Truck Makers Want Europe's CO2 Rules Relaxed. Their Biggest Customers Say No

On 1 October, the Climate Group's EV100 coalition, whose members include IKEA, EDF, Geopost and DFDS, sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asking her to keep the current truck emissions standards intact, according to CleanTechnica. The letter claims that stable rules will boost demand for electric trucks and free up more investment in charging infrastructure.

Under the rules now in force, truck makers must cut carbon dioxide emissions by 43 percent from 2019 levels by 2030, 64 percent by 2035 and 90 percent by 2040, the same CleanTechnica report says. Those targets are unreachable without a large increase in the number of electric medium and heavy duty trucks on European roads. The deadline has not passed quietly.

The same day, a broader group of European transport businesses published an open letter under the heading "Don't weaken CO2 standards for trucks", CleanTechnica reported on 1 October. The signatories warn that any weakening of the standards, or bringing forward the planned 2027 review, will undermine regulatory stability and create investment uncertainty. They also point out that the standards were already amended for the 2025-2030 period, a change the letter says could lead to 200,000 fewer electric trucks on Europe's roads over the next decade.

The letter to von der Leyen came from businesses "committed to the decarbonisation of heavy-duty vehicles", and it links the CO2 rules to the revision of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) and the Grids Package. The argument is that charging infrastructure and emissions rules have to move together for the transition to work.

Manufacturers and buyers pull in opposite directions

There is no dispute about the direction of travel, only about speed. Truck makers have pushed for relief, while their largest customers, the companies that actually buy and operate the vehicles, want the targets left alone.

Marion Labatut of EDF said in a statement carried by CleanTechnica that "maintaining ambitious and stable CO2 standards will give companies the confidence to continue investing at scale". Dominic Phinn, head of transportation at Climate Group, added that companies need "certainty, not a weakening of the rules that underpin investment decisions".

Businesses are not waiting for Brussels either. In the US, Ford CEO Jim Farley said at the Automotive News Congress in Detroit this week that Europe is "really something that they have to deal with now, and it's too late", according to Gizmodo. Farley's warning was aimed at Washington, which effectively bans Chinese EVs, but it rests on European data: one in every seven battery EVs sold in Western European markets in the first five months of 2026 belonged to a Chinese brand, per Schmidt Automotive Research.

The numbers from the European car market do not support a slowdown. Kia became the fastest-growing top 10 passenger car brand in Europe this year, with 377,078 registrations between January and August 2026, up 9 percent year on year, Electrek reported on 2 October, citing ACEA. Kia's EV registrations rose 58 percent over the same period, giving it 4.8 percent of the European EV market. The EU+EFTA+UK passenger car market grew 5.8 percent in the first eight months of 2026.

The charging side remains the weak link. According to a Transport & Environment briefing carried by CleanTechnica on 1 October, 375 gigawatts of clean energy projects and 455 gigawatts of battery storage projects are stuck in grid connection queues, and demand-side sites such as ports and airports face the same bottleneck.

There is a supply chain fight running in parallel. Transport & Environment published analysis on 30 September arguing that by 2030 sufficient Made-in-EU cells will be available for the Industrial Accelerator Act's scope, and that cathode demand for corporate vehicles can be met with announced capacity. CleanTechnica carried that analysis. T&E also found that a quarter of announced EU battery cell capacity since 2022 has been cancelled or shelved, and that non-European entities, mostly South Korean manufacturers, account for more than 72 percent of active battery cell manufacturing in Europe.

Where the two sides agree is that the review matters. The signatories of the 1 October letters say they remain open to engaging with the Commission. The Commission has not yet said which way it will go.