Today’s CARS 21 Report, published by the European Commission at a conference in Brussels, demonstrates that the EU can remain at the forefront of safety and environmental developments whilst maintaining Europe’s automotive competitiveness. The report shows that the road map defined in 2005, is the right one to bring safer and greener vehicles to the European market. The FIA now calls upon the EU to follow up on the strategy and widen the scope of the introduction of new technologies.
The fast tracking of Electronic Stability Control, avoiding the delays that affected ABS’s introduction, is one of the notable successes of CARS 21 and following on from this, further efforts should be made to widen take up of other active safety systems, such as Brake Assist and Lane Departure Warning, notably through the use of fiscal incentives as well as regulatory means.
The success must be further extended to include the development of safer infrastructure, correcting failings identified by programmes such as iRAP (www.irap.net), to allow for the ‘safe systems’ approach through the parallel improvement of safety in vehicles, roads, and driver education.
CARS 21 has also encouraged global convergence of vehicle safety and emission standards through greater use of the United Nations world forum for motor vehicle standards harmonisation in Geneva. This approach must be further utilised to help provide economies of scale that can significantly reduce the costs of advanced safety and environmental technologies, and to deal effectively with what are in essence global problems.
FIA President, Max Mosley said:
“CARS 21 has succeeded in bringing significant safety and environmental initiatives to fruition, regulation on life saving technology such as Electronic Stability Control must be applauded. The EU must continue this path whilst also harnessing the potential of consumer driven programmes. As we saw with EuroNCAP (www.euroncap.com), consumer pressure can be very effective in producing rapid and positive change beyond minimum regulatory requirements.”
“This ‘market for safety’ approach, is also relevant to a ‘market for green’ automotive technology approach where global regulatory change has been slow, but the potential for change driven by consumer demand, coupled with fiscal incentives, is high.“
The FIA is playing its part through its consumer targeted campaigning such as the ChooseESC! (www.chooseesc.eu) and Make Cars Green (www.makecarsgreen.com) initiatives. As the regulator of world motor sport the FIA is in the unique position of bringing such campaign messages to a huge global audience. Regulations for international motor sport have been aligned to encourage the development of new environmentally relevant technologies with World Championships such as Formula One taking a lead as catalysts for change.
Editors Note:
The objective of the EU Commission’s high level automotive policy group ‘CARS 21’ was to generate recommendations to improve the worldwide competitiveness of the European automotive industry. The group focused on developing an integrated strategy for the sustainable development of the industry. The CARS 21 Mid Term Review brought together 22 of the most influential stakeholders in Europe’s automotive sector. The group led by European Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen, in addition to Commissioners, MEPS and Government Ministers, includes the FIA President, Max Mosley, alongside other major stakeholders such as Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Daimler AG Board; Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat S.p.A.; Christain Steiff, President of PSA Peugeot and Citroen.
Earlier this year the European Parliament Report on CARS 21 recognised that the FIA was playing a leading role at forefront of innovative environmental technology and further recognised the important role of motor sport in changing attitudes and customer behaviour towards environmentally friendly technology.
The ‘CARS 21’ Mid Term Report is available here
More information on EuroNCAP is available here
More information on Make Cars Green is available here
More information on iRAP is available here
More information on Choose ESC! is available here