Emissions standards

In the EU member states, emissions standards are adopted at the EU level. The EU Regulation 2019/631 from 2019 aims to tighten emissions standards (in gCO2/kilometer) from new passenger cars by 37.5% in 2030 below 2021 levels. The proposal tabled in the “Fit for 55” framework strengthened this emissions reduction goal to 55% and introduced a new goal of emissions reduction by 100% in 2035.

However, these values correspond to new cars sales in a given year. With the average car age in the EU at 11.5 years and much older in eastern European countries, the proposal will result in delayed emissions reductions. Also, the emissions rate applies to a car fleet sales average from manufacturers, allowing for the sale of much more emissions-intensive vehicles to be compensated by selling cleaner vehicles elsewhere. 

Member states may trigger accelerated decarbonisation of their car fleet by closely linking the annual taxation of vehicles with their emissions. Since 1.1.2021, the German KFZ tax has been influenced more heavily by their CO2 emissions.

A Euro 7 standard is also on the horizon, as the European Commission proposes closing the gap between current standards and the 2035 deadline for internal combustion engines phase-out. Estimates are that the new standard will set legal limits on emissions for 100 million diesel and gasoline cars sold in Europe starting in 2025, when new emission standards are planned to come into effect. Estimates by a consortium of independent experts show that these cars will be more expensive than current models by 100€ to 500€ and will come with the co-benefit of emitting much less NOx and particle emissions than current Euro 6 models. 

Given that the average road life of cars is 11 years in Western Europe and more than 15 years in Southern Eastern European Member States, the Commission expects Euro 7 models to be in circulation up to 2050. Thus, the Euro 7 standard is necessary for emissions reductions if the EU plans to hit its net-zero emissions target, especially in countries with a sizeable second-hand car market. The Commission has intended to develop a proposal at the end of 2022.

According to an estimate by the IEA from November 2021, the average rated fuel consumption on new light-duty vehicles fell only by 0.9% between 2017 and 2019 – far less than the 1.8% annual decrease between 2010 and 2015. On a global average, in 2019, a new light-duty car consumed 7.1 litres per 100 kilometres. The slight reduction in average fuel consumption can be explained by the fact that new cars sold in 2019 were, on average, 6.2% heavier than those sold in 2010.

Low-emission zones

In progress

Regular monitoring

In some cases, the state of the vehicles deteriorates significantly with negative impact not only on their air pollutants, especially NOx, but also their CO2 emissions. Despite much higher fuel costs resulting from their low efficiency, they are utilized due to their low purchase costs. In some cases, higher emissions may also result from intentional tampering. 

To reduce the number of cars not fulfilling the roadworthiness criteria, governments should ensure that the regular (usually annual) roadworthiness tests are conducted according to the criteria prescribed in the legislation. In addition, ad hoc technical roadside checks, especially in rural areas, should be more frequent to discourage utilization of overly polluting vehicles. 

Examples

Belgium implemented a rule in 2004 that second-hand cars must be granted a “Car-Pass” certificate ensuring that the value given by the odometer has not been tampered with. The initial 2004 law was updated in 2018 to add more information to the “Car-Pass” certificate such as the CO2 emissions, vehicle inspections and recalls. The CO2 emissions on the Car-Pass must comply with the certificate of conformity. The Car-Pass is a mandatory document sellers of second-hand cars need to hand over to the new owner. Each time a car is taken to a garage, a workshop or a vehicle inspection, the current mileage is added to the database.

South Korea has strong emissions and testing requirements. Every private vehicle must be tested at least every two years and vans and light trucks must be tested every year. Failure to comply results in increasing fines. Vehicle testing in Korea is known to be very thorough – approved garages and testing centres check such things as steering, spedometer accuracy, braking power, noise levels produced, emissions under different circumstances, wear on the tires, frame, and body of the car, and other factors which may impact the roadworthiness and efficient functioning of the vehicle. 

Subsidies for EVs

In recent years, subsidies for purchasing electric passenger cars have become a prominent way to promote electric mobility and reduce emissions from passenger cars. These subsidies for electric vehicle purchases amount to as much as €9000 in some EU countries. 

The promotion of passenger EVs is justified by the need to reach economies of scale and open the possibility to phase out combustion cars in the coming years. According to the recent proposal from the European Commission, the sale of new combustion cars should stop in 2035. Acceptance for this goal is only possible if zero-carbon alternatives at a similar price are available. In addition, with the cost of electric vehicles exceeding the level of the subsidies 3-4 times, the financial assistance triggers investment of significant private capital into zero-carbon alternatives.

At the same time, the utilisation of public money to subsidise the purchase of new electric vehicles is not without controversy for several reasons:

• New electric cars are affordable for higher-income households, raising significant equity concerns. 
• In most EU countries, car buyers can also use the subsidies to subsidise plug-in electric cars, with a minimal range. In many cases, such vehicles are never or only sporadically charged electrically. As a result, the promotion of electric mobility turns into a subsidy for purchasing new combustion vehicles. 
• Replacement of combustion cars by electric ones does not solve the issues of congestion and misappropriation of public space and may worsen them due to the lower utilisation costs of electric vehicles. 

The methods that governments use to promote electric cars can be improved in numerous ways, mainly: 

• A bonus-malus tax system would impose additional taxes and fees on combustion vehicles, and government would spend the collected amount to promote electric cars and public charging infrastructure. The additional tax could apply especially to the registration fee of imported or new combustion cars, reducing the financial burden on the public and increasing social acceptance for the measure.
• Steady and predictable decrease of the level of subsidy after a certain amount of electric cars has been sold. This may be necessary, especially if the sale of electric vehicles increases significantly, which will make it financially unsustainable and may require sudden changes. A predictable mechanism to help reduce the burden on subsidy budget, would be to decrease the level of subsidy by X% after X number of cars have been sold. It could also accelerate the deployment of electric mobility, with customers willing to benefit from the higher levels of subsidies.
• Increased subsidies for buyers purchasing a car with a car scrappage scheme. This would help to avoid a situation where older, more carbon-intensive cars are still on the street even after the sales of electric vehicles increase. 
• Support for electric plug-ins should be significantly limited and conditional on the utilisation of the car, mainly in electric mode. Delayed payment of the subsidy corresponding to the share of kilometres travelled electrically within a specific period offers an alternative to those worried about the range and charging possibilities.  

There are also numerous other ways to promote the deployment of electric vehicles, e.g. tax breaks for owners (registration, ownership), exemptions for parking fees in cities, possibility to use bus lanes. Whenever policy makers introduce such incentives, they must ensure that the measures are temporary and will not create additional problems (e.g. blockage of bus lanes, loss of tax proceeds) if most or all combustion cars are replaced by electric vehicles. Ensuring and communicating their temporary character could, in fact, facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles as the potential buyers would like to take advantage of these incentives.   

An additional aspect driving the deployment of EVs is an investment in appropriate public charging infrastructure. This is covered in the respective Best Practice.

Additional resources

BloombergNEF (2021) Zero Emissions Vehicles Factbook

GreenBiz (2020) ​A look inside China’s timely charging infrastructure plan

Transport & Environment (2021) Break-up with combustion engines How going 100% electric for new cars & vans by 2035 is feasible in all EU countries 

Hydrogen

If hydrogen cars were to be mainstreamed, they would only emit water vapor instead of tail-pipe emissions. 

There are two types of hydrogen engine, the combustion and the fuel cell engines.  Nitrogen oxide still forms as a by-product in the hydrogen combustion engine because of the high heat generated within the combustion chamber. This compound not only harms the environment but also causes many medical problems, both short and long-term. The fuel cell engine is clean.

As of today, most hydrogen cars are still being fueled by converting natural gas into hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide (Source). In 2019, the production and distribution of 1 kilogram of hydrogen via water electrolysis costs between 8 to 9 Euros; it is projected to be 2-3 Euros by 2050. (Source). 

The advantages of hydrogen cars for passenger transports comes down to four criterion: range, performance, convenience of recharging/refueling and price. 

• Charging: Charging time for hydrogen fuel cell power is similar to that of conventional ICE vehicles and faster than battery-powered electric vehicles.  With hydrogen fuel cells vehicles, charging time should be less than five minutes (Source). Nowadays electric vehicles have a charging time ranging from 30 minutes to several hours but the charging time is getting shorter. The charger network is a critical issue for both hydrogen and electricity. It is not valuable to build both from public money.

• Range: Hydrogen fuel cell cars now have an average range of 312 to 380 miles. In contrast, the average range of full electric vehicles is about 318 km in 2021 (Source). However, a few electric vehicles, such as the Tesla Model S, can have a range up to 373 miles.  The https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car shows that one can choose a range from 95 to 640 km. 

• Performance: Electric motors of hydrogen and battery electric cars produce a maximum torque instantly (i.e., maximum twisting force that an engine can generate) and possess strong low-speed performance. 

• Price: The price for fuel-cell cars remains high compared to ICE engines but has been reduced substantially over the years. For example, the Tesla Model S, with the largest range of miles, has a price of 89,990 Euros. Although FCEVs remain more expensive to per 100 km than BEVs and ICE vehicles, the total cost of ownership will halve in the next 10 years according to a Deloitte Report (Source). At the meantime the price of the battery electric cars will be competitive with the  price of ICE cars.

The market and the charging infrastructure of battery electric cars are more advanced in Europe. So it is more valuable to invest public money in accelerating the uptake of BEVs than of hydrogen cars.

The hydrogen seems to be more usable in the railway and the air passenger transport.

Biofuels

Relying on correct carbon accounting and sustainability of supply at a policy level. The experience of the ILUC reform, and following the EC’s Globiom report in 2016, most conventional biofuels, especially biodiesel, were deemed more emissions-intensive than traditional fuels. This is due to the Renewable Energy Directive, neglecting indirect land-use change as an emissions factor in life-cycle assessments calculations for agrofuel emissions. 

As we advance, the discussion around 2030 policies will focus on limiting the role biofuels in decarbonising European transport. While conventional biofuels have proved to not be a viable option due to high emissions, contribution to biodiversity loss, and potential for fuel vs food conflict, advanced biofuels are slow to come to market. This is mainly the result of lacking a clear definition of “waste”, allowing for unsustainable raw materials that might drive up emissions. 

Currently, a further revision of the RED should phase out high emitting biofuels, such as those made from imported soy from South American countries – these are high-ILUC crops linked to deforestation. A revision of the RED should also consider strengthening sustainability safeguards for the eligible feedstocks for advanced biofuels in Annex IX of the directive, where UCO and other feedstocks are considered problematic in terms of emissions other negative impacts.

The governments of the member states should shy away from biofuel blending targets for road transport. At the moment, electrification of passenger cars offers a much more viable option, with biofuels, if at all used, much more relevant for other modes of transport.

Eco-driving

If a journey must be made by personal automobile, steps should be taken to reduce the emissions from that trip. One such method of emissions reduction is eco-driving, in which a driver takes specific steps to increase efficiency and adapt the vehicle to driving conditions in order to minimise pollution and avoid congestion. The promotion of eco-driving is a relatively low cost measure to additionally reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption, and should be considered when approaching vehicle traffic, although the effectiveness of this strategy is still contested. 

The practice of eco-driving is centred around acceleration/deceleration, speed, idling time, and route choice in order to handle the vehicle in a way which maximises fuel economy given current road and traffic conditions. Drivers should generally reduce speeds to the most efficient for their particular vehicle, anticipate high traffic situations to maintain constant speeds, and reduce abruptness of accelerations and braking.  This requires a deliberate and specific change in driving style, which can be taught to drivers at all levels. There are different methods for reinforcement, ranging from taught courses to real-time technological feedback. In the first option, as part of licensing or re-certification, drivers take a specific course which teaches them how to anticipate traffic, change gear economically, select routes, and become aware of maintenance issues which impact fuel economy. It should be noted that vehicle efficiency is not static, and all of the above variables are subject to change over time, which when added to the general fallibility of human drivers, means that these courses will likely need to be repeated over time to ensure maximum efficacy. On the other hand, some studies have observed the impact of eco-driving devices which measure fuel economy and highlight the most efficient speed or when to change gears. These devices have been shown to impact the way in which people drive and have the benefit of addressing driving behaviours as they occur. The above interventions have been estimated to improve fuel economy and decrease emissions by 10-12% per trip, improve road safety, and decrease noise pollution.

Examples:

In the private sector, IRU offers eco-driving training courses targeted at corporate clients (eg. those driving corporate cars or fleet vehicles) for those companies which wish to maximise fuel efficiency and decrease emissions. In the course drivers learn optimal use of vehicle technology, look at the effects of their driving behaviour, and learn how to monitor and evaluate road conditions in order to maximise efficiency. The course is one day followed by a period of monitoring with onboard software to measure driver habits and determine change in fuel economy over time. 

Speed limits

In progress

Smarter acquisition

Public authorities purchase a significant share of passenger cars: for example, cars used by public administration, police cars, fire brigades, and more. Public authorities use these vehicles at a much higher rate than passenger cars in many cases. Due to the more extensive fleet, they also allow for economies of scale in terms of developing the charging infrastructure. Thus, climate action in this area is more efficient regarding resources invested.  

This potential is mainly unused due to the path dependencies. Firstly, those responsible for renewing the fleets often lack critical knowledge about the opportunities offered by low carbon alternatives. Secondly, a separate budget is typically used to finance the purchase of vehicles, different from the refuelling budget. The balance between these two budgets does not reflect the higher upfront costs compensated by much lower operating costs in the case of an electrified car fleet.  

Targeted training aimed at educating the procurement experts could enhance their knowledge about the state-of-the-art developments in non-combustion vehicles and increase their self-confidence in advocating for purchasing new kinds of cars (e.g. EVs). 

The training should include:

• an update on the technical and economic feasibility of clean vehicles 
• list of potential sellers and models 
• preparing drafts of calls for bids 
• sessions with the providers of the necessary infrastructure 
• sessions with the providers of the required funding (e.g., EVs, charging infrastructure).  

The training should target:

• Fleet managers and fleet engineers in the public sector at the municipal and state level
• Members of the public administrations responsible for budgeting 
• Department managers for fleet users

Targeting both upper- and mid-level management can ensure that fleet electrification has the necessary administrative support at all levels and that all fleet stakeholders are on board with the transition. 

Examples:

The United Kingdom’s Department for Transport (DfT) offered the “Freight Best Practice programme“, which supplied free training materials, briefs, and reports to managers and associated workers in logistics, specifically with an eye towards fleet efficiency. A cornerstone of this project was the reduction of emissions in private and public sector fleet vehicles. At its peak, the programme provided 200,000 informational guides, best practice briefs, and case studies to fleet managers and drivers around the UK.

Car scrapping bonus

In progress

EV charging subsidies

In progress