The Directive on the Promotion of Clean and Energy Efficient Road Transport Vehicles (2009/33/EC) aims at a broad market introduction of environmentally-friendly vehicles. It requires that energy and environmental impacts linked to the operation of vehicles over their whole lifetime are taken into account in all purchases of road transport vehicles, as covered by the public procurement Directives and the public service Regulation. In order to help achieve this goal, the Clean Vehicle Portal has been established to provide information on legislation for clean and energy-efficient vehicles on EU level and in all Member States; it also provides access to technical data in the largest vehicle database in Europe and facilitates joint procurement.
Vice-President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport, said: "This directive and this website will give a boost to clean and energy-efficient technologies by showing the real cost of using vehicles. Not only should the initial purchase cost be considered, but also the vehicle's lifetime energy consumption and pollutant emissions. In line with our policy to price in all costs, it makes sense to go for the greener option. This website will be a great aid in identifying these greener and more efficient vehicles."
The aim of both the new directive and the portal is to stimulate the market for clean and energy-efficient vehicles and to prompt development and investment by the industry. Increased sales will help reduce costs through economies of scale and will result in progressive improvement in the energy and environmental performance of the whole available vehicle fleet.
The cost of energy consumption and environmental impact of vehicles are of major importance to professional and private users. This is why the new Clean Vehicle Portal covers everything from passenger cars, light- and heavy-duty vehicles to buses. It provides information on the different technologies and on energy consumption and emissions of the vehicles available on European markets. It gives an overview of existing procurement rules and incentive schemes for clean and energy-efficient vehicles in the different Member States, and offers support to joint public procurement.
The System and its features
The Clean Vehicle Portal offers access to a large and innovative database system of vehicle data, which can be used to perform vehicle searches and obtain comparable listings of vehicles. The vehicle database enables lifetime cost-calculations to be performed following the “Clean Vehicle Directive”, while interactive joint-procurement features will increase dynamic market development.
The website provide EU-wide information about existing procurement rules and incentive schemes for clean vehicles, EU-wide information about market-shares of clean vehicles, and updates on the “Clean Vehicle Directive”. The database also provides individual data-output and calculations for each country in the EU.
The development of the Clean Vehicle Portal was managed by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI).
For additional information:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________