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Europe’s automobile manufacturers are committed to reducing CO2 emissions from their vehicles, and the industry has been succeeding at this. The average emissions of a new car hitting the road in 2016 were 36.5 per cent lower than in 1995; that is quite a feat in just two decades! And by 2021, CO2 emissions from new cars will be 42 per cent less than in 2005. Looking further ahead, our industry remains committed to cutting CO2 across all vehicle segments in the future, from passenger cars to heavy-duty vehicles.Last year, the European Commission published its ‘Strategy for Low-Emission Mobility’. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) welcomed this initiative to explore how to further decarbonise transport across all modes. From our side, we have developed a decarbonisation strategy that focuses on five main pillars. Firstly, auto makers are now switching to a new way of measuring emissions from cars that is more rigid and closer to reality. Two months ago, the new WLTP and RDE emissions tests for cars came into force. WLTP is the new tool for measuring CO2 emissions, while the real driving emissions (RDE) test measures the pollutants emitted by cars while driven on the road. Both started to apply to all new types last September. Our second pillar is all about leveraging the potential of digitilisation to deliver more efficient mobility solutions with lower emissions. In the EU mobility package that was published earlier this year, the Commission acknowledged the importance of addressing the (regulatory) obstacles still hampering the wider deployment of connected and automated driving. This is valued by the auto industry, as we are convinced that digitalisation has immense potential to contribute to further CO2 reductions.Exploring completely new business models that focus on mobility as a service are at the heart of our third pillar – think of car sharing schemes, for example. As part of the fourth pillar, manufacturers are dramatically expanding their offer of alternatively-powered vehicles, with a specific focus on both low- and zero-emission vehicles. Finally, auto makers continue to invest in the further optimisation of the internal combustion engine.Manufacturers will, of course, keep developing more fuel-efficient technologies and alternative powertrains, but fact is that their responsibility remains limited to the efficiency of the product they deliver. However, future decarbonisation policy should not only look at new vehicle technology, but also at the actual use of the vehicle. The use phase covers, for example, the carbon content of fuels, faster fleet renewal, altering driver behaviour, “FUTURE DECARBONISATION POLICY SHOULD NOT ONLY LOOK AT NEW VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY, BUT ALSO AT THE ACTUAL USE OF THE VEHICLE”improving infrastructure, as well as the potential of intelligent transport systems. Combined with the industry’s continuous improvements to vehicle technology, we can reduce CO2 emissions more effectively by drawing on this full spectrum of solutions.As ACEA we are glad that the Commission recognised the importance of such a comprehensive approach in its low-emission strategy, which stated that the decarbonisation of transport must include a broad variety of actions by different stakeholders. That makes sense, because it has become clear that targets focusing exclusively on new vehicles fail to address the bulk of vehicles already on the road. After all, newly-registered cars account for just 5 per cent of the total fleet. By comparison, cars older than 10 years make up over a third of the car fleet! According to a recent study, replacing those older cars with new ones meeting the 2021 target could deliver a 37 per cent CO2 reduction by 2030.It is clear that beyond 2020 it will be technically unfeasible to continue improving internal combustion engines at the current rate, as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ solutions will already be deployed by then. Future reductions of CO2 will therefore be strongly dependent on increased sales of alternatively-powered vehicles, APVs. Although market acceptance of APVs is rising, they still only represent a very small share of EU vehicle sales – accounting for just over 4 per cent of the market in 2016. And while the European automobile industry continues to invest significantly in these technologies, our investments will not be enough if APVs do not become more attractive for consumers. Both the market uptake and consumer acceptance of alternatively-powered vehicles, including electrified ones, depend on several factors that simply cannot be influenced by auto makers. Firstly, there are the necessary investments in recharging and refuelling infrastructure that need to be made by member states and infrastructure providers. Secondly, a higher market share is only possible with the right supportive schemes in place at the EU, national and local level in order to stimulate APV sales (including financial and non-fiscal measures).The EU Directive on Alternative Fuel Infrastructure has already set clear objectives for the deployment of the required infrastructure by member states, but unfortunately its implementation has been poor to date. If we, in Europe, really want to take cutting CO2 emissions seriously, national governments must become more active around infrastructure. As for the necessity of incentives, let’s take electrically-chargeable vehicles (ECVs) as an TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY 099