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Future cars must be lighter – time for member states to act!

(EurActiv, 4 Oct 2018) The Paris agreement confirmed the need for the transport sector to urgently curb its CO2 emissions drastically, write Patrik Ragnarsson and Coline Lavorel.

Patrik Ragnarsson is the senior manager of automotive & transport group, and Coline Lavorel is the senior manager for public affairs and sustainability at European Aluminium.

The revision of the CO₂ standards for cars and vans is an opportunity for policy-makers at EU and national levels to take a stand for a fully decarbonised transport system and to make Europe lead in the fight against climate change.

Technological shift is key in this transition. All technologies should be made available as every gram of CO₂ saved counts.

Lightweight solutions certainly are among those technologies that contribute to directly reduce CO₂ emissions from the transport sector. Benefits to the environment and to society are real and immediate: 100 kg of lightweighting can save up to 8 gr of CO₂ per km travelled.

As a lightweight material, aluminium can be an important facilitator for the move to a decarbonised mobility system.

But the EU Commission’s proposal to revise the regulation of CO₂ emissions from cars and vans is not technology neutral as it keeps the mass-based parameter as the way to define the level of CO₂ targets from car manufacturers. This parameter disincentivises OEMs to make cars lighter, which would reduce CO₂ emissions and fuel consumption.

Several studies show that the mass-based parameter does not provide any environmental nor social benefits. It even has a perverse effect of offsetting part of the CO₂ reduction from lightweighting by giving more stringent CO₂ targets to car manufacturers that actually invest in lightweighting.

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EurActiv, 4 Oct 2018: Future cars must be lighter – time for member states to act!