Mês: Abril 2024

The Belgian presidency outlines the future of European mobility in a Brussels Declaration

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The transport sector alone is responsible for a quarter of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. Europe’s objective, confirmed in the Climate Law and the Paris Agreements, is to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. That’s why it’s vital to redirect our mobility towards the most sustainable modes of transport.

in Belgium Presidency  / Council of the European Union, 04-04-2024

This objective was at the heart of this informal meeting of European Transport Ministers organised by the Federal Minister of Mobility, who brought together his 26 European colleagues as part of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union. At the end of the meeting devoted to active mobility, rail connections and the resilience of our transport infrastructures, the Belgian presidency presented a Brussels Declaration, setting out clear and ambitious guidelines for the next European legislature.

The Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility: “A 90% reduction in transport emissions is needed by 2050. However, transport is the only sector of the economy whose emissions have continued to rise over the last 30 years, despite all the efforts made in recent decades to improve vehicle and fuel performance, right up to today’s electrification. While technology can and must play a role in decarbonising mobility, it will not be enough on its own to enable us to achieve our climate objectives. The EU must encourage and support the greenest modes of travel, as they are the essential pillars for reducing transport’s carbon footprint. For short journeys, we need to develop active mobility – cycling in particular – and for longer journeys or goods transport, we need to make the railway the backbone of mobility in Europe.”

The informal meeting of Transport Ministers on 3 and 4 April, bringing together all European transport ministers, which was preceded by a high-level meeting on rail on 2 April, resulted in the Brussels Declaration on the mobility of tomorrow.

This Declaration calls on the European Union to take the following steps during the next legislature:

Make rail transport the backbone of European mobility

1. Make the modal shift towards rail transport a central objective of European mobility policy. Set binding targets for the modal share of rail along trans-European transport corridors, and report on the achievement of these targets.

2. Propose an EU-wide master plan to increase the supply of rail services for freight and passengers. The Commission must ensure that future EU policies all contribute to increasing supply and to the modal shift towards rail transport.

3. To ensure, through a new legislative proposal, that a passenger can easily compare, book and pay for their door-to-door train journey in a trans-European perspective, while being assured of the continuity of their journey, regardless of whether one or several rail companies are involved.

4. Develop a dedicated strategy for night train passenger services, including reduced fares, to offer a viable alternative to short- and medium-haul flights in Europe.

5. Make the development of rail freight a priority for the EU’s internal market, with a trajectory of increasing transport volumes by 2030 and 2050, to double the volume of goods transported by rail.

6. Prepare the necessary regulatory changes, and make every effort to adopt them, in order to improve the competitiveness of rail transport and ensure a level playing field with other modes of transport, particularly with regard to energy and fuel taxation and rules on State aid.

7. Apply the ‘polluter-pays’ principle to mobility to ensure fair competition: the price of each mode of transport must reflect the external costs incurred, such as pollution, CO2 emissions or congestion.

8. Analyse the needs of intermodal terminals throughout the European Union and help member states ensure these are adequately met.

9. Increase the amount of European funding on offer for rail transport, using all available financing instruments.

10. Protect the EU’s rail industry ecosystem from unfair competition from third-country manufacturers, whether tax-related, social or environmental.

Unlock the full potential of active mobility and cycling at European and national level

11. Every citizen is a pedestrian. Cycling and pedestrian mobility must be treated as modes of transport in their own right by the EU.

12. The signing of the European Declaration on Cycling by the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament is a decisive step in this direction, making cycling a policy in its own right at European level.

13. We want to make sure that this declaration is translated into a real political strategy at EU level, supporting the policies developed at national level by the member states.

14. The EU and its member states need to significantly increase their cycling infrastructure to enable citizens to get around safely and efficiently to their places of work and study or for leisure purposes.

15. Funding for cycling infrastructure should be covered by existing EU funding programmes.

16. The EU needs to develop and protect its industrial sector for the production, maintenance and repair of bicycles from unfair competition from third-country manufacturers. For instance, a ‘Made in Europe’ label should swiftly be developed.

17. In order to improve sustainability, quality of life and road safety in urban areas, the EU will contribute to developing cycle logistics that can ensure the last mile and, as a result, help to create jobs that cannot be relocated.

18. To support cycling policy in Europe, a specific unit within the Commission should be dedicated to this area.

19. Member states should encourage the sharing of knowledge, best practices and data, and forward their national active mobility strategies and plans to the Commission. Data in this area must be collected annually in the same way across the EU.

20. Citizens need to play an active role in the shift towards active mobility. To raise awareness and get them involved, let’s dedicate the next legislature to a European Year of Cycling!

With this Declaration, the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU highlights the need for decisive action during the next EU legislature and invites the Commission to present concrete measures, including legislative proposals, to implement the recommendations made in this Declaration.

 

 

 

 

Tavares: EVs not a one-size-fits-all mobility fix

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Stellantis’ CEO says EV battery weight needs to be cut in half over the next decade with new chemistries that don’t require such a huge amount of raw materials

in Automotive News Europe, Vince Bond Jr., 03-04-2024

Not everyone is convinced that electric vehicles are the mobility fix of the future. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is among those who have doubts that zero-emissions models will work for everyone in every part of the world.

“We should move away from a dogmatic thinking where one size fits all,” Tavares said Wednesday at the automaker’s Freedom of Mobility Forum. “I don’t think this is going to work. What I would like to add is that the current EVs can be a solution for some of our societies.”

Tavares said EV batteries will need a “very significant breakthrough in terms of chemistry” to cut their weight in half over the next decade. He said that the 1,000 pounds (about 500 kg) of raw materials currently needed to create a battery pack “doesn’t look like a very reasonable outcome” from an environmental perspective.

“The industry, based on new chemistries, needs to achieve in the next decade a breakthrough in terms of power density of the cells, so that we reduce by at least 50 percent the weight and the raw material usage of EVs,” Tavares said. “I think that that’s on the way.”

It doesn’t make sense, he said, to put 1,000 additional pounds of raw materials in an EV to achieve a “decent” range of 250 miles (400 km). “That is going to be broken over the next decade by a new chemistry,” he said, “which, by the way, hopefully, will solve the problem of the scarcity of lithium.”

Lithium is a key element in most of today’s batteries.

Electricity access

A critical roadblock to EVs in less developed nations is access to electricity in the first place.

Roberto Schaeffer, professor of energy economics at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, said around 800 million people don’t have access to electricity, while “many more” don’t have a stable power grid to rely on.

Schaeffer, who studies how society can reach net-zero emissions, said viewing EVs as a widespread option is a “global north perspective,” which refers to regions such as Europe and North America. Overall, biofuels would work better than EVs, he said.

“Electric mobility is not the solution, at least in the next 20 or 30 years, when we really need to go to net zero,” Schaeffer said at the forum, which was initiated by Stellantis and facilitated by a neutral third party. “We have to think about energy poverty. Transportation poverty is a real thing in the global south. We have to have in mind that there is no one size fits all when it comes to mobility.”

Tavares also said he doesn’t see hydrogen as a viable alternative technology for current mass mobility because of its “sky high” cost, even assuming that energy used to produce hydrogen is clean.

“I’m afraid that, for the time being, affordability is going to be a major showstopper for hydrogen,” he said. “For the near future, it’s [possibly] going to be a solution for fleets of big corporations, but certainly not for normal citizens.”

Car sharing

Forum participants also discussed car sharing, public transportation and even nonmotorized mobility options to serve the planet’s 8 billion people.

Stellantis has gotten into car sharing with Free2Move, which offers short-term rentals and vehicle subscriptions in Europe and U.S. cities such as Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Portland, Ore.; and Denver. It also bought Share Now, a European joint venture of Daimler and BMW, in 2022.

Tavares said free parking availability and reasonable insurance costs are important factors in making car sharing work widely. “At the end of the day, it will be absolutely possible, very, very quickly, to have a very sustainable, very cost-competitive car-sharing zero-emission service in the urban areas,” he said.

Resistance

A transition to a world of clean mobility will require buy-in from citizens, but new data shows many aren’t yet ready to adjust their transportation habits.

According to a YouGov survey conducted in Brazil, France, India, Morocco and the U.S., one in four people say they have not changed their transportation choices to limit their environmental impact and do not plan to do so.

This is especially true in the U.S., where almost 40 percent of those asked said they have no plan to change their transportation habits — especially people who are older or live in rural areas.

“Gen Z and millennials are by far those who are most prepared to make changes in their transportation choices to limit their impact on the environment,” said Alexandre Devineau, YouGov’s general manager of France. “Additionally, they are the demographic most likely to agree to stop using means of transportation where they are the only passenger.”

 

 

Reuters contributed to this report.

 

 

Câmara de Viana do Castelo isenta Borgwarner de taxas de licenciamento

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O aumento do investimento para 90 milhões e dos postos de trabalho “são fatores determinantes” para a isenção do pagamento destas taxas, que foi aprovada por unanimidade.

in ECO / Lusa, 02-04-2024

A Câmara de Viana do Castelo decidiu esta terça-feira isentar a Borgwarner do pagamento de taxas de licenciamento do complexo industrial que detém no parque de Lanheses, que representa 90 milhões de euros e 500 postos de trabalho.

“Há um reforço do investimento. Inicialmente estava previsto um investimento de 25 milhões de euros e a criação até 300 postos de trabalho. Neste momento, são quase 500 postos de trabalho. Há um investimento já garantido de 90 milhões e a perspetiva de chegar aos 120 milhões”, explicou o presidente da autarquia, Luís Nobre.

Na apresentação da proposta ao executivo municipal, reunido em sessão ordinária, o autarca socialista afirmou que o aumento do investimento e dos postos de trabalho “são fatores determinantes” para a isenção aprovada por unanimidade. Luís Nobre referiu que a isenção das taxas de licenciamento, prevista no regime municipal de incentivos, “passou pelo apoio administrativo ao licenciamento e pela garantia de um conjunto de infraestruturas de água, saneamento, eletricidade, fibra ótica e estacionamento do parque empresarial e Lanheses”.

Luís Nobre realçou a “atividade muito inovadora” da multinacional americana na produção de motores elétricos para o setor automóvel, que consolida aquele cluster em Viana do Castelo, e aponta “um futuro” para aquela indústria. “Dá-nos segurança de consolidação do setor automóvel que é relevante para o concelho. A Borgwarner acaba por se transformar, conjugando os dois investimentos que tem no parque empresarial e Lanheses, um dos principais investidores do concelho”, destacou.

Já em 2021, o executivo municipal isentou, por unanimidade, a multinacional americana do pagamento do Imposto Municipal Sobre Transações Onerosas de Imóveis (IMT) pela aquisição, à empresa Enerconpor-Energias Renováveis de Portugal, de uma parcela de terreno, com 78 mil metros quadrados, no parque empresarial de Lanheses, pelo valor de 4,3 milhões de euros, para a construção de uma segunda fábrica de 25 milhões de euros, e a criação de mais 300 novos empregos.

A isenção do IMT requerida pela Borgwarner, que se instalou no concelho em 2014, pela transmissão do direito de propriedade do terreno traduziu-se num apoio ao investimento no valor de 279.500 euros.

 

 

Hub tecnológico da Volkswagen expande-se para o Porto e está a contratar

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Centro tecnológico da Volkswagen em Portugal tem a partir de agora mais um escritório. Objetivo inicial era ter 450 profissionais em Portugal, mas já estão empregados quase 600. Recrutamento continua.

in ECO, por Isabel Patrício, 02-04-2024

Depois de ter instalado três escritórios em Lisboa, a Volkswagen Digital Solutions chega agora ao Porto. Esta quarta localização acolherá, para já, 20 profissionais recolocados, mas a equipa deverá crescer em breve. Já há um processo de recrutamento em curso, ainda que para já não esteja fechado o número de vagas disponíveis.

“O hub tecnológico do grupo alemão, que é composto por três tech units em Lisboa, anuncia a sua expansão para o Porto e a abertura do primeiro escritório fora da capital“, informa uma nota a que o ECO teve acesso em primeira mão.

Importa explicar que a Volkswagen Digital Solutions é um centro tecnológico em Portugal que desenvolve soluções inovadoras para o grupo automóvel Volkswagen.

Até aqui havia escritórios apenas em Lisboa, mas a partir de agora passa a haver uma quarta localização, no espaço de cowork DeHouse, na Trindade.

São 120 metros quadrados, que vão serão divididos, no máximo, em 30 estações de trabalho. Mas, para já, a equipa nortenha da Volkswagen Digital Solutions conta somente com 20 profissionais recolocados, que funcionarão também como “embaixadores da marca e da cultura da empresa”.

Em causa estão “colaboradores que já trabalhavam em regime híbrido do Norte do país“, e que “puderam escolher passar para a nova localização e dar o pontapé inicial na cidade do Porto”, explica Albertina Soares, Porto project manager da Volkswagen Digital Solutions.

Já numa segunda fase, serão integrados novos elementos. Ao que o ECO conseguiu apurar, o recrutamento já está em curso, mas o número de lugares à disposição ainda não esteja fechado.

Esse número ainda está em negociação, mas convém recordar que, numa entrevista recente ao ECO, a diretora de recursos humanos projetava que o objetivo seria ultrapassar a marcar dos 700 profissionais totais em Portugal este ano, sendo que hoje a Volkswagen Digital Solutions conta com quase 600 trabalhadores.

Além disso, a escolha pelo Porto para a segunda localização no país prendeu-se precisamente “com o facto da tecnológica reconhecer o talento qualificado no Norte, sobretudo no Porto e nas áreas circundantes”, destaca o hub.

“Os objetivos anteriores visavam 500 pessoas aqui em Portugal. Entretanto, acordámos que vamos alargar o número de pessoas e até estamos a discutir com as marcas do Grupo Volkswagen sobre a hipótese de termos mais, o que mostra o verdadeiro emergir do grupo para a transformação digital”, salienta Jürgen Reimann, CEO da Volkswagen Digital Solutions.

Ainda que o novo escritório seja no Porto, a Volkswagen Digital Solutions assegura que “todos os seus trabalhadores podem escolher onde trabalhar, tendo agora o Porto e três localizações em Lisboa como opções de local de trabalho, para além da possibilidade do remoto“.