Title: Isolated car manufacturers? The political positions of the automotive industry on the real driving emissions regulation

Authors: Samuel Klebaner

Addresses: GREThA – UMR CNRS 5113, University of Bordeaux, Avenue Léon Duguit 33608 Pessac cedex, France

Abstract: The real driving emissions regulation will have several critical consequences for the European diesel market. The catalyst technologies needed to comply are costly, both for car manufacturers and for consumers, and are difficulty to implement in diesel small cars. However, the automotive firms are stakeholders in the political negotiations in the European Union. To tackle this apparent contradiction, we study the corporate stakeholders' positions on the real driving emissions regulation through the analysis of the hearings held at the European Parliament between 2016 and 2017. After describing the catalysts value chains and the European governance of the air pollutants standards, we highlight the differences between firms' representatives' positions through the lens of the dependence of actors to diesel market and embeddedness of the air pollutant regulations in the broader European policy. We conclude that stakeholders ask both for a tightening of standards and policies to support diesel or new energies engines markets. That leads to general considerations about the capture phenomenon in a theoretical meso-institutional framework.

Keywords: air pollution regulation; real driving emissions; automotive industry; car manufacturers; catalytic converters; diesel; emissions control technologies; Europe; value chain; political positions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2018.092185

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2018 Vol.18 No.2, pp.119 - 141

Received: 18 Aug 2017
Accepted: 18 Dec 2017
Published online: 08 Jun 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article