Car labelling: new fuel prices apply from the end of June.

On 29 June, the German Federal Ministry of Economics will update the prices of fuels and other energy sources in accordance with the car energy consumption labelling regulations and publish them in the Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger). As of that date, the new prices can be used when issuing car labels, which, in addition to CO2 efficiency, also provide information on annual running costs (fuel consumption and vehicle tax). After a three-month transition period, use of the new fuel prices on car labels will be mandatory from 1 October 2012 on. The Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) – the German Energy Agency – wishes to remind manufacturers, car dealers and leasing companies of this obligation. New cars for which a car label was issued before 30 June do not have to be relabelled after the change.

Dealers can create their own car labels quickly and easily at www.pkw-label.de: they can choose to enter the values manually or calculate them automatically. With the manual entry option, the dealer can fill in the car label completely by hand. The online calculation option computes the CO2 efficiency class, vehicle tax and fuel costs automatically. The online tool will apply the new prices which are valid from 29 June.

The German Federal Ministry of Economics published the first price list for fuels and other energy sources (petrol, premium petrol, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, liquid and natural gas, hydrogen, electricity) on 2 September 2011. This list is updated and published in the Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger) on 30 June each year to account for the price developments. The price of electricity as drive energy was listed for the first time this year.

A draft version of the new fuel price list has been available at www.pkw-label.de and on the website of the German Federal Ministry of Economics since 18 June 2012. Anyone who is interested can find the final version of the price list and other information on the car label at www.pkw-label.de.

The Implementation Platform for Car Labelling is a dena initiative and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology (BMWi).