Stellantis quer produzir híbrido a etanol em 2024
A montadora europeia Stellantis anunciou que pretende produzir seus primeiros híbridos movidos a etanol no Brasil no ano que vem, em meio à competição pelo mercado de veículos eletrificados no país.
A quarta maior fabricante de veículos do mundo em vendas — resultado da fusão entre Fiat Chrysler e Peugeot Citroën em 2021 — escolheu seu polo automotivo de Goiana, em Pernambuco, para fabricar o novo modelo que combina eletrificação com motorização flex e etanol.
A Stellantis encontrou ajuda em fornecedores locais, universidades e centros de pesquisa, como o parque tecnológico Porto Digital, para o desenvolvimento da parte eletrônica e tecnológica.
Da mesma fábrica sairão também os futuros modelos 100pc elétricos, segundo a companhia. A Stellantis também está considerando a produção de modelos eletrificados em suas outras fábricas do Brasil: Betim (MG) e Porto Real (RJ), mas a empresa não deu mais detalhes.
"Nossa prioridade é descarbonizar a mobilidade, e queremos fazer isto de modo acessível para o maior número de consumidores, desenvolvendo tecnologias e componentes no Brasil", disse Antonio Filosa, presidente da empresa para a América Latina, que em breve deixará o cargo para se tornar CEO mundial da Jeep.
Gigantes montadoras globais, incluindo Stellantis, Toyota e Volkswagen, estão tentando assumir a liderança em soluções de mobilidade que combinem etanol e eletricidade, consideradas pela maioria das empresas a opção mais econômica e acessível para descarbonização no Brasil.
No início de setembro, a montadora japonesa Toyota fez testes "promissores" usando etanol com a tecnologia híbrida plug-in. O modelo de veículo utilizado foi um Toyota RAV4 Plug-in.
Já a Volkswagen planeja lançar um total de 15 veículos elétricos e flex-fuel até 2025, com modelos híbridos chegando mais tarde.
Em defesa do etanol
A controvérsia na indústria automotiva sobre qual caminho o Brasil deveria seguir — híbridos ou total elétricos — está longe de terminar.
O presidente-executivo da Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, já defendeu a proeminência do veículo flex-fuel. "O veículo elétrico não tem sentido comparado a um carro que anda com 100pc de etanol – sem mencionar que é mais caro para a classe média", disse Tavares durante uma mesa redonda com jornalistas em fevereiro.
O CEO acredita que o combustível 100pc etanol deve ter um papel importante no Brasil sob a crença de que há uma diferença mínima entre os veículos flex e os elétricos, mas com uma economia significativa.
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Q&A: Corporate reporting and certification schemes
Q&A: Corporate reporting and certification schemes
London, 28 June (Argus) — Corporate reporting standards and obligations are becoming more granular and falling under greater scrutiny across the EU, after new rules came into force at the start of 2024. Argus spoke to net zero adviser Nils Holta at environmental solutions provider Ecohz to review changes to EU legislation and consider their impact on wholesale energy attribute certificates markets. Edited highlights follow: Let's start by decoding the acronyms and taking stock of changes to reporting standards this year. What do the principles of the CSRD and ESRS look like? How do these align with the EU Taxonomy? These are all thematically related pieces of legislation, that are not formally linked to each other. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Sustainable Investment Taxonomy are two of the angles of a sustainability transparency triangle completed by the Green Claims Directive (GCD). Through these policy mechanisms, the EU seeks to cover sustainability reporting, sustainability criteria for investments, and marketing information to consumers. Essentially, the EU is trying to add sustainability as a new dimension of the single market, alongside standardised comparisons on quality and price. The CSRD relates more to the finance side. Through the annex with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), it details how companies should report on their sustainability impact, their sustainability-related risks, and any financial opportunities that arrive as a result of sustainability matters. It has been developed as an addition to European financial disclosure requirements, and in Norway, for instance, it has been transposed through amendments to the "accounting law" (Regnskapsloven). For financial undertakings, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) plays much the same role, albeit at a higher level of granularity. On the consumer-facing side, companies will soon be required to adhere to the GCD when promoting their products' environmental profiles to final consumers in what the EU calls "explicit environmental claims". While not quite the same as sustainability reporting, it fits in a market dynamic where the EU expects economic actors to be more transparent about the environmental qualities of their products — like we are used to for price and quality. Finally, we have the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities, or just the Taxonomy. The Taxonomy is a list of economic activities with clear criteria on how they can be performed sustainably, and, in some cases, how they can be considered a transitional activity to more sustainable options. The Taxonomy also mandates that large undertakings and financial actors disclose the percentage of their Capex [capital expenditure], Opex [operating expenditure], and turnover that is invested in, finances, or derives from activities that are considered sustainable under the Taxonomy. Here is the link to the CSRD (ESRS), GCD and SFDR. If you are required to report on the percentage of your investments or turnover that is associated with sustainable activities, you need to know how all the companies you invest in are performing. And through the CSRD they are required to share this information in a transparent and streamlined manner. If, as a company, you want to make a claim about a product's environmental profile, you are now also required to possess and sort the information necessary to found that claim through the same directive. So here we have the triangle — the Taxonomy and SFDR push investors towards sustainable investments. The GCD provides consumers with a choice to consume sustainably, and the CSRD and ESRS ensure that companies have the information necessary for the other two to work. So the EU wants you to base Taxonomy reporting or environmental claims on the information published in your CSRD reporting? Not quite. I should stress at this point that EU law does not require companies to use the same methodologies for their CSRD reporting as for explicit environmental claims under the GCD or for showing criteria alignment with the Taxonomy. The simple reason is that communication to different audiences — shareholders, financial sector institutions, consumers — might require different approaches. It is, however, very simple to base claims under the Taxonomy or GCD on information gathered for CSRD reporting, and I have seen companies rely on CSRD reporting for claims of Taxonomy-alignment in their annual reports. How are things changing within the CSRD in terms of how industrial and corporate (I&C) companies will need to document energy — power and gas — consumption throughout their supply chains? What does it mean in terms of scope 2 and 3 emissions? This is a good place to clarify terminology. The CSRD is an EU directive that mandates sustainability reporting, sets out how member states are responsible for making sure companies report, and details which categories of companies need to report. All in all, we are taking about at least 50,000 EU-based companies and maybe another 10,000 non-EU companies with operations in the EU, as a rough assessment. The ESRS are the technical standards, outlining — over some 300 pages — how companies can assess what information they need to report and how this can be reported. The ESRS go into detail regarding how questions about energy consumption and climate transition plans or supply chains are asked and framed. Thank you for the clarification, and now back to the market-based vs location-based reporting? In general, the ESRS move towards market-based reporting. Emissions are to be reported by scope — 1, 2 and 3 — separately and using both market-based and location-based methodologies for Scope 2. They are also to be reported against total turnover, so investors can see the greenhouse gas intensity of their investments' turnover. At the same time, the ESRS clearly state that energy consumption must be reported using the market-based methodology in the case of Scope 2, and that it "can" be market-based in Scope 1, which for most companies would primarily relate to gas. The latter is highly technical and is tied to the EU emissions trading system monitoring and reporting requirements. Disclosing companies must report Scope 3 as it was reported to them. There is no option to not report on Scope 3 emissions outside of Europe, which means that these 60,000 or so companies will push their own reporting requirements through their entire value chain. It also means that oil and gas companies will finally need to include emissions from combustion of their own products in their sustainability reporting. Considering that changes to the CSRD will lead to greater focus on Scope 3 emissions, how is this likely to impact the energy attribute certificates (EAC) markets? Are you already seeing changing approaches to EAC procurement? How do biomethane and hydrogen fit into the picture, and is there a role for carbon offsets? What we are seeing is a greater corporate interest in understanding their own value chain and getting their suppliers to cover Scope 2 consumption with EACs. They can even use the divergence between location and market-based reporting to stress how much they actually achieve by sourcing renewable energy. The result is quite literally the difference between the two numbers. The ESRS do not open for carbon offsets as a way of reducing total emissions. Any offsets must be reported separately. Biomethane and hydrogen would both serve to decarbonise your gas combustion, so mainly Scope 1. However, the requirements for credible claims to consumption are tied to a bundled model, so we expect less focus on certificate trade and more focus on efficient value chains to deliver the product as a whole. There are a lot of open questions here tied to member state transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) III — and in some cases RED II — and to the coming Union Database for renewable fuels. How will the GCD impact consumer disclosure requirements and how does it tangentially relate to the Taxonomy? Do you expect this to also drive more granular purchases in EAC markets? When procuring EACs, will additional specifications such as eco labels become more prominent in the market? There is no specific link between the GCD and the Taxonomy, but Taxonomy-alignment would definitely be one of the things that can be communicated and substantiated in a way that is aligned with the GCD. Using an eco-label is a way to distinguish your product among several who all use renewable electricity. However, it is difficult to assess exactly how companies and consumers will react to this information in the long term. In the near future, we expect the GCD to lead to a reduction in environmental performance claims overall, at least until companies have a decent understanding of what and how they should communicate. The fine is up to 10pc of total turnover. There are often questions around how nuclear power is viewed in the EU Taxonomy — can you clarify that? And how do you see nuclear power — through scope 2/3 — playing a role in I&C companies documenting carbon neutrality through disclosure mechanisms? There has been a growing trend of energy suppliers offering carbon-neutral tariffs as opposed to renewable owing to the greater cost of documenting renewables through EACs, on top of already higher outright power and gas prices. Do you see I&C customers taking a similar route? Under the Taxonomy, nuclear is not considered renewable. It is, however, acknowledged as carbon-neutral, and we see several EU initiatives targeted at promoting "low-carbon" rather than renewable solutions. There is also an addendum to the Taxonomy, where nuclear and gas-fired power plants can be considered Taxonomy-aligned under certain circumstances. For gas, this relates to replacing coal and being time-limited in nature; while for nuclear, it is tied to a series of environmental and waste-treatment requirements. As long as the market recognises a qualitative difference between renewable and nuclear, EACs for each will be priced differently. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
China, EU launch talks ahead of EV provisional duties
China, EU launch talks ahead of EV provisional duties
Beijing, 28 June (Argus) — China and the EU have launched talks on the EU's anti-subsidy investigation on battery electric vehicle (EV) imports from China ahead of the planned start of provisional duties for early next month, according to China's ministry of commerce. The European Commission on 12 June announced provisional duties on Chinese battery EV manufacturers, setting an additional rate of 17.4pc for BYD, 20pc for Geely and 38.1pc for SAIC, as well as 21pc for other producers that co-operated in the investigation, from the current 10pc duty. "Minister Wang Wentao held video talks with the European Commission's executive vice-president and trade commissioner Dombrovskis on 22 June," said the ministry's spokesperson He Yadong. "The working teams of the two sides have maintained close communication and stepped up consultations." When asked for comments regarding industry discussions on whether the two sides are likely to set minimum import prices and volumes to replace the duties, similar to the approach taken in the EU-China photovoltaic dispute in 2013, He Yadong did not answer directly, saying "We hope that the EU will push for positive progress in the consultation as soon as possible and reach a solution acceptable to both sides so as to avoid the adverse impact of escalating trade frictions on China's and EU's economic and trade relations." The European Commission said on 12 June that if talks with the Chinese government do not lead to an "effective" solution, the provisional countervailing duties will start from 4 July and definitive duties would be published before November, it said. China's main economic planning agency the NDRC on 17 June said the EU's punitive duties on battery EV imports from China will increase the EU's dependence on fossil energy . But many industry participants remain hopeful that the duties can be negotiated down via the talks before the duties are imposed. The EU, China's largest trade partner since 2020, has introduced more protectionist moves against China in recent years, especially in the EV and battery raw materials sectors, including anti-subsidy duties on EVs and the Critical Raw Materials Act. China's exports of battery EVs to Europe fell by 15pc in January-May from a year earlier and by 22pc in May, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). Exports to main European destinations during January-May consisted of 115,318 units to Belgium and 67,956 units to UK. Chinese EV producers complained that the EU was requiring them to provide far more information than they needed for an anti-subsidy investigation. "Chinese EV and battery companies were required to provide information such as their battery components and chemical formulations, EV production costs, EV parts and raw material procurements, sales channels and pricing methods, customer information in Europe, and their supply chains," He Yadong said. China has taken up more than 60pc of the world's EV sales, driven by its decarbonisation targets and ambition of making up for its slower development of internal combustion engine vehicles. But it is facing more geopolitical restrictions from the US, EU and some other western countries. The US has raised its duty on China's EVs to 100pc from 25pc. Canada will also launch a consultation on 2 July for a potential punitive duty on China's EVs. Turkey has also imposed a 40pc duty on all Chinese vehicle imports. China exported 519,000 new energy vehicles during January-May, up by 14pc from a year earlier, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). But exports in May fell by 9pc from a year earlier and by 13pc from the previous month to 99,000. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
US House panel advances waterways’ projects bill
US House panel advances waterways’ projects bill
Houston, 27 June (Argus) — A Congressional committee on Wednesday advanced a bill to authorize a bundle of US port and river infrastructure projects for the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) biennially authorizes projects handled by the Corps' civil works program aimed at improving shipping operations at the nation's ports and harbors, and along the inland waterway system. The traditionally bipartisan legislation also approves flood and storm programs, and work on other aspects of water resources infrastructure. The House of Representatives' Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday passed the bill by a 61-2 vote. The Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works passed its own version of the bill on 22 May by a 19-0 vote. Neither the full Senate nor House have yet voted on the bills, which will need a conference committee to sort out different versions. A key difference is that the House bill did not include an adjustment to the cost-sharing structure for lock and dam construction and major rehabilitation projects. The Senate measure adjusted the funding mechanism so that 75pc of costs would be paid for by the US Treasury Department's general fund, with the rest coming from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. The 2022 version of the bill made permanent an increase to 65pc from the general fund and 35pc from the trust fund, which is funded by a barge diesel fuel tax. The House committee's decision not to include the funding change drew disappointment from shipping interests. The Waterways Council was "disappointed that the House did not include a provision to modernize the inland waterways system", but was hopeful that conference negotiations would result in its inclusion, Tracy Zea, chief executive of the group, said. The latest House version of the bill authorizes 12 projects and 160 new feasibility studies. Among the projects receiving approval were modifications to the Seagirt Loop Channel near the Baltimore Harbor in Maryland. The federal government would pay $47.9mn towards an estimate $63.9mn project to widen the channel, which would help meet future demand for capacity within the Port of Baltimore. That would include increased container volume at the Seagirt Marine Terminal. The project was in the works before the 26 March collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge temporarily diverted freight from Seagirt and many other port terminals. The committee also authorized $314.25mn towards a resiliency study of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The study would consider hurricane and storm damage and identify ways to improve navigation, reduce the maintenance requirements, and provide resiliency. The waterway connects ports along the Gulf of Mexico from St Marks, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. The House version of the bill also includes provisions to strengthen flood control, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure. "Critically, WRDA 2024 will help communities increase resiliency in the face of climate change," representative Rick Larsen (D-WA) said. By Abby Caplan and Meghan Yoyotte Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Mexico to tap economist for energy minister
Mexico to tap economist for energy minister
Mexico City, 27 June (Argus) — Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum appointed economist and lawyer Luz Elena Gonzalez to become energy minister in her government that will take office on 1 October. Gonzalez has a long record in public service and served as finance director of the Mexico City government during Sheinbaum's tenure as the capital's mayor from 2018-2024. She has no direct energy industry experience. Sheinbaum won a convincing victory in the 2 June presidential elections and will take office on 1 October when Morena political party founder and current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ends his six-year term. Gonzalez will face a range of challenges as energy minister including completion of the long-delayed Olmeca refinery, development of a plan to tackle state-owned Pemex's enormous debt, expansion of Mexico's electricity generation and grid capacity with a renewed focus on clean energy and the construction of natural gas storage. She will also be in charge of policy decisions that will define the role of private-sector investors in the energy sector. Gonzalez will replace Miguel Angel Maciel, appointed following energy minister Rocio Nahle's resignation in October 2023 to pursue the Veracruz gubernatorial election. Nahle, who took office as energy minister in 2018, led efforts to build the Olmeca refinery and has been a strident supporter of Lopez Obrador's energy sovereignty policy that has sought to restrict private-sector investment. Sheinbaum also appointed Jesus Esteva as transport minister, Raquel Buenrostro as civil service minister, David Kershenobich as health minister and Edna Elena Vega as urban and rural development minister. All of the candidates appointed today have either worked with Sheinbaum during her period as Mexico City mayor or in Lopez Obrador's government. By Rebecca Conan Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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