The EU enforces CO2 limits and will fine polluting carmakers

It's all set: The European Commission has decided to enforce CO₂ emission limits. From a current limit of 160 g/km, marques selling in the EU have to lower that figure to 130 g/km (not quite a low as the original 120 g/km target).

In order to do the math, marques will have to calculate the average emissions of the available vehicles on sale for a certain brand, not taking in account how much they sell. Therefore, the biggest effort should be made in making big vehicles more efficient, because most brands already have low-CO2 vehicles across their offerings.

So how are carmakers going to be fined? The amount will be calculated subtracting 130 from the actual average g/km value and then multiplying it by the number of cars that have sold that year. Then that amount will be multiplied by an amount of money, which depends on the year: 20 EUR for 2012, 35 EUR for 2013, 60 EUR for 2014 and 95 EUR for 2015.

However, carmakers need not to panic: The EU accepts that the averages can be calculated within a certain "team," and actually encourages them to create these teams. For instance, BMW will be able to take Mini into account, and Mercedes will be able to use Smart. Carmakers that sell less than 10,000 units and don't desire to belong to one of these "teams" will be able to ask the EU for individual targets. Special cars such as vehicles for disabled people won't be subject to these rules either.

[Source: El País]