Although it has not yet been officially adopted, the shadow of the Euro-7 standard hangs over manufacturers. We will remind you that there is a Euro-7 standard Currently, European standards are being developed to regulate pollutant emissions from internal combustion vehicles. This standard is already considered one of the strictest in the world.

The Euro 7 standard will impose even stricter restrictions than the Euro 6 standard, and manufacturers will therefore have to introduce more advanced technologies to reduce the emissions of their vehicles so that they can continue to be sold.

Increases are too high

However, research and development around these technologies may harm certain segments, starting with city dwellers, models are sold at lower prices and with a smaller markup. To pass on the costs of developing these new, cleaner heat engines, the prices of city cars may rise sharply after the adoption of the Euro-7 standard. increases from 3,000 to 5,000 eurosdepending on the models.

At the same time, money invested in research and development of cleaner engines (which will be banned in Europe in ten years anyway) is not invested in electrification. Therefore, some manufacturers had to make a choice, starting with the pure and simple removal of heat city cars from its catalog. This is, for example, the case of Ford, which will not immediately update its Fiesta.

In Europe, a big cleaning is ahead

And Ford doesn’t have to be the only one. From Volkswagen’s side, the Audi A1 will have no immediate descendants, the Volkswagen Polo is set to be replaced by the upcoming ID.2, while the Skoda Fabia, despite being newly facelifted, may also disappear.

The head of the Czech company Klaus Zelmer told the British colleagues from Autocar about this. According to him, updating the Fabia to the Euro-7 standard will make the city car too expensive. “If the project is approved in its final form, it will be impossible to maintain the car at an affordable price”, he specified. And it’s exactly the same for the Polo.

Although the Euro 7 standard does not necessarily mean the end of thermal city cars, it should make their production more difficult and expensive. and thus contribute to the development of electric vehicles in this segment. And that’s what’s happening, thanks to the proliferation of announcements about future electric city cars.

For example, the Citroën C3 will go electronic at the end of the year, while the electric Renault 5 will arrive in 2024 and the Volkswagen ID.2 a few months later.