Automotive News Europe — 2025-02-10
Automotive Industry
Chinese EV giant BYD is in talks to form a pool with European automakers and sell them carbon credits to help them avoid hefty European Union fines on 2025 emissions, a BYD representative said.
“We are in talks, we are well underway,” BYD’s special adviser for Europe Alfredo Altavilla said during the presentation of the Atto 2 small electric SUV in Italy.
Earlier this year automakers announced the creation of two pools, one between Stellantis, Toyota, Ford, Mazda, Subaru and Tesla, and another one between Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, Volvo and Smart.
Companies with lower sales of zero-emission electric cars can pool their emissions with EV market leaders, purchasing emissions credits from them to lower their overall averages and save them hundreds of millions of euros in EU fines.
BMW, Volkswagen Group and Renault Group are the only major European automakers that are not yet part of emissions pools.
Automakers have to notify the European Commission of pooling agreements for 2025 by 3 December. Brussels can request extra information about the agreements, but not assess their commercial terms.
Pool participants must not share data or exchange information other than about average specific emissions of CO2, specific emissions targets and the total number of vehicles registered.
The EU’s 2025 CO2 emissions targets are about 15% lower than the 2021 levels, and experts say automakers will have to sell at least 20% full-electric vehicles — at a time the EV market has stagnated in Europe at less than 14%.
Missing the target results in a fine of €95 ($98) per gram of CO2 over the limit per vehicle.