ZF has conceded the highly ambitious targets set by the European Commission concerning emissions standards will be “very tough” to meet following agreement struck between the EU and its Parliament.
The German supplier’s comments followed those of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which has expressed ‘serious concern’ about what it terms the ‘highly challenging’ final deal on the EU CO2 regulation for cars and vans, setting target reductions out to 2030.
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The trade association is worried about the competitive implications for Europe’s auto industry if it is faced with CO2 emissions regulations that are much tighter than elsewhere in the world.
A deal has been struck by EU member states and the European Parliament that sets a 37.5% average reduction – versus today – for cars by 2030 (vans 31%).
“It is very tough,” ZF CEO Wolf-Henning Scheider told just-auto on the sidelines of CES in Las Vegas.
“It can also mean a slowdown of the market overall because mainly the only solution that an meet these emissions requirements are more expensive than today’s solutions.
“Obviously we want to play a significant role to provide these [new] solutions. We invest heavily into electromobility and hybrids – we see hybrids as a perfect solution. If you think about battery electric vehicles, we provide solutions, but the BEV is more a vehicle of second or third vehicle for the urban area.”
ACEA called on the 28 member states and the European Commission to ensure all enabling conditions are in place for the aggressive CO2 reduction levels, notably the much needed investments in infrastructure.
It also warned the extremely ambitious CO2 targets will have a ‘seismic impact’ on jobs across the entire automotive value chain which employs 13.3m Europeans. In order to mitigate the negative impact of these structural changes, it said policy makers need to act swiftly by presenting concrete plans to manage this employment and skills transition in a proper, socially acceptable way.
EU negotiators also fixed an interim CO2 cut target reduction for cars and vans of 15% by 2025.
Germany had warned that tough targets and the drive towards more electric cars could harm its industry and cost jobs. The VDA trade association has said the new legislation would set high demands while doing little to promote or provide incentives for switching to electric vehicles.
The EU’s current average caps on CO2 from cars are 130g/km set for 2015 and 95g/km fixed for 2021.
Scheider also told just-auto the integration of TRW into ZF to create one of the world’s largest suppliers was now complete.
“The merger is absolute,” he said.
“We have taken a very important step to make the last revision of an organisation and to have one company. We closed the project and we are one company. The teams are working together – for example ADAS and automatic functions – we need all our divisions to work together.
“They come from all parts of the company and we don’t notice any more what is TRW or ZF.”
