Business priorities for the regulation on clean corporate vehicles – a BusinessEurope position paper

Key messages

• The proposed Regulation on clean corporate vehicles1 must drive the green transition of road transport through incentives rather than mandates, while strengthening investment in Europe and ensuring a proportionate regulatory framework for companies.
• Any clean corporate fleet ambitions must be supported by significant, targeted investments in key enabling conditions, including grid reinforcement and connections, as well as charging and refuelling infrastructure, and be aligned with the existing regulatory framework.
• Before setting national targets to increase the uptake of zero- and low-emission vehicles in corporate fleets, infrastructure and market readiness must be comprehensively assessed, beyond physical availability alone. If targets are introduced, they should reflect the specific decarbonisation pathways of each Member State, rather than being primarily linked to GDP-based indicators.
• The Regulation should focus on large corporate fleets operated for core business purposes and exclude leasing and rental companies from its scope, in order to prevent unintended spillovers to micro-enterprises, SMEs and private users. The exclusion should also apply to fleets that mainly use corporate vehicles for specific use cases.
• Member States should be prohibited from setting binding targets at company level and be required to demonstrate the compatibility of national measures with Single Market principles and the freedoms granted by the Treaties. Moreover, rather than imposing mandates, Member States should implement non-financial and financial incentives, while maintaining the principle of technological neutrality.
• Any reporting obligations at Member State level should not result, directly or indirectly, in additional reporting requirements for companies.