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DSLV criticizes the lack of planning security and calls for later implementation

Truck toll: Bad timing for CO2 surcharge

Berlin, May 30, 2023
Despite the doubling of the fee rates that is already planned for December 1, 2023, the truck toll will remain largely ineffective as a CO2 steering instrument in the coming years. The federal budget will primarily benefit from the change in the Federal Highway Toll Act and not the carbon footprint of road freight transport. The DSLV Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik makes this clear again in the run-up to the adoption of the third law to change toll regulations by the federal cabinet.
In addition to the initial support for investments in battery-electric and hydrogen-powered trucks, a distance-based CO2 price is a fundamentally suitable control instrument to promote the decarbonization of the road freight transport sector. However, in view of the lack of marketable alternatives at this early point in time, the direct consequences of the CO2 toll are initially only growing government revenues, rising logistics costs and higher consumer prices.
"With the present draft law, the Federal Government is taking the second step before the first," says DSLV General Manager Frank Huster. "The increasing revenue expectations of the federal government from the CO2-based route costs for heavy goods traffic show that even the federal government does not expect a quick conversion of truck fleets to alternative drives," notes Huster, referring to the draft bill of the amending law. According to the draft, the expected additional toll revenue from CO2 pricing of more than 6.5 billion euros annually until 2027 will remain constant.
“It's not about delaying the important development towards sustainability. But the effects of the legislation are neither synchronized with the current economic situation nor with the organizational and technical capabilities,” criticizes Huster. “There are sufficient reasons for the Federal Minister of Transport to use the authorization already enshrined in the draft law to implement the CO2-based partial toll rates at a later date. January 1, 2025 is still objectively justified.”
Because the probably very late adoption of the Toll Amendment Act puts the logistics industry and its customers under additional planning pressure. Huster: “There is no security. If the obviously party-politically motivated tug-of-war at the traffic lights and the subsequent parliamentary procedure drag on until autumn, there will only be a few weeks between the promulgation of the law and its entry into force on December 1, 2023. As a result, there is effectively no more time for internal process adjustments and price talks with logistics customers.” In addition to the force with which the toll rates are to be increased during a recession phase of all things, the much too narrow time window threatens to overwhelm the companies.
The content of the third law to amend toll regulations also remains incomplete. The coalition agreement does not contain the exemption of the incoming and outgoing traffic of combined transport from the toll obligation, nor is the political promise to relieve companies of the multiple CO2 burden from tolls and national emissions trading. The article law also lacks a crediting system for alternative fuels. Especially with the use of HVO100, bio-LNG and bio-CNG, the road freight sector can make a contribution to avoiding CO2 immediately and until electric and hydrogen-powered trucks are fully established on the market. "The Federal Minister of Transport's commitment to alternative fuels at European level must now also have a beneficial effect on German legislation," Huster demands.
Incentives for the ecological transformation of the road freight transport sector are created by a balanced mix of public funding and legislative pressure - provided these are dosed and set at the right time. CO2 toll surcharges are intended to reduce the current cost delta between diesel trucks and alternatively powered commercial vehicles. "However, as long as the energy networks in Europe are not expanded with foresight, no freight forwarder will be able to invest in expensive H2 or e-trucks, despite the high cost burden for fossil drives and investment support for new technologies," Huster points out and demands: "The additional toll revenue must be paid also flow back into the budget headings for the targeted financing of the KsNI funding programs for the development of charging and refueling infrastructures.
As the central and federal association, the DSLV represents the cross-modal interests of the 3,000 leading German forwarding and logistics companies through 16 regional state associations, which with a total of 600,000 employees and annual industry sales of 135 billion euros are a significant part of Germany's third largest industry (as of July 2019). 2022). The membership structure of the DSLV ranges from globally active logistics groups, 4PL and 3PL providers to owner-managed forwarding companies (SMEs) with their own truck fleets and charterers of inland waterways and railways to sea, air freight, customs and storage specialists. The DSLV is the political mouthpiece and central contact for the federal government, for the institutions of the Bundestag and Bundesrat as well as for all relevant federal ministries and authorities in the legislative and law-implementation process, as far as logistics and freight transport are concerned.