Car lobby win as softened EU7 rules pass crucial stage

The agreed new EU7 standards have kept the emissions limits from the EU6 for new cars and vans

Less stringent emissions tests for passenger cars, but tyre and brake particulates are in the spotlight

Car makers will be celebrating after the European Union provisionally agreed the final wording of the new, softer Euro 7 emissions that rolls back many of the plans of the original proposal.

The agreed new EU7 standards have kept the emissions limits from the EU6 for new cars and vans, but more importantly have removed the need for more stringent real-world testing standards that carmakers argued would have added hundreds of euros to the price of a car if they were to become law.

The new agreement also pushes back the implantation of the new standards from 1 July 2025 to a new date two years after the regulations are finally voted in law, meaning 2026 at the earliest for cars and vans.

Important changes over EU6 include limits on the amount of particles emitted by braking and tyre wear, including for electric vehicles. EU7 also imposes the fitment of battery monitoring systems to ensure the car meets durability targets, as well mandating that combustion engine vehicles are fitted with on board monitors that ensure emissions control devices are not being tampered with.

“The European vehicle industry welcomes the planning certainty,” automotive lobby group ACEA said in a statement that played down any jubilation.

The agreement has been thrashed out in a closed-door ‘Trilogue’ between the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament ahead of formal approval. However European automotive suppliers association CLEPA said in a statement that “further changes are not expected”.

CLEPA is among those expressing dissatisfaction with an outcome that some campaigners have described as a victory for the car lobby. “More ambition would have been technically and economically feasible.” CLEPA said in a statement. Suppliers generally win more business when emissions regulations are tightened and lobby groups had argued that most of the original proposal was doable. “This agreement removes most of the Commission’s proposal,” it said.

Brussels-based environmental campaigner Transport & Environment described the agreement as a “shameless capitulation” in a statement. The Euro 7 standard agreed by lawmakers “will allow car companies to greenwash vehicles that are virtually no cleaner”, Lucien Mathieu, cars director at T&E, said in a statement.

Carmakers however have argued that the original proposals would have cost them millions, forcing them to direct funds to combustion engines and away from electrification. 

The carmakers warned that the proposals would have disproportionally affected small combustion engine cars, which are harder to electrify without significantly increasing the cost. “It literally makes it impossible to continue with a small [ICE] vehicle as it currently stands,” head of Volkswagen brand Thomas Schaefer told Autocar earlier this year

The proposals would “make dying technology prohibitively expensive,” Schaefer added.

VW and BMW and others had argued that the greatest cost would be incurred by the extended test requirements, for example increasing the temperature window in which the car is tested as well the elevation height. 

The extended conditions were a continuation of a crackdown by the European Union to better tighten the monitoring of real-world emissions following the Dieselgate scandal, in which carmakers were using ‘defeat devices’ to change the parameters in which emissions controls were used in the real world outside the laboratory testing conditions.

The roll back includes getting rid of the ‘Euro7+’ category that would have rewarded higher-compliance vehicles, but keeps Euro7G that that refers to plug-in hybrid vehicles that use a geofencing system to be able to deploy batteries in certain urban situations. The vehicle warns the driver to charge if batteries are too low, continue to drive in a designated zero emission zone and is thought to defray fears that plug-in hybrids are not being used as intended and emit far more carbon dioxide in the real world.