Traton, the commercial vehicle subsidiary of VolkswagenGroup, expects high financial burdens from the planned EU exhaust gas regulation Euro 7. “In the event that the law comes about as planned, we will be burdened with enormous costs of roughly one billion euros in the group for investing in a expiring technology, although we are facing a huge transformation,” said Traton board member and head of the MAN subsidiary, Alexander Vlaskamp, of the newspaper “Welt am Sonntag” according to the preliminary report.
In terms of climate policy, Euro 7 for trucks is “an absolutely nonsensical package,” Vlaskamp said. The proposed rules for cleaning are so strictly defined that de facto more fuel is required and the nitrogen oxides are only marginally reduced.
Emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter can be reduced more quickly if older trucks are taken off the road and more money is invested in the development of real zero-emission vehicles.
In the previously published article, Vlaskamp welcomes the government’s planned increase in truck tolls through a CO2 tax. However, he also calls for more investment in the development of the charging infrastructure instead of using part of the additional income for the expansion of the railway line.