New Cars: Market Share of Diesel Vehicles Falls and CO2 Emissions Remain Stagnant

The decline in diesel’s market share in France has seemed unstoppable for several years. However, the latest official statistics from August 2017 show that a symbolic milestone has been reached: among new registrations of internal-combustion vehicles, The market share of diesel vehicles has fallen below that of gasoline vehicles. It’s not by much (fewer than 1,000 vehicles in the first 8 months of 2017), but this is part of a structural decline: among internal-combustion vehicles, diesel vehicles have lost nearly 25% market share in 5 years compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. Among the effects of this shift in sales patterns, Average CO2 emissions from new vehicles have remained flat since 2015, or even increased in 2017 compared to 2016. In fact, gasoline-powered vehicles emit more CO2 than diesel vehicles. Two important points to note :

• Here, we consider only CO2 emissions and not other pollutants;
• The emissions shown are those measured using certification protocols (emissions that are known to differ significantly from those in real-world driving conditions).

To meet our greenhouse gas emission targets, emissions from new cars must be reduced at a much faster rate. As we previously demonstrated in a analysis by Carbone 4, This represents a reduction of at least 5% per year in the actual emissions from new vehicles that must be met. This recent stagnation in emissions from new vehicles is therefore very bad news, unless we can significantly accelerate the turnover of the vehicle fleet or reduce road traffic. To reduce CO2 emissions as well as those of local pollutants, public authorities are focusing on the development of vehicles with alternative powertrains: plug-in and non-plug-in hybrids, as well as 100% electric vehicles. The goals are ambitious: let’s commend the French Climate Plan which plans to phase out sales of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2040. While the United Kingdom has followed suit, it is worth noting that Scotland decided to take it a step further by announcing an end to sales of internal combustion engine vehicles starting in 2032. Currently, on the French market, vehicles with alternative powertrains account for 5% of all vehicle registrations in 2017 : These are primarily non-plug-in hybrid vehicles. Electric vehicles (fully electric or plug-in hybrids) account for less than 2% of new vehicle registrations. As we can see, there is still a long way to go before we achieve low-emission mobility.

Article written by Aurélien Schuller: aurelien.schuller@carbone4.com and Clément Ramos: clement.ramos@carbone4.com