Audi CEO urges delay on Euro 7 pollution rules

Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said the mid-2025 deadline to implement the pending Euro 7 pollution regulations should be pushed back because it does not give automakers enough time to prepare.

“That time frame is simply not enough,” Duesmann said at Audi’s annual news conference. 

The Euro 7 proposal, which governs tailpipe emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide, as well as fine particulates, won preliminary approval last November. It also, for the first time, proposes to regulate particulate emissions from brake pads and tires.

It replaces the current Euro 6e standard. Automakers will have to recertify every powertrain in their portfolio, a lengthy and costly process. New technologies such as upgraded gasoline particulate filters and catalysts need to be developed and tested, and automakers say they will have to pass most of those costs on to buyers.

The automotive industry has portrayed Euro 7 as an unnecessarily distraction that will divert resources from the ultimate goal of electrification. Executives say the rules would apply only to a final generation of internal combustion engines ahead of a proposal to allow only zero-emission vehicles to be sold in Europe after 2035.

Advocates say that reducing air pollutants will save tens of thousands of lives, and that even if the new rules are in place for just 10 years or less, vehicles governed by them will be on the roads for many years after being sold as new cars.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, the past president of the ACEA lobbying group, recently called the rules “useless” and counterproductive in the transition to EVs.

ACEA, which is led by Luca de Meo of Renault Group, says that “A massive investment in Euro 7 would have only marginal additional environmental benefit, yet would require manufacturers to divert substantial engineering and financial resources away from electrification and zero-emission vehicles back to internal combustion engine.”

“Ultimately, this carries a major risk of slowing down the transition to climate neutrality,” the group added in a position paper in January.

De Meo, in his first address as ACEA president, said that the regulations could force automakers to close factories in Europe, as some automakers will opt to drop certain combustion engines from their lineup rather than spend money and time to recertify them.

Skoda’s head of sales, Martin Jahn, said Sunday the Volkswagen Group Czech brand would have to close a plant and ax models if the Euro 7 scheme is implemented in its current form.

If (Euro 7) is approved in this shape, it would mean for Skoda Auto to close one plant, because we would stop producing the smaller models — the Fabia, Scala, Kamiq — that means 3,000 jobs [would be] hit at least,” Jahn said in a televised debate.

The auto industry has the backing of transport ministers from a group of countries led by Germany and Italy that is calling for changes to the proposal. Ministers from Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia – most of whom have large automaking sectors – met last Monday to discuss Euro 7 and the EU’s zero-emission proposal for 2035. 

The group called for a four-year phase-in period.

“We are of the firm opinion that we need an adjustment of the current proposal,” Duesmann said last Thursday. We have spent a lot of time and money in the development of electric cars.

A strict implementation of Euro 7, he said, will draw investments away from EVs, and higher prices for buyers “will really put a damper on things.”