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CLECAT submitted today its answers to the public consultation on Greening Corporate Fleets. The Commission opened the consultation in February 2024 to explore possible initiatives to boost the uptake of zero-emission vehicles in corporate fleets.

In its accompanying position paper, CLECAT notes that there are still outstanding challenges that need to be solved to ensure a fast-paced decarbonisation of road transport, including the effective supply and availability of battery-electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles, the corresponding charging/refuelling infrastructure and the sector's limited financial capacity to undertake the transition towards zero emission vehicles. It its therefore essential to provide the right framework and incentives for operators, including innovative funding and financing mechanisms (grants, credit guarantees, collective purchase agreements, new leasing models…) to tackle the important issues of the much-higher purchasing costs of such vehicles and significant investment costs for the building of private charging points.

CLECAT considers however that the potential introduction of a mandatory share of ZEV in the procurement or in the fleets of road transport operators would not be the right tool to drive the decarbonisation of road freight transport. This measure may even lead to adverse effects: ZEV prices may not go down due to an artificially increased demand and operators may be tempted to reduce/delay the renewal of their fleets, leading to higher emissions and pollutants. The EU should therefore only consider measures that provide the correct and much needed enabling conditions to allow logistics operators to deploy zero-emission vehicles in their operations.

The public consultation closes on 8 July. It is still possible to submit a contribution via this link.