The bulk of production at the moment is headed to "Nth America", such is the growing popularity, according to the "Tech Tour" talk given in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. The arrival of the Quartermaster and its cab-chassis variant has caused a lot of interest on Australia such that there's some concern about being able to get production slots for sufficient stock next year... . The low numbers of registrations in the UK may be due to legal regulation of Ineos having to meet annual "overall fleet emission" targets, (hence the electric version), or restrict the sales of ICE versions to a given annual quota in lieu of legislated financial penalties....
I can confirm that. No or at least very few cars are manufactured for the European Market now.
Regarding the fleet emissions I asked Dirk Heilmann at the IAA in Munich in 2021 if that will become a problem as there are only two large engines offered. He stated that won't become a problem as they negotiate with the EU. However, that is a complicated issue for a manufacturer which has higher production numbers than a small volume manufacturer (what Ineos is not) and less than a "normal" manufacturer.
For the EU 2024 is the last year where the flet emission is calculated by the output by gramm per kilometer (95g/km applies for the average vehicle weight within the EU. This is calculated every year based on the numbers of the last year).
From 2025 to 2029 a manufacturer has to reach a 15% reduction of CO2 for its fleet based on the numbers reached in 2021. This starting value in 2021 is calculated this way:
95g CO2/km × WLTP Fleet Average of all manufacturers in 2020 / NEFZ Fleet Average of all manufacturers in 2020
So Manufacturers have to have 15% less CO2 that that calculated number.
You can find that regulation in the EU directive 2019/631.
Easy, eh! But to make it not too easy, the overall 15% savings are distributed over all manufacturers depending on the average vehicle weight of all modells of that manufacturer. The lighter the vehicle are, the better for the manufacturer (not the only reason I.M.H.O. to build light vehicles.....)
Ok, where is Ineos in this game? To define that we need to look into the EU directive 2018/858 (BTW: EU directives are the only EU regulations which apply immediately in all EU member countries. All other regulations have to be transferred into national law and the member country can decide on its own if it wanst to do that. That applies for example to the UN-ECE regulations for car homologation).
A small car manufacturer is defined as follows:
- M1: 1,500 units per year registered withn the EU
- N1: 1,500 units per year registered within the EU
while
- not more that 250 units are allowed per EU country for M1
- not more that 250 units are allowed per EU country for N1
If the numbers are higher, the manufacturer is not considered a small car manufacturer. Even if the manufacturer is member of whatever organizations there exist.
Also regarding EU directive 2019/631 only car manufacturers with a production number less than 1,000 units for M1 and N1 types can negotiate its emission savings with the EU. If you stay below 10,000 M1 units you can ask the EU for an exception. But that also doesn't apply to Ineos. However, for N1 the number of 22,000 unit apply. Maybe Ineos can use negotiate here.
As Ineos lies within the range of 10,000 to 300,000 units M1 they can ask that their reduction numbers are calculated different (to not apply calculations in appendix A 1-4 but other calculation modells). But huh, here it became to complicated for me. I read that a few times, but to get the numbers out which do apply, I need to read it some more times....sorry. However....there are exceptions for Ineos, I'm sure. The base for them will be cars in 2007 with a compareable weight. These will define the starting point for the CO2 reduction Ineos must realize.
AWo
