CO₂ fleet limits: Europe's car manufacturers are coping well with the climate requirements

The European climate targets for the car industry ensure that more electric cars than ever before are available – and sold – on the EU market. This is what the climate and transport association Transport & Environment (T&E) writes in a report published on Monday. It says that sales of electric cars had already reached record levels in the first half of this year. Extrapolated over the entire year, T&E assumes that seven times as many electric vehicles with a starting price of less than 25,000 euros will be sold in 2026 than in 2024.

European drivers would have had to wait a long time for smaller, affordable electric cars, says Susanne Goetz, consultant for electromobility at T&E Germany. However, twice as many new vehicles are now available for under 25,000 euros as between 2021 and 2025.

“The oil crisis has further fueled European consumers’ interest in affordable electric cars,” says Goetz. According to the report, anyone who had switched from a combustion engine to a battery-electric car in February, when the governments of Israel and the USA launched war against the Iranian regime and triggered a global energy crisis, would have saved around 350 euros by mid-September.

Given the high sales figures for electric cars, T&E expects that all European car manufacturers will meet the so-called CO₂ fleet limits for 2025 to 2027. At the same time, it was precisely the CO₂ limits, which were tightened in 2025, that provided the decisive incentive for car manufacturers to offer cheaper models. And they would give manufacturers the chance to get involved in the international competition for electric cars.

Susanne Goetz therefore warns against weakening the climate rules for the auto industry, as is repeatedly discussed at EU level. “If the target for 2030 were to be weakened now, the range of affordable models could collapse by almost three quarters,” fears the T&E expert.

Fixed CO₂ fleet limits have been enshrined in EU legislation since 2015 and specify the maximum amount of carbon dioxide each manufacturer's new car fleet may emit on average per kilometer driven. The goal: reduce CO₂ emissions in road traffic and slow the climate crisis. From 2021 to 2024, car manufacturers had a target value of 95 grams of CO₂ per kilometer driven; since 2025 it has been 93.6 grams.

Originally, manufacturers who did not reach these limits by the end of 2025 were supposed to pay a penalty. However, the EU Commission and Parliament loosened the rules for fines about a year and a half ago - partly due to pressure from large German companies such as Mercedes-Benz and the Association of the German Auto Industry as well as conservative forces in the federal government. Car manufacturers now have until 2027 to align their fleets with the limits from last year.

However, the attack on the climate targets for the auto industry went even further: at the end of 2025, the EU Commission proposed easing the ban on the sale of new combustion engines from 2035. The EU Transport Committee postponed an upcoming vote on this a few days ago; the vote in the EU plenary is scheduled for November.

Meanwhile, the share of electric cars in newly registered cars in Germany in September was higher than ever before at 34.5 percent - the consulting firm EY reported this on Monday based on registration data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Nevertheless, the mood in the German auto industry is extremely tense. Katharina Dröge, deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, therefore called for the end of the combustion engine to be defended even more, to protect local manufacturers from the dumping prices of Chinese competitors and to extend the purchase bonus for electric cars to used cars in order to enable even more people with low incomes to say goodbye to combustion engines.