Energy

Growing Popularity Of SUVs Complicates Efforts To Reign In Auto Emissions


SUVs are conquering the world. That’s a problem for efforts to reign in emissions from the global transportation sector, which accounts for roughly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

For the first time ever in the U.S. last year, sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) likely accounted for half or just over half of all vehicles sold, according to recent data from IHS Markit, a data and analytics firm. Others are rapidly catching up. Between 2010 and 2019, the share of SUVs in overall car sales in China jumped from 14% to 44%. In In Europe the SUV share climbed from 10% to 36%. 

The SUV’s popularity is effectively negating the annual fuel efficiency gains from better technology and tightening fuel economy standards. The average fuel efficiency increases of light-duty vehicles per year has slowed to only around 1.3% in recent years — down from the roughly 2% per year in the handful of years prior, and well below the roughly 3% needed merely to keep total global emissions from cars from rising.

“Consumer demand for larger vehicles has risen significantly,” says a report released last year by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), a partnership between the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and others. This “has led to a slackening – or in some cases even reversal – of national rates of fuel consumption improvements.”

SUVs aren’t the only thing stymieing fuel efficiency gains. Other factors include a declining share of sales of diesel vehicles, which consume slightly less fuel than engines that run on gasoline, and relatively low fuel prices in recent years. Still, the growing popularity of gas-hungry SUVs is among the most important roadblocks, and arguably the one likely to stick around the longest. SUVs are generally around 15-30% less fuel efficient than their smaller predecessor, the sedan.

Auto manufacturers have a strong incentive to push consumers to opt for larger vehicles, since the amount of profit earned per vehicle sold is higher for SUVs than for sedans. To lure more buyers, auto companies have introduced a greater variety of new choices of SUVs than they have for sedans and other passenger cars, said Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at data and analytics firm IHS Markit, in emailed comments.

Another key reason why SUVs are growing in popularity? They’re simply bigger and better than sedans, Brinley suggested.

“Utility vehicles are more practical than passenger cars, and US consumers tend to choose vehicles based on occasional use needs more than daily driver/commute needs,” she said. “There was a time when sedans dominated, but utility vehicles simply move people and their stuff around easier.”

SUVs are also harder to electrify than sedans and other passenger cars, presenting another challenge to reigning in auto sector emissions. Their larger bodies and powertrains require bigger batteries capable of pumping out more electricity.

Of the roughly 27.5 million SUVs sold around the world last year, only 1.8% were pure electric (excluding hybrids), said Felipe Munoz, a senior analyst at JATO Dynamics, an auto data provider, in an email. “Bear in mind that most of the current SUV offers do not feature pure electric versions, and the very few are quite expensive.”

If they offer any electric SUVs, major automakers so far offer only about one apiece, a minuscule number compared to the array of traditional SUVs on offer. Tesla is a leader with both the Model Y and the more expensive Model X; Ford recently introduced a model called the Mach-E; Volkswagen has the ID.4 Crozz; and Chinese automakers Nio, Li Auto and WM Motor each have their own electric SUVs.

More electric SUV models are on the way, and, eventually, they could well make up a majority of cars on the road. States like California want all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2035, while the European Union reportedly wants 30 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. (About 15 million light vehicles were sold last year in Europe.)

But this coming updraft of electric SUVs hasn’t happened yet — nor was it helped by the pandemic, at least not in the U.S. According to figures from auto intelligence provider J.D. Power, the share of both battery electric vehicles and plug-in electric vehicles fell in 2020 compared to 2019.

For now, then, vehicles may well be growing bigger faster than they are becoming electric.



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