A Reality Check on Clean Mobility

by Emmanuel Desplechin (ePURE/Ethanol Producer Magazine) ... Two new studies offer a timely reality check on what kind of cars are likely to be on Europe’s roads between now and 2050—and what will be needed to decarbonize them. The message from the research is clear: With a high percentage of cars with internal combustion engines still in circulation, sustainable low-carbon fuels such as renewable EU ethanol will play a vital role.

A Ricardo Energy & Environment study looked at the makeup and emissions of the potential EU auto fleet mix for the coming decades. It found that use of low-carbon fuels like renewable EU ethanol could provide additional GHG reductions that would otherwise not be achieved. It also found that the use of sustainable ethanol could lessen potential long-term uncertainties associated with the deployment of electrically chargeable vehicles (ECVs).

The other study, from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), looked at barriers hampering the uptake of electrically chargeable cars in the EU, concluding that market penetration is low and “very fragmented.”

Even under the most ambitious scenario examined in the study, with 40 percent of the new passenger cars sales in 2030 being electric vehicles, those vehicles would make up just 15.7 percent of the EU passenger vehicle fleet in 2030.

The study also looked at the related direct and well-to-wheels GHG emissions of these different scenarios depending on the amount of low-carbon fuels in the energy mix.

The report states: “The additional [carbon] savings generated by the increased use of low-carbon fuels mean that even with low electrification rates, reductions achieved under a low-carbon fuels scenario are greater than a scenario with high electrification but no increased use of low-carbon fuels. This is true even if electricity decarbonizes more rapidly than in the reference scenario.”

“The market is essentially driven by customers,” says ACEA Secretary General Erik Jonnaert. “A natural shift to electric vehicles will simply not happen without addressing consumer affordability.”

The European Commission has proposed a benchmark for the share of zero- and low-emisions vehicles registrations at 15 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030. But battery-electric cars accounted for just 0.7 percent of total EU car sales in 2017. “We are worried that some policymakers have completely unrealistic expectations regarding the pace of market development,” Jonnaert says.

These studies clearly show that betting only on one solution for Europe is not enough to reduce transport emissions. We need a variety of tools to decarbonize the majority of the existing and future fleet still running on liquid fuels.

A more realistic approach to achieving EU clean mobility goals requires incentivizing sustainable renewable low-carbon liquid fuels as an immediate, cost-effective solution to decarbonizing new and future transport. READ MORE