Consumer behaviorConsumers purchase more high-emission SUVs and off-road vehicles

Today, the German energy agency dena released its monitoring report 2017 on the development of first registrations of CO₂ efficient cars. It shows that the German market for new cars is growing and this development is driven by the increasing sales of high-consumption SUVs and vehicles of the upper middle segment. On the other hand, low-emission cars were sold less often in 2017. Therefore, average CO₂ emissions of all newly registered vehicles also increased.

This report of the dena initiative "Car label information platform" is based on current car registration data of the German Federal Motor Vehicle and Transport Authority. Fuel consumption was calculated according to the NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) measurement cycle.

These are the details:

• In 2017, a total of 3.4 million new cars were sold in Germany – conventional gasoline or diesel-powered engines accounted for the majority of 96.6 percent.
• Compared to the previous year, 15 percent more fuel-intensive SUVs and off-road vehicles were sold. In contrast, sales of low-emission compact and mid-segment cars decreased by four to five percent.
• Consequently, average CO₂ emissions of all newly registered cars increased by 0.4 grams per kilometer to an average of 127.9 g/km. These emissions exceed the European fleet average of 119.5 g/km by seven percent. The EU fleet target of 95 g/km might not be achieved by 2020.
• Moreover, sales of cars with green efficiency class A+ (11.8 percent less) and A (7.8 percent fewer) was declining compared to sales of the previous year for the first time.
• On the other hand, the market share of alternative engines increased from two to 3.4 percent compared to 2016. Hybrid and electric vehicles accounted for 85 percent of these alternative systems.

Andreas Kuhlmann, chairman of the dena management board, commented: "It is important that we now quickly introduce effective measures to make the purchase of low-emission cars more attractive and those of emission-intensive vehicles less attractive. Dena's pilot study “Integrated energy transition”, for example, recommends to relate the taxation of company cars to the CO₂ emissions of vehicles in an open manner to all types of technology. In the medium term, energy tax rates for fossil fuels should also be linked much more closely to their CO₂ intensity."

Source: dena

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