Road transport accounts for about a fifth of EU emissions.
CO2 emissions from passenger transport varies significantly depending on the transport mode. Passenger cars are a major polluter, accounting for 61% of total CO2 emissions from EU road transport.
At the moment average occupancy rate was only 1.6 people per car in Europe in 2018. Increasing it by car sharing or shifting to public transport, cycling and walking, could help to reduce emissions.
There are two ways to reduce CO2 emissions from cars: by making vehicles more efficient or by changing the fuel used. In 2019, the majority of cars road transport in Europe used diesel (67%) followed by petrol (25%).
However, electric cars are gaining traction, representing 17.8% of all new registered passenger vehicles in 2021, a significant increase from 10.7% in 2020.
Sales of electric vehicles – battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles – have surged since 2017 and tripled in 2020 when the current CO2 targets started to apply.
Electric vans accounted for 3.1% of the market share for new registered vans in 2021.
To calculate the amount of CO2 produced by a car, not only the CO2 emitted during use must be taken into account, but also the emissions caused by its production and disposal.
The production and disposal of an electric car is less environmentally friendly than that of a car with an internal combustion engine and the level of emissions from electric vehicles varies depending on how the electricity is produced.
However, taking into account the average energy mix in Europe, electric cars are already proving to be cleaner than vehicles running on petrol. As the share of electricity from renewable sources is set to increase in the future, electric cars should become even less harmful for the environment, especially given EU plans to make batteries more sustainable.
