France / Sweden - “In five years, i.e. by 2025, we will no longer have available diesel trucks from 7.5 tonnes up to 26 tonnes,” stated Rémi Lemoine, responsible for alternative solutions at Volvo Trucks France, at Solutrans 2019 in Lyon last month. Clarifying this statement, he said this would apply to Volvo Trucks’ rigid trucks in Europe and that this was part of the strategy being adopted by Volvo Trucks Corporation for those countries within the European Union for the company to comply with the latest European Union legislation for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in commercial vehicles. Lemoine reminded the audience that in April this year the European Commission passed legislation requiring manufacturers to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions from their vehicles by 15% in 2025 and by 30% in 2030. The benchmark period for these reductions is July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 and is to be based on a simulation tool managed by the European Commission called VECTO, an abbreviation for Vehicle Energy Consumption calculation TOol. Truck data on emissions based on different duty-cycles is being measured from each OEM to make a reference value for the whole industry and each OEM is then to be measured on this value to calculate the 15% and 30% reductions required to be achieved by each company by 2025 and 2030 respectively.

Lemoine pointed out Paris had gone a step further by announcing from 2025 there will be no more diesel engines permitted to operate. All commercial vehicles from 2025 are to meet the French Critical Air Level 1 or E (.i.e. zero emissions) under the Critical Air (Crit’Air* Level) categories system, which means the only powertrain technologies allowed will be Crit’Air 1 such as petrol, natural gas and rechargeable gas hybrid) and Crit’Air E (or 0), which is full battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell. This is because Euro VI diesel is set at Crit’Air 2 and so from 2025 all diesel trucks and buses will be banned from Paris. Then in 2030 all thermal engines will be banned.