Scania organised the fifth edition of its Transport Conference this week, a communications exercise directed at the European political world and with CO2 as its theme this year. Going beyond certain themes we already knew about (the enthusiasm of Scania for immediately available  bio-fules and for eco-combi’s) some interesting messages were communicated :

Fuels

- Scania is in favour of a limit on system for limiting CO2 emissions for heavy trucks, in the same way as that which is currently being established for LUV’s
- where Euro 6 is concerned, Scania confirms that the further limit of NOx and particulate emissions will involve higher fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, but will ‘work hard to respond to the new norms with a fuel consumption level more or les equal to  Euro 5’ ('sustained fuel consumption' in the text)
- Scania is encouraging member states not to levy additional taxes on bio-fuels (transport company Rotra, which had successfully tested an ethanol vehicle, abandoned the idea because the Dutch state taxes ethanol twice, once as a fuel and once as an alcohol) with the result that the price of a litre rises to 1.90 Euros).

Weights and measures

- in the domain of dimensions, Scania would like to see member states authorise derogations to allow certain  aerodynamic appendages, such as tail spoilers
- Siim Kallas, the European Commissioner in charge of transport, confirmed that a discussion on weights and measures could be opened, but that the  commission had received several propositions from the road transport world , but not a single proposition in common

Future White Book

- Scania would like the future White Book to encourage co-modality
- On this subject, Siim Kallas did not confirm the publication date of the White Book but did indicate some of its priorities : removing obstacles to a true single transport market, promoting new technologies, single transport documents for multi-modal transport, reducing energy consumption and improving the use of natural resources and, finally, improving transport efficiency, in particular through intelligent transport systems. He confirmed that the White Book would not include any elements linked to taxation (a domain reserved for member states). Kallas concluded by saying "Don’t give the White Book mystic powers, it’s only a general framework”.