I guess it is because of EU fleet-wide CO2 averages. From next year on fleets must be below 93 g of CO2 per kilometer or the manufacturer is fined.
Suzuki has a very small fleet without any real low-emission cars, thus struggles to get below this new average. Combine this with the EU Jimny's four-cyclinder 1.5 l engine terrible gas mileage and it is easy to see why Suzuki is pulling this car (and many others) from the EU market.
That's why critics say that the fleet-wide CO2 average regulation favors manufacturer with large fleets. Since actual sales number do not factor into the equation low or no emission vehicles average out the wasteful SUVs and other big cars on a fleet average on paper only.
I'm not completely against fleet-wide averages, but I would like to see a competition. The fleet with the lowest average CO2 emission per kg sets the lower bound for a given year and all others are fined. This would cause a very fast scramble (just to catch up with Tesla, Jaguar, and Honda) and level the playing field for smaller manufacturers.
It was emissions [0]. In fact, it's still being sold as a "Light Commercial Vehicle", having less strict emissions needs, under the names Jimny Pro (at least on Spain), Jimny Mata (Italy, starting to sell in the end of this month IIRC) or Jimny Horizon (Germany).
The electric model seems to be confirmed for the future, and there are rumors of a hybrid model.
Join us in the chorus to get rid of fleet-averages ;)
The crux, however, is that nobody is allowing or disallowing anything. Suzuki has made the choice to withdraw the Jimny in light of the fines, while Mercedes-Benz made the choice to keep the G600 available despite the fines.
Consider, Mercedes-Benz has many cars, esp. Smarts and EVs, in their fleet that significantly lower the fleet average to around 110 g CO2/km. Suzuki, with a small portfolio of ICE cars, in comparison, hovers somewhere 115 g CO2/km (all from the link above). MB is a higher-margin shop, its cars, esp. the G600, are much more expensive then Suzuki's, so MB opts to shoulder the (lower) fine, while Suzuki does not.
I can't really blame Suzuki on this and I'm looking forward to the Toyota-Suzuki co-op on EVs.
But only in the sense that manufacturers are pooled together to reach a certain volume and very small manufacturers are basically excluded from the regulation.
> I'm not completely against fleet-wide averages, but I would like to see a competition.
They seem absurdly silly. Just put a tax for each car of $$$ per g of CO2 per km. Then you're properly targetting the thing you care about rather than a lossy proxy. Or even better, increase tax on fossil fuels!
I think the idea is that car manufacturers are motivated to internally subsidize low emission car development and sales, so that they can sell high margin high emission cars, making the latter even more expensive. Double win?
Suzuki has a very small fleet without any real low-emission cars, thus struggles to get below this new average. Combine this with the EU Jimny's four-cyclinder 1.5 l engine terrible gas mileage and it is easy to see why Suzuki is pulling this car (and many others) from the EU market.
That's why critics say that the fleet-wide CO2 average regulation favors manufacturer with large fleets. Since actual sales number do not factor into the equation low or no emission vehicles average out the wasteful SUVs and other big cars on a fleet average on paper only.
I'm not completely against fleet-wide averages, but I would like to see a competition. The fleet with the lowest average CO2 emission per kg sets the lower bound for a given year and all others are fined. This would cause a very fast scramble (just to catch up with Tesla, Jaguar, and Honda) and level the playing field for smaller manufacturers.