The Automobile Industry in Europe - An Industry with Strength & Breadth

A Report by European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA)

In continuation of the article published in the October issue, which primarily dwelt on industry's endeavours in reducing CO₂ Emissions, improving air quality and on clean vehicle production processes & recycling, this part of the article touches on the progress made by the European Automobile Industry on sustainable mobility, road safety and European Transport Policy.

MOBILITY

Cars and commercial vehicles fuel the economy and support modern lifestyles. They provide unprecedented personal mobility and deliver the goods and services we take for granted in our homes, offices and schools. Driving economic prosperity through a framework of cleaner, safer transport is possible. However, partnership is key; all stakeholders must be prepared to embrace the challenge and work together to find cost-effective solutions.

SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY

The auto sector is committed to a model of sustainable mobility. Investments in cleaner, safer vehicles and production processes have already delivered progress. But in the years ahead, a more collaborative approach will be necessary to build on the industry's lead.

Thanks to initiatives like CARS 21, more stakeholders are aware that sustainable mobility is not just a question of regulating the automotive industry. It's a model in which multiple players have a role, and all must work together to bring solutions that deliver maximum benefits to society, but protect European jobs by imposing minimum costs on industry.

A cleaner environment, better safety and improved social responsibility are possible in this vision for the future. However, like a jigsaw, a complete picture cannot emerge unless all the pieces are present & joined together properly.

An interdependent model

The motor industry has a key role to play in the sustainable mobility model. It invests €20 billion in R&D each year to deliver technology, production processes and the responsible working practices that society demands.

However, sustainable mobility cannot be about assigning responsibility to one party alone. Multiple players are involved in this vision for the future.

What are the Challenges   ▪  Sustainable mobility is about moving people and goods across Europe in the most efficient way, cutting emissions and saving fuel. That means access to the most appropriate transport mode or modes and investing in the technology, infrastructure and management systems that encourage free movement.   ▪  It means improving road safety by building on investment in vehicle technology, focusing on better road design, improved driver education and strong enforcement by the authorities.   ▪  Sustainable mobility is about ensuring consumers have real choices, but also encouraging them to buy the most suitable vehicle for their needs and educating them in eco-driving techniques to cut unnecessary pollution and save money.   ▪  In the manufacture of vehicles, it means finding more sustainable materials in vehicle manufacturing, improving logistics in the supply chain to cut unnecessary waste, and designing more parts to be recycled at the end of their lives rather than being sent to landfill.   ▪  Crucially, during these times of economic recession, sustainable mobility means designing a regulatory framework that allows Europe's vibrant auto industry to go on innovating and delivering the technologies and low-emission vehicles for a sustainable future.

 
Government has a key role to play. Tax breaks will help consumers choose the cleanest new vehicles, helping fleet renewal. CO₂-based taxes will encourage responsible use.

Outside the auto sector, governments must work with the energy industry to bring the cleanest fuels to market. That includes sustainable biofuels, LPG and CNG, and new technologies like GTL (gas to liquids).

Crucially, it also means ensuring quality standards are not compromised.

Freely flowing traffic is one of the most important measures to cut unnecessary road transport emissions. Investment in infrastructure is therefore paramount. Well-designed roads and traffic management systems help cut accidents and lower CO₂ and other harmful pollutants.

Finally, the individual has an important role to play, both private motorists and commercial vehicle drivers. Their responsibility is everyone's responsibility.

A joined-up approach, in which the role of others is neither ignored nor underplayed and in which the motor industry recognizes its key role, can deliver a model of sustainable mobility for the future. The European auto industry is committed to this goal.

ROAD SAFETY

Reducing fatalities and injuries on Europe's roads is part of any sustainable mobility model. Thanks to investment by automakers and other stakeholders, significant progress has been achieved. In the last 30 years, vehicle technology has helped halve the number of deaths, despite a three-fold increase in traffic volumes on European roads. A commitment to road safety remains central to all vehicle makers' development plans. However, safety is a shared societal responsibility underlined by the fact that 95% of all accidents are caused by driver error, such as poor anticipation, inappropriate reaction to a hazard and violation of road traffic laws. Combining further improvements in vehicle technology with complementary ITS measures, improved driver training, better road design and enforcement of existing traffic regulations promise the greatest benefits to society.

In Brief   ▪  In the last 30 years, Europe's roads have become far safer despite a three-fold increase in traffic.   ▪  Vehicle occupant and pedestrian protection is already of an extremely high standard. Crash mitigation technologies are at a mature level and accident avoidance/mitigation systems can make a further contribution to the reduction of severe accidents on European roads.   ▪  Manufacturers are currently investigating technologies that allow vehicles to communicate with each other and their surrounding infrastructure. Intelligent information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) will be key to the realisation of what is sometimes called full traveller connectivity.   ▪  Industry will work to ensure that applications and services are delivered on complementary platforms, a goal that will require close cooperation between the automobile industry, governments and other stakeholders.   ▪  This type of integrated approach, in which all stakeholders play their part, should be reflected in wider policy on road safety. As the High Level CARS 21 group reported, technology, driver education, road traffic law enforcement and improved infrastructure are equally important areas for focus.

 
The industry will continue to call for an integrated approach to road safety in its consultation on the Commission's Fourths Road Safety Action Plan. This will set a ten-year policy framework, commencing 2010. A mutual concern for the industry and the Commission is a trend towards rising fatalities in new member states. Measures to drive fleet renewal, like scrap schemes, are to be encouraged since the average age of cars in some countries can be up to 14 years. Replacing less safe older cars from the fleet will help. So too will improvements in infrastructure, enforcement and driver education.

Automakers' journey

Passive safety systems have played a major role in casualty reduction. Technologies and design measures that limit the effect of a crash may be taken for granted today, but without improvements, like pre-tensioned seatbelts, airbags and curtains, and energy absorbing crumple zones, the death toll on roads would be far greater. Most vehicles now gain a maximum 5-star rating on Euro NCAP crash tests and passive safety is reaching a level of maturity. More recently, attention has turned from occupants to vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists, with improvements in front-end design such as softer bonnets or collapsible mirrors. Research and development in active safety has also increased. Technologies designed to prevent an accident-taking place, rather than mitigating its effect, like ASS, ESC and seatbelt reminders, are widely fitted as standard to today's cars and commercial vehicles.

 
Systems referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistant Systems) are also increasingly common. These use sensors, radar and video imaging to monitor the surroundings of the vehicle; blind spot monitoring, ACC (active cruise control) and lane departure warnings are examples in-use today.

The Road Ahead - ICT and ITS

In the years ahead, further technological breakthrough will come through interaction between driver, vehicle and the environment. Successfully implementing these Intelligent Communication Technologies (ICT) will playa major role in driving casualties down further, and the automobile industry is working to make this happen.

However, a collaborative approach is necessary to support an interface with in-vehicle safety systems to exchange information and reinforce operational strategies. ACEA will actively contribute to the Commission's ITS Action Plan and will work to address issues such as the need for a user-friendly human-machine interface (HMI), as well as matters relating to privacy and driver liability. Innovation, creativity and competition will deliver progress in ICT and ITS. Manufacturers support standardization where it makes sense and where products and service are mature enough to generate a larger market. However, regulations must be considered on a case-by-case basis and subject to rigorous impact assessments.

 
Education and Enforcement

Since the 1960s, commercial vehicle makers have offered courses that encourage eco friendly, safe driving. Today, manufacturers deliver a wide range of training programmes promoting best practice such as anticipatory driving style and the importance of vehicle maintenance. Commercial vehicle operators are also required to undergo professional competence assessments every five years. For many car owners however, learning to drive may be their only training in a lifetime of motoring. Inappropriate speed, alcohol and drug misuse, driving while tired and not wearing seatbelts might be some of the dangerous habits motorists adopt with insufficient targeting on education, training and enforcement. ACEA welcomes the fact that more employers are embracing their responsibilities to encourage on-going driver training.

Consumer Campaigns

The industry is an active participant in the "Choose ESC" campaign, which creates awareness and understanding of the benefits of specifying the skid-prevention technology. More than 50% of new cars now come fitted with ESC, as standard, and that number will continue to rise at steady pace. Affordability is particularly important for consumers facing economic pressures at home, and additional electronic safety equipment often competes with comfort features for limited budgets. It is important that buyers consider all the features of a car that best protect their families. The industry has therefore welcomed steps by the European safety consortium Euro NCAP to include ESC fitment in safety ratings for new cars, the first active safety system to be measured by the group.

PROFILE OF EUROPEAN ROAD TRANSPORT SECTOR   ▪  580,000 haulage companies   ▪  95% with fewer than 10 employees   ▪  Cabotage - 1 .2% of total national road transport   ▪  280,000 passenger transport companies   ▪  500 billion passenger-km by bus and coach annually

 
Road Infrastructure

ACEA is a strong supporter of the Euro RAP road assessment programme. As part of an integrated approach to accident reduction, improvements in design, construction and maintenance of roads are key.

Issues like bottlenecks, blind corners, inappropriate speed limits and poor lighting, all affect safety. Unfortunately, in previous road safety strategy, the European Commission has tended to overlook essential infrastructure measures such as audits, impact assessments and safety mappings.

Manufacturers also point to the wealth of information available at local level, which urgently needs to be shared with digital map providers to fast improve the road safety database. On and off-board navigation systems, for example, could then include more reliable geo-referenced road speed data for drivers.

EUROPEAN TRANSPORT POLICY

Roads continue to deliver - policy objectives must credit economic growth, social welfare as well as environmental protection.

The automobile industry is giving active input to the new revision of Europe's Transport Policy, expected to be defined in the next Commission's term. Manufacturers welcome that the Commission has timely started the preparation of this review, ahead of the expiring of the ten-year scope of the 2001 White Paper.

One of the fundamental tenets of the 2001 Transport White Paper was the concept of modal shift, the idea that modes other than road transport should be encouraged for the sake of the environment. It also promoted de-coupling road transport from economic growth. Both concepts turned out to be insufficient as a basis for a workable transport policy.

Improving efficiency

The Commission's mid-term review, presented in 2006, served the development of a better basis for Europe's Transport Policy. In particular, it acknowledged that transport must be considered within an overarching framework of sustainable economic growth, and that all transport modes must improve efficiency as well as working together. It presented co-modality, a more positive basis for future policy than modal shift, and revised the concept of de-coupling transport from economic growth. This represented a step in the right direction, acknowledging the importance of road transport to Europe's economic prosperity. ACEA is now closely monitoring the implementation of more specific policy measures, in particular the Commission's Greening Transport Package adopted in July 2008. ACEA encourages underpinning future policy objectives on sound assessments of their possible impact, and to base scenarios and assumptions on scientific data. The auto industry also urges the early consultation with all relevant stakeholders involved and to make use of their expert knowledge.

The Road Ahead

In its 2006 revision and in the upcoming review of the White Paper, the Commission has clearly opened the way for a more realistic approach to transport policy. However, the EU must now decisively move towards a transport policy based on efficiency rather than modes.

The industry remains concerned by the often implicit but persistent preconceptions about road transport, which can lead to unrealistic and ineffective policy objectives and measures. One example is the widespread belief that some modes are by default better from an environmental point of view than others.

The reality is different, as this depends to a great extent on the utilization of a mode's maximum capacity. This, in turn, depends on the volume and the weight of transported goods, the need for loading and unloading, the density of its network, the source of energy, the energy need from a loaded vehicle compared with when unloaded and specific needs of the commodity to be transported.

Modes and means of transport complement each other

Another common perception is that all modes of transport compete with each other. Fact is that some modes are in competition for transport of certain commodities but that, in general, modes serve the economy in a complementary way.

One way of identifying which modes compete is to look at the value of the goods that are transported by the different modes. Existing analyses of transport within the EU demonstrate that the value of the goods is an important criterion for the selection of the mode to be used by the customer.

Need for investments

In addition, the decline in investment in infrastructure, which has fallen from 1.5% of GDP in the 1980s to less than 1 % today, must be reversed. The auto sector generates more than €378 billion in tax revenues each year. Europe should be funding key transport projects that will not only modernize Europe's infrastructure, but will also help reduce negative environmental impacts and will create millions of jobs by improving existing and developing smarter new infrastructure, especially roads.

Europe should not be lagging behind other leading economies: it needs more Community funding for key transport projects.

Charging

Part of the Greening Transport Package included a communication on the Strategy for Internalization of External Costs. This introduced the concept of charging as an effective means of regulating traffic flow and influencing modal spread. Automakers have questioned evidence that road pricing would improve European competitiveness and automakers believe the methodology used to calculate costs that would apply to users is highly insufficient. The proposal continues to place a disproportionate burden on road transport and does not include a cost-benefit analysis comparing internalization of external costs with other strategies. The auto sector believes that, if charging is to be considered as part of long-term Transport Policy, it must be applied to all transport modes. Double charging must be avoided. Fairness and transparency are basic principles to be respected. Charging systems must also be simple and revenue neutral with funds hypothecated to reduce the external cost for which the charge has been applied. Cross subsidization, where revenues from road transport are used to support other transport modes, is unacceptable.

Logistics

The development of transport logistics is broadly a matter for industry, which strives to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Commercial, technical, operational and institutional problems must be addressed within the context of different markets. However, ACEA members argue that some steps can be taken by the Commission to promote better logistics and cut unnecessary emissions, including thorough impact assessments of the potential for measures. Further promotion of the modular concept - which would involve increasing permitted goods' vehicle weights and dimensions - would have an immediate positive effect on transport efficiency, road safety and the environment. It would also move Europe closer toward inter-modal road-rail transport solutions.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)

ACEA members will actively contribute to the policy objectives behind the ITS Action Plan, which was approved by the Commission in Dec'08. It aims to accelerate and coordinate the deployment of ITS in road transport, including interfaces with other transport modes.

Intelligent Information & Communication Technologies form the basis for both intelligent infrastructure and intelligent vehicles, and have the potential to make road transport cleaner, smarter and safer. An integrated approach, that involves all stakeholders, is key since full connectivity will rely on networked systems and partnerships.

The ITS Action Plan highlighted a number of important applications including better travel and traffic information, optimization of commercial freight and better fleet management, road safety and security, Cooperative systems like vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure. ACEA members will playa major role in bringing such projects forward and participating in the ITS Advisory Group.

In each of these areas, the industry will pursue basic principles of competitiveness. Progress will depend upon political will and collective effort from all stakeholders.

Market penetration of new systems is low and questions, like investment in set-up costs and technological deployment across the vehicle fleet, will have to be addressed. Legal issues, data protection and public acceptance must also be considered.

The industry supports the European Statement of Principles (ESOP) for safe integration as a voluntary approach but does not see the need for a regulatory framework on a safe on-board Human-Machine-Interface (HMI). Market driven, technology-leading systems, like ESC and ACC, have already been introduced and deliver competitive advantage without the need for regulation.

Efforts to fast-track new regulation in the field of ITS are particularly unwelcome at this challenging time, raising the spectre of unnecessary costs for industry and price increases for consumers.

Urban Transport

Answers to urban transport questions are local not national responsibilities, due to the diversity of policy responsibility, administrative structures and financial responsibilities. The industry is not clear that policy focus at European level adds value, and the Commission must recognize the issue of subsidiary.

While currently awaiting a Commission Action Plan, ACEA members argue that traffic measures can be applied to local issues without resort to complicated and expensive access restriction measures and congestion charging. These can damage businesses and affect quality of life for residents. Vehicles are least efficient when stuck in a traffic jam or when stand unnecessarily at a red light, and the priority should be the optimization of traffic flows.