the road.

Around 13 million new cars were registered in the EU in 2010 with average emissions of 140g CO2/km. The EU set a target of 130g CO2/km to be fully achieved in 2015, which shows that car manufacturers are on track.

This data will help shape EU policy for the future, with emissions set to serve as a basis for calculating excess premiums for manufacturers not meeting their targets.

The data collected has come under a large amount of scrutiny, with some commentators believing the data is not accurate enough.

Data quality is top on the list of priorities for the EU, recognising that it needs to improve. However, they only needed to make minor changes to the provisional data published in June, which is a sign of strong data quality.

by Joseph Hutton