Manufacturers in Europe must sell substantial numbers of electrified cars to avoid heavy EU fines, but several industry figures have questioned whether emissions regulations should take into account the environmental impact of a vehicle’s entire lifespan.
For 2020, car makers had to hit a CO2 emissions fleet average of 95g/km for cars sold, and by 2025 that target is set to come down to around 81g/km. This will be achieved by the increasing use of electrified powertrains, but some in the industry are increasingly resisting the notion that electrified cars are true low-carbon transport.
Last year, Polestar chose to publish a life-cycle analysis of its new 2, revealing that it could take as much as 45,000 miles of driving before the electric hatchback would leave a smaller energy footprint than a petrol-engined Volvo XC40.
This elicited an angry reaction from EV advocates and environmentalists, but that hasn’t deterred some in the industry. For instance, on the day the massive merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the PSA Group to form Stellantis (a giant of nine million annual sales) went public, CEO Carlos Tavares used his moment in the global spotlight to argue against “narrow-minded” regulations forcing car makers to produce EVs.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Tavares argued that governments were pushing new technologies before fully understanding their overall environmental impact and said the emissions from battery making – including the pollution from extracting lithium – “handicaps” EVs before they even leave the showroom.
In truth, Tavares has a huge job on his hands if he is to succeed in moving the EU towards a new way of assessing a vehicle’s lifetime environmental impact.
According to one industry insider who spoke to Autocar, car makers and legislators agreeing on a universal methodology for implementing a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) would be problematic.
The source said that many of the ‘inputs’ into a standard LCA would be commercially sensitive and makers might be unhappy to release them. “You would also have to assess the mining and refining process [for the materials used in a vehicle] as well as being able to account for your [component] supply chain,” they added.
Join the debate
Add your comment
I also have to question the quoted tyre particulate emissions. 75g/km makes no sense at all.
It is clear that we need to know more about the environmental impacts of EVs vs ICE vehicles, but it's alarming that HH doesn't reference the notorious Aston Martin study, which has been widely pilloried. Inconvenient facts?
An honest, scientific approach is what's needed here. And a tax system that prioritises reuse and recycling over yet more new consumer goods would be nice.
The UK government made rational people get rid of usable petrol engined cars for diesel engined then the reality of what they had done set in or became apparent. This EV "investment" is essentially new revenue stream for big business just as diesel was for the short to medium term for the car industry selling, turbo chargers, DPF filters etc and the politicians who implement it will be retired and will have moved on by the time the reality of what they have done takes a hold.
Terrific that Autocar is airing these very important discussions. You'll get a lot of agressive comments from EVangelists who don't want to see any further than the lack of an exhaust pipe on their EVs and use the badly informed social media posts of other EVangelists to 'debunk' reports they haven't even read, but without opening this discussion, and presenting the complete picture, we will never be able to make electric vehicles as clean as they need to be.
No one is saying EVs are not making a terrific contribution to urban air quailty. No one is saying that oil is clean. It's simply a case of accepting that we need EVs to clean-up the air, so let's take a grown-up, facts-based view of their whole-life environmental impact and try to make that as good as we can too. Any EVangelists who try to cancel that discussion are actively causing more damage to the environment and more suffering to the people whose lives are damaged by some of the mining and processing practices that could be solved if the consumers applied sufficient pressure.