Will American pickup trucks invade Europe?

Will we soon see hordes of pickup trucks, the oversized vehicles so popular in the United States, crisscrossing the roads of the Old Continent? The trade agreement between the EU and the United States has environmentalists fearing that their imports, which have been limited until now, will be significantly relaxed.

Aficionados appreciate them for their raised and generously proportioned cabin, powerful engine, and open platform. But detractors view them as road monsters with unbridled greenhouse gas emissions, a consequence of their high fuel consumption.

Currently, these American pickup trucks like the Dodge RAM (one of Stellantis' brands) or the Ford F-150 can only be imported in small quantities into the European Union, due to a failure to comply with European safety standards, which are stricter than those across the Atlantic.

But in their trade agreement signed this summer, Europe and the United States committed to mutually recognizing each other's automotive standards, even if the Commission is playing down the scope of this provision. "If this were implemented, two decades of progress in safety, air pollution, and CO2 emissions would be wiped out overnight," worries James Nix of the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E).

The association claims that RAMs emit an average of 347 grams of CO2 per kilometer, more than triple the average for vehicles purchased last year in Europe (106 g/km). Motorists' appetite for these road giants is already growing sharply. Around 7,000 pickup trucks were sold last year in the EU, compared to a few hundred six years earlier, according to T&E.

US Trucks, a specialist dealership based in Leopoldsburg, a small town in northeastern Belgium, has successfully capitalized on this demand. In its parking lot, several models, each as gleaming as they are imposing, await future customers. Often imported via Germany, these "powerful" vehicles are primarily used by professionals and small businesses active in the construction and agricultural sectors, says Dogan Yilmaz, the store's owner.

US Trucks, one of only three distributors in Belgium, sells up to thirty of them a year. In addition to climate activists, anti-road violence groups are protesting the prospect of seeing more and more pickup trucks on the roads.

These models are "heavier, more dangerous for other motorists, pedestrians and cyclists, and are completely contrary to the European strategy in favor of soft mobility and more sustainable transport," summarizes Antonio Avenoso, who heads the European Road Safety Council (ETSC), a non-profit organization based in Brussels.

He also noted that many pickup trucks are not equipped with safety features required in Europe, such as emergency braking systems or lane keeping assistance, or the ban on bodywork with excessively sharp corners, which reduces injuries to pedestrians and cyclists in the event of a collision.

Opponents of pickup trucks argue that making them easier to import could increase road deaths in Europe, which are about three times lower than in the United States. A RAM has a hood so high that the driver, on average, cannot see a child under 10 years old sitting directly in front, T&E calculated.