On Monday 13 May 2024, the EU Parliament adopted a significant regulation, targeting stricter CO2 emission standards for trucks and urban buses and expanding the scope of emission reduction targets to include almost all new heavy-duty vehicles including trucks, smaller trucks, urban buses, coaches and trailers. The regulation will now be signed and published in the Official Journal of the EU and the standards set out in the regulation will come into force 20 days after its publication.

What are the standards?

The standards stipulate that all new urban buses must be emission free from 2035 and almost all lorries from 2040. Specifically, it has now been decided that manufacturers must reduce average emissions of trucks weighing 7.5 tonnes or more and coaches by 45% from 2030, 65% from 2035 and 90% from 2040.

The new regulations focus more on the period from 2030. The existing target for 2025, according to which emissions from heavy goods vehicles weighing 16 tonnes or more must be reduced by 15%, remains unchanged. However, the target for 2030, which was previously 30% under the old regulation has now been raised to 45% and so the rules have been tightened, providing far more ambitious emissions reduction targets. The effectiveness and impact of the amended regulation will be reviewed by the Commission in 2027.

More robust standards for CO2 emissions will help increase the share of zero-emission vehicles in the heavy-duty vehicle fleet across the EU, while ensuring that innovation in and the competitiveness of the sector are preserved and enhanced.

What is going on in the United Kingdom?

With detailed clarity from Europe regarding their CO2 reduction targets for the commercial vehicle sector, it does beg the question “what is going on in the United Kingdom?”. As we have now left the EU, these regulations will obviously not apply in the United Kingdom so it will be for the UK to set its own agenda through domestic legislation. There have been lots of discussions regarding a zero-emission mandate, similar to that already in place for cars and vans, but the information flow has been extremely slow.

There are talks of the Department for Transport preparing for the drafting of a zero-emission mandate for heavy duty vehicles, but we have not seen anything yet. The industry will need a consultation paper soon, though, if it is going to get the required preparation in place for the fleet buying cycles kicking off in the next couple of years.

Operators need to prepare for when a zero-emission mandate does come to fruition in the UK and should start acting now to pro-actively manage the transition toward zero-emission new heavy duty vehicles and avoid the hefty costs of complying – perhaps at short notice - in the future.