Volkswagen Group misses CO2 target

It had been in the air for a while, but the Volkswagen Group has indeed not achieved the CO2 maximum of 95 grams per kilometer per sold car in 2020 set by the EU. The good news: Volkswagen as a brand is below the limit.

This news is not very surprising, because the Volkswagen Group has already hinted in recent weeks that it would be exciting. The group united with a number of EV builders in a so-called CO2 pool, a proven way of spreading CO2 emissions across various car manufacturers. Even with the help of Aiways and MG, among others, the CO2 target is exceeded by 0.5 grams per car per kilometer. For Wolfsburg, that means a fine that allegedly can be found ‘in the very low three-digit millions’, so say more than € 100 million.

Without the help of the Chinese EV builders, the average CO2 emissions of the Volkswagen Group will be 99.8 grams per car per kilometer in 2020. Moreover, that is without ‘major pollutants’ Bentley and Lamborghini, which are fall into a separate category. Even so, that 99.8 grams means a decrease of 20 percent compared to 2019. The reason is clear: sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids rose by no less than 335 percent in 2020. In total, these (partly) electric cars turned out to be good for 315,400 copies in 2020.

Saillaint detail: the Porsche in the above graph is not a Taycan, but its concept predecessor Mission E from 2015. Did the intern make a mistake?

Volkswagen

Volkswagen CO2 2020

Although it cannot prevent the CO2 fine, there is good news at Volkswagen as a brand. The most important part of the Volkswagen Group managed to reduce its average CO2 emissions in Europe from 119 to 92 grams per kilometer. The fact that Volkswagen would come out below the maximum set by the EU on its own, is of course largely due to the success of the ID3. That newcomer accounted for 56,500 of the total of 134,000 electric Volkswagens sold, with which the brand saw its EV sales triple in 2020.

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