Environment

There have been systematic efforts since the 1970s to reduce the environmental impacts – mainly exhaust emissions and noise – of motor vehicles. Thanks to the introduction of, for example, catalytic converters, the exhaust emissions of motor vehicles have decreased significantly during the past decades.

Adopting the principles of sustainable development in road transport will require further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and dependency on oil. This in turn will require further reducing the energy demand of motor vehicles and adopting low-carbon or carbon-neutral energy sources.

With new sources of power, it is possible to achieve much lower emissions than those of today’s internal combustion engines: the emissions of diesel hybrids are about 30% lower, those of chargeable hybrids about 30–90% lower, and those of full electric vehicles about 60–90% lower, depending on the source of energy used to produce the electricity. Internal combustion engines are also developing continuously, and they will remain an important source of power for decades. The emissions of internal combustion engines are expected to decrease by about 20% by 2020.

New waste- and wood-based fuels can achieve about 20–50% lower emissions than today’s fossil fuels. In the future, hydrogen is expected to become a significant fuel for both electric vehicles and vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Hydrogen could enable up to 80–99% lower emissions when compared to today’s internal combustion engines. The emissions savings naturally depend on the energy used to produce the hydrogen (renewable, nuclear, fossil, etc.).

The emissions caused by the manufacture of motor vehicles represent only a fraction of the emissions created by their actual use. For example, a small family car with a fuel consumption of about 8 litres per 100 kilometres will consume about 90% of its total energy demand during 150,000 kilometres of driving. The manufacture and raw materials of the same car only represent about 10% of the total energy. Replacing a motor vehicle with a new one with lower emissions will deliver environmental benefits relatively quickly. If the emissions of the new vehicle are significantly lower than those of the old vehicle, then these benefits will be realized already within a few years of use.