SUV sales 'cancelling out' emissions benefits of EVs

SUV sales 'cancelling out' emissions benefits of EVs

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Increased sales of electric vehicles (EVs) have “not made a dent” in transport emissions, a leading expert has said, as he called for SUVs “to be phased out of the market”.

Trinity College Dublin professor in the Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering, Brian Caulfield, said ever-increasing sales of SUVs, or sports utility vehicles, are cancelling out the emissions benefits of EVs, contributing to transport emissions rising just when they should be going down.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) interim energy balance report for 2022 showed that despite annual energy-related emissions in Ireland’s carbon budgets falling by 1.9% in 2022, the pace is too slow to meet 2030 targets.

Furthermore, there were "significant increases in demand for road diesel, motor petrol and jet fuel" largely due to a post-Covid rebound, it said.

Prof Caulfield said the transport emissions increase is a worry, considering that huge fuel price increases last year should have led to a drop as people had a good reason to drive less.

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"We drove as much as we would have done normally, even as people were paying more when petrol and diesel prices spiked," he said. 

"People are just not changing. It can take years for people to actually switch over to walking and cycling, and even public transport plans take a long time to come onstream.

We should be looking at SUVs because they are massively contributing to our emissions problem. For every five SUVs sold, you knock out the benefit of an EV. 

"They are about 20% on average more polluting than a regular car. If I had one thing I could do, it would be to stop selling them." 

While banning them may not be possible, additional taxes and parking restrictions are some of the measures that could be used to disincentive SUV popularity among motorists, he said.

"They are more dangerous, emit 20% higher on average, and are bigger. That to me is one of the policy levers we could pull pretty easily in order to start phasing them out of the market."

Even SUVs that are fully electric are not a solution because of their size and the emissions-intensive way in which they are produced, he added.

"They are better than petrol or diesel but those batteries still use a lot of energy." 

According to Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) figures, the Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, types of SUVs, are the most popular cars sold so far this year. Two more SUVs, the Toyota Yaris Cross and CH-R, are also in the top five. The most popular EVs are also SUVs, the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5. 

University College Cork professor of sustainable energy and energy-systems modelling, Hannah Daly, said the overall energy emissions drop of 1.9% in 2022 is not nearly fast enough.

"Overall, emissions must fall by 7% each year, and each year that target is not reached will push even greater cuts in later years, as the carbon budget is consumed too quickly," she said.

"A further concern is that the SEAI report shows that the fall in emissions last year was mainly caused by temporary factors, like high energy prices and covid travel restrictions."

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