The Swan song of the internal combustion engine vehicles

 Did you notice that the swan song of internal combustion engine (ICE) happened already in 2021? Me neither.

• ICE new car emissions have increased 17% since 2017
• ICE+ PHEV new car emissions have increased 8% in the EU.

Only EVs have kept up the slight decrease of average new car emissions. We don't have the 2022 data yet.

New car emission 2017-2021 in the European Union.

Vehicle registration and emission data is ACEA's, and the EU electrification fleet development from the EAFO statistics.

Worth to note that plug-in hybrid emissions are officially only 38g/km which is 2-3 times less than the real-world estimates (Krajinska, 2022).

European commission is updating the PHEV emission utility factors, but only with a marginal solution, and only by 2025-2027!

If you calculate the effect of this PHEV discrepancy, the new vehicle emission development without EVs looks even more bleaker.

Average emissions in the EU 2010-2021.

This, I'm afraid, means that the EU passenger car emission reduction regulation has not been the kind of success story that we have been told.

Instead of emission reduction the new ICE car emissions are back in the 2010 level. Even with the 10% EV share and the PHEV discrepancy emissions have reduced only slightly (1%) from 2016.

From my point of view this highlights the important work of the few authentic vehicle manufacturers who are, and have been, in the transportation emission reduction business.

The ones who are not, seem to rather exploit the inaccurate emission regulation gaps.

Visa Siekkinen

References

ACEA. (2022). Average CO2 emissions of new cars in the EU, 2010-2021 trend. Available at:<https://www.acea.auto/figure/average-co2-emissions-of-new-cars-in-eu/> [Accessed 17 February 2023]

ACEA, b. (2022). New passenger car registrations in the EU. Available at:<https://www.acea.auto/figure/new-passenger-car-registrations-in-eu/> [Accessed 17 February 2023]

EAFO. (2023). The European Alternative Fuels Observatory. European Commission. Available at:<https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/> [Accessed 17 February 2023]

Erbach, G. (2022). CO2 emission standards for new cars and vans 'Fit for 55' package. European Parliament. Available at:<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/698920/EPRS_BRI(2022)698920_EN.pdf> [Accessed 17 February 2023]

Krajinska, A. (2022). T&E Analysis of the Commission’s proposal for the update of plug-in hybrid utility factors. Transport & Environment. Available at:<https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TE-Anlaysis_-Update-of-PHEV-utility-factors-1.pdf> [Accessed 17 February 2023]