The EU Commission is presenting a new emissions standard for road vehicles. Their pollutant emissions are to be more strictly limited. What does the Euro 7 standard regulate, which vehicles does it apply to and which limit values are becoming stricter? Questions and answers about the new requirements.
After Euro 6 comes Euro 7: In the second half of the decade, the EU wants to tighten the emission limits for cars and trucks even more. For the first time, brake dust and tire abrasion should also play a role, as the draft that has now been submitted shows. And e-cars will also have to comply with new rules. An overview.
What does an emissions standard regulate?
Classification into pollutant classes was introduced in the EU in the early 1990s in order to gradually reduce exhaust emissions from cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles and trucks and thus improve air quality. It started with the Euro 1 standard, and Euro 6 has been in force since 2014. In recent years, not least because of the experiences in the diesel scandal, there have been repeated tightening, the current variant (since 2020) is therefore called Euro 6d-ISC-FCM. Parallel to the passenger car standards, there have previously been commercial vehicle regulations, which were usually denoted by the Roman numeral, most recently as Euro VI. Euro 7 now brings both types together in one standard.
Which vehicles does the new standard apply to?
The Euro 7 standard will apply in adapted variants for passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, trucks and motorcycles. At least until now, the EU rules have been binding for new vehicle type approvals. These become necessary when a completely new vehicle model comes onto the market. This is the case every 7 to 15 years for passenger cars and even less frequently for commercial vehicles. In a second step, the limit values and regulations will then become mandatory for every newly registered vehicle. There is usually a year or two between these two dates.
Which pollutants play a role?
Previously there were specifications for six types of pollutants: nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particles, hydrocarbons, methane and ammonia. The latter was only regulated for heavy commercial vehicles, in future there will also be limits for passenger cars. Also new are limit values for formaldehyde and ultrafine particles from brake and tire abrasion. In the future, nitrous oxide will also play a role in trucks and buses.
Which old limits are becoming stricter?
In the future, all passenger cars may only emit 60 milligrams of nitrogen oxide. For diesels, the value was previously 80 milligrams, for petrol engines nothing changes in this regard. According to the EU Commission, all limits for heavy commercial vehicles are lower than the Euro VI level.
What else is new?
In addition to new limit values, more meaningful emission tests in the laboratory and on the road, more digitization and closer monitoring of vehicles that have already been delivered are planned.
What applies to alternative drives?
Combustion pollutants are irrelevant for e-cars. But the particle emissions from tires and brakes do. Because of their high weight, they can even be heavier than in combustion vehicles. There are also new standards for minimum battery life. The energy storage devices of e-cars, plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles must still offer at least 80 percent of their original capacity after five years or 100,000 kilometers, and 70 percent after eight years or 160,000 kilometers. The requirements correspond to what most manufacturers currently voluntarily promise in the form of guarantees anyway. Less stringent minimum values of 75 percent and 65 percent apply to trucks and buses.
What does the EU Commission want to achieve?
The Commission declares several goals at the same time. In addition to updating and tightening the pollution limits, he is concerned with better monitoring of implementation by industry, including digitally. In addition, it should be ensured that cars will still be clean ten years after they were first registered. So far, cars that are no more than five years old have been checked. Last but not least, the new regulation is intended to support the market penetration of electric cars. In this respect, the new emissions standard can also be seen as a means of combating climate change - but politics is primarily concerned with air quality.
What does the auto industry say?
The European motor vehicle manufacturers' association ACEA reported serious concerns immediately after the Commission's decision. The environmental benefits of the design are very limited, while it greatly increases vehicle costs, said association president and BMW boss Oliver Zipse. The regulations focused on extreme driving conditions that hardly played a role in everyday life. The association finds the regulations too strict, especially for trucks. The German lobby counterpart VDA also explains that the Euro 7 emissions standard that has been passed cannot be implemented for passenger cars by July 2025 and that it will hardly be technologically feasible for heavy commercial vehicles by July 2027.
What do environmental and consumer advocates say?
Organic associations criticized the new limit values well in advance as being too lax. They see too few improvements compared to Euro 6. More car-related organizations such as the ADAC see it similarly, but also see the only slightly increased level of requirements as an advantage: car manufacturers could concentrate on further optimizations on CO2 reduction.
How difficult are the limit values really to comply with?
Even today, many car models - especially in the higher classes - should be able to take the upcoming pollutant hurdles without major modifications. VW even claims this for the second generation of its 1.5-liter petrol engine presented in the summer - a real high-volume engine that is also used in the Golf class. This is achieved, among other things, by moving the already existing particle filter in the exhaust system closer to the engine, which should enable more effective pollutant cleaning. Other conceivable measures include more efficient fine dust filters and actively preheated catalytic converters to get the high emissions during cold starts under control. Technically, the hurdle should therefore be relatively easy to take.
What does this cost?
Even if the limits are not overly ambitious. They will probably not be available without additional costs. It is difficult to predict to what extent these will be passed on to customers. The EU Commission estimates that end consumers will incur additional costs of between 90 and 150 euros per vehicle. Buses and trucks are likely to be around 2600 euros more expensive. The German Association of the Automotive Industry does not go into specifics, but speaks of significant price increases that consumers will face and considers these to be an unreasonable burden.
What's next?
Parliament and the Council now have to approve the EU Commission's draft. The new limits for cars and light commercial vehicles could come into force in 2025 at the earliest, with trucks and buses two years later. However, delays would not be a surprise.
What comes after Euro 7?
Some of the Euro 7 requirements could be completed faster than expected. Because by 2035 at the latest, there will be a virtual ban on cars with internal combustion engines in the EU. Many manufacturers have already announced years in advance that they will no longer sell petrol and diesel engines and will only offer electric vehicles instead. For the numerous pollutant limit values are irrelevant due to the lack of a combustion engine.
