Other issues like tariffs and the march of the Chinese have been grabbing the headlines recently, but arguably the dominant issue that we should be most focused on is how the car and road transport in general should contribute to the greening of the planet.
The debate around electrification and regulations that force the pace of the transition away from combustion engines to battery electric power gets headlines, but in focusing on that topic alone, I suggest we’re falling into the same trap as the regulators who focused on a single solution rather than the desired outcome.
I hope that everyone agrees we should be conscious of the threats associated with climate change, and regardless of the extent to which it is man-made or not, if there are human interventions that can slow down or reverse climate change, then surely we should be doing what we can?
Having started my journey into electrified motoring back in 2012 with an Ampera plug-in hybrid, I am very comfortable with electric cars of any variety, but I’m not a zealot, having had Aston Martin, Hyundai i30N, Maserati, Porsche, Range Rover and now my classic Datsun 240Z in the household in parallel.
However, we should not be looking at changing the power source on new cars as the only – or even best – way of making a difference.
The total contribution of road transport to climate change reflects not only the emissions of new cars being sold, but also the model mix, the emissions footprint of the manufacturing processes and then all of the above for all the cars that are already in the parc.
That is then subject to the actual usage of all those vehicles. By focusing on the ‘tailpipe’ emissions of new vehicles being sold, all those other factors are being ignored, yet their leverage is much greater. The politicians however remain largely silent on all these topics.
I know there are good reasons why cars are larger and heavier than they were two decades ago, but it seems that the norm for a car – even an ICE is now in the range 1,500kg-2,000kg – and an overall width of 1.8 metres counts as relatively narrow.
Should we not have a tax system that discourages people from buying larger cars, regardless of powertrain?
That would be kinder on the planet in terms of the natural resources consumed in manufacture, but also through a lifetime of usage.
Basic physics tell you that accelerating 10% less mass will consume 10% less energy. It might not be so good for manufacturer profits (the old saying goes small cars equal small profits), but electrification isn’t doing them a power of good either.
Modern societies have also become wedded to the private car as their preferred choice of personal transportation.
There are many people for whom there is not much choice due to where they live, the quality of public transport and their work pattern, but at the margin, usage can be influenced through a combination of more attractive public transport options and education. (Talking of which, why does the ‘school run’ even exist? What is that has resulted in parents feeling that the only way to get their child to school is by dropping them off in a personal – often unnecessarily large – car?)
I am not promoting the apocryphal tales of children walking hours to and from school each day through blizzards with holes in their shoes.
I was brought up in Edinburgh and I am certain that if I was to observe the start and end of the school day at my old school now, there would be many times more pupils travelling by car now, even though Edinburgh has always had a highly developed and respected bus system.
The third lever that nobody seems to be too bothered about is the existing parc.
We have around 250 million cars in the EU today, or roughly 20 times annual sales. Within that there are clearly a growing number of battery electric vehicles, and a proportion of relatively efficient Euro 6 cars.
However, around 10% will also be prior to Euro 4, i.e. older than 2006. As the BEVs are forced into the market at the front end, it seems reasonable to assume that a portion of car owners will choose to stick with their ICE cars and run them for as long as they can.
It’s likely that a profitable niche in the aftermarket through the late 2030s into the 2040s will be ‘keep my ICE running’ services. I don’t have an issue with that – I am still regularly surprised when I realise that a smart, shiny car ahead of me in a traffic queue is actually 10 or 15 years old.
But all these cars will continue to consume fossil fuels, continuing to add to the climate damage for years to come.
And that is before we start thinking about parts of the world where electrification of houses on a reliable basis is not something that can be taken for granted.
We need a serious push for e-fuels that could have an immediate impact on total vehicle emissions, simply by changing what we put in the tank.
I’m not suggesting that the science is easy, or the creation of the manufacturing capacity is simple – but the same is true of batteries, and we’re attempting to do that. (And by the way, I suggest that having a viable long-term option of ICE vehicles running on e-fuels would do more to even out the competitive stakes with the new Chinese brands than putting tariffs on their BEVs.)
I do not pretend that any of these actions are easy – particularly if you’re a politician, but I believe that they have taken the easy option by focusing on a single solution rather than a holistic approach that considers all the available levers.
I am not optimistic that we will see any movement, but rather than playing around with the details of the measures they have already taken, I suggest our politicians should be addressing additional measures that they previously ignored.