Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 26 Sep 2023

Impact on Carbon Budgets of Trend Towards Heavier and Larger Vehicles: Discussion

An Cathaoirleach

Apologies have been received from Deputy Whitmore. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the impact on carbon budgets arising from the growing trend in car sales towards heavier and larger vehicles, such as sports utility vehicles, SUVs. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Professor Hannah Daly, professor in sustainable energy and energy systems modelling at University College Cork, UCC, MaREI; Mr. James Nix, climate director of Transport & Environment in Brussels; Dr. Peter Mock, managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation, ICTT, Europe; and Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos of the International Energy Agency. I thank them for attending at short notice. This was a quickly arranged meeting and we appreciate them doing so.

Before we begin, I will read a note on privilege to remind witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise nor make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction. For witnesses attending remotely from outside the Leinster House campus, as are all of today's guests, there are limitations to parliamentary privilege and, as such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness who is physically present in the room.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I ask members who are joining online to confirm, by sending a note to the clerk to the committee, that they are participating from the Leinster House complex.

I invite Professor Daly to make her opening statement.

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank the committee for the opportunity to provide evidence and discuss this topic. I am a professor in sustainable energy at the school of engineering and the Science Foundation Ireland MaREI centre at University College Cork. I research options across the Irish energy system to deliver rapid decarbonisation. Even with the enactment of the far-reaching targets outlined in the climate action plan, the transport sector is set to significantly overshoot its allocated sectoral emissions ceiling. Carrying forward this overshoot to subsequent carbon budget periods would require increasingly infeasible decarbonisation trajectories after 2030, so mitigation measures must be enhanced and accelerated.

Carbon budgets are essentially fossil fuel budgets. While it is important to set targets for clean energy measures in the future, such as electric vehicles, EVs, public transport and biofuels, it is cumulative fossil fuel use that ultimately matters for climate change and for our legislated carbon budgets. Even though decarbonisation measures are starting to be deployed, fossil fuel use in transport is not falling and greenhouse gases are rising. We are running just to stand still. To illustrate, for example, the blending of biofuels in transport fuels is growing but petrol and diesel volumes have also grown so far this year, and are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. The sale of full battery electric vehicles grew by 60% so far this year relative to the same period last year, and EVs now represent 18% of new car sales, which is a positive trend. However, despite this, the sale of fossil fuelled cars is also growing, in fact, by more than EVs. Meanwhile, even though public transport usage is growing, total car traffic volumes are as high as ever. According to the most recent census, nearly four times more children and students travel to school, childcare and college by car compared to 1986. Rates of walking, cycling and public transport use have fallen significantly since then. Car dependency is extremely high, and is a leading driver of greenhouse gas emissions in transport.

What we are here to discuss today is the type of cars being sold. That is another important driver of greenhouse gases. Cars are getting bigger and heavier, which is offsetting efficiency gains from technology improvements. The average mass of new passenger car vehicles sold in Ireland increased by 25% in the past two decades. Cars are now 300 kg heavier than they were in 2001. The mass of individual car models is growing but sales are also shifting towards larger and heavier vehicle types, such as sports utility vehicles, SUVs. That trend is not being caused by vehicle electrification. Larger cars require more energy and emit more CO2 because of a few factors. The greater mass requires more energy to move. The size and shape cause less favourable aerodynamics; these cars create more drag. Greater material requirement creates larger embodied carbon emissions at the manufacturing stage. Efficiency improvements in new passenger cars have stalled since 2014, partially because of this trend.

We did some analysis in UCC and we estimate that had vehicle mass remained as it was two decades ago, without the increase of 300 kg, the average CO2 intensity of new passenger cars would be 10% lower than it currently is, all else being equal. Over the lifetime of a car driving 300,000 km, this amounts to an extra 1,500 l of fuel. This aggravates cost-of-living expenses, energy import dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. That extra weight causes an additional 3.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions from a typical vehicle, and an additional carbon taxation burden on drivers. There is a compelling argument to include weight and vehicle footprint in the calculation of vehicle registration tax, VRT, for both fossil fuelled and electric cars. We undertook analysis which found that introducing a policy measure to cut the CO2 intensity of new vehicles from 2024 would reduce the cumulative emissions from the transport sector by 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 in the period to 2035, which would contribute substantially to addressing the projected overshoot of the legislated sectoral emissions ceilings.

While greater greenhouse gas savings can be achieved from addressing the weight of fossil fuelled cars, the increasing weight in EVs is also of concern.

Currently, Irish vehicle taxation does not distinguish between EVs on the basis of efficiency, weight or size, which is a missed opportunity. Heavier EVs are less efficient, consume more electricity and put additional strain on power generation and renewable electricity deployment as we decarbonise the power sector. A continued trend towards heavier EVs could create additional electricity demand equivalent to the electricity generated by 200 MW of onshore wind capacity, more than all the capacity added in 2022.

Speed is crucial for accruing carbon savings. Enacting a policy to reduce the weight of new cars and effecting that improvement in efficiency in 2024 has 28 times more impact on our carbon budgets over that period than implementing that policy in 2030. It is also fairer and more effective to apply taxation at the point of initial sale, rather than over a car’s use and lifetime. The new car market from now determines the second-hand car market in the next two decades and there is no policy signal to shift consumers to smaller or lighter cars. There are additional grounds for modifying car taxation to include weight and vehicle footprint on the grounds of public safety, given the additional hazards for vulnerable road users, as we promote walking and cycling, as well as the space larger cars take in urban areas, and their greater noise and air pollution.

There is a real urgency to expand the range of mitigation measures in the transport sector. The increased size and weight of passenger cars has various negative implications for fuel consumption and public health, which could be addressed through taxation.

Dr. Peter Mock

I will show some slides as I give my statement and I will build on what Professor Daly has said. We have a publication that we update every year and in that publication we show statistics on the vehicle market in Europe, and there is one statistic that is impressive, which shows the growth in SUV registrations over time. Members can see that from 2001, which we set as the starting point at 100%, the registration numbers for SUVs increased dramatically. Today they are at about 1,000%, compared with the 100% in 2001. That statistic illustrates nicely how the market has changed and how many SUVs we have on the road today.

However, not every SUV is a problem and not every SUV is much heavier than, let us say a limousine. In the current slide members can see one of the most famous or popular SUVs in Europe; it is the Volkswagen T-Roc, in comparison with the Volkswagen Golf, which is the most similar vehicle. As members can see in this example, both cars have the same power and pretty much the same weight but still the SUV has significantly higher CO2 emissions. Why is that? It is not only because of the weight but it is also the aerodynamics. If you drive the SUV-type vehicle, especially on the highway, the resistance from the air is much higher and that increases fuel consumption and emissions.

The real problem is not just the increase in SUVs but it is also the overall increase in vehicle size and weight. In the current slide members can see the first Volkswagen Golf from 1974 in comparison with today's Volkswagen Golf from 2023. What members can see is that today's Volkswagen Golf is significantly larger and higher but it is also much heavier than the original Volkswagen Golf. That is not only a problem because of CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, because the heavier the vehicle the more the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption typically are, but it is also a problem for pedestrian safety. It is a problem for cities, for the space in cities and for the road infrastructure, which gets damaged quickly if vehicles are heavier. The current slide shows another chart from our annual publication. What members can see here is that over time, the engine power and weight of vehicles in Europe have increased drastically and that CO2 emissions have gone down, at least on paper. However, if we did not have that great increase in SUVs and engine power, CO2 emissions could have decreased much more than they did.

Now we are moving to EVs so you could argue that fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are not that important any more. Even a heavy and big SUV could have zero emissions if it is electrified. However, then we are running into another problem, which is energy consumption.

It is nicely illustrated by the example of a new BMW XM SUV. It is a pretty powerful vehicle and a very heavy one. It weighs approximately 2.7 tonnes. It is not fully battery operated but is a plug-in hybrid vehicle. Officially, it has an electric range of 88 km and a fuel consumption of 1.6 l per 100 km. In reality, however, because the vehicle is so heavy and big, it consumes approximately 14.5 l per 100 km on the highway. The CO2 emissions are also much higher than advertised. That is not only a problem for plug-in hybrids but also for fully battery electric vehicles. The heavier they are, the bigger the batteries needs to be and the bigger the energy consumption and resources that need to be put into the production of the batteries.

I agree with what Professor Daly said. We need to be more cautious about vehicle weight and, ideally, it should be regulated. Looking across Europe, some examples of this can already be seen. France, for example, has what it calls a bonus malus vehicle taxation system when a vehicle is registered and purchased. For any vehicle heavier than 1.6 tonnes, from next year on, €1,000 will be charged per additional 100 kg. It is a substantial penalty for heavier vehicles. It is even more strict in Norway. It has had this rule for several years now. Norway has a taxation system based on the vehicle mass, its CO2 emissions and its nitrogen oxide emissions. Even if the weight component only is considered, approximately €2,000 per 100 kg is charged, which can easily add up to €11,000 for a 1.8 tonne passenger car.

I look forward to any questions the committee might have. My overall message is that heavier vehicles pose a problem. These include combustion engine vehicles but especially electric cars. We have seen some regulations in other parts of Europe where governments have tried to put a penalty on those vehicles.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Dr. Mock for his presentation. It was very interesting.

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos

I thank the committee for the invitation. As Professor Daly and Dr. Mock mentioned, we are talking about a structural shift towards the larger and less fuel-efficient vehicles known as SUVs. To give an overview of what is happening globally, last year, approximately one in two new car registrations were SUVs. We have seen exponential sales growth take place, mainly in the US, India and Europe. However, the most important impact of this is on the environment. If we compare an SUV versus an average medium-sized car, at a global level, it consumes approximately 20% more energy. In Europe, due to the particularity of its market where there is much more crossover with smaller SUVs, this number is approximately 10%. Globally, there are 330 million SUVs, which emit nearly 1 billion tonnes of CO2. If that is treated as a single category, we rank that as the world's sixth largest emitter of CO2 in 2022.

Of course, most policies focus on electrification and how we reach fuel-efficiency targets, but the IEA would like to shed light on how the size of the vehicle really matters and how downsizing policies will help meet all the different climate pledges. Even if some positive aspects are already happening, for example, we see quite a few models are electric SUVs, by far the majority of SUVs currently on the roads rely on fossil fuels. We are talking about 98% globally. On the one side, as the previous speakers mentioned, SUVs need additional energy and have higher weight, so this issue is linked to that.

However, even if we see electrification as a silver bullet, having an electrified SUV brings different problems. For example, if we consider battery size, an average SUV has a 70 kilowatt hour battery versus a normal car which has a 50 kilowatt hour battery. This will put additional stresses and risks on the supply chains of critical minerals. To add to what Dr. Mock presented, we are already seeing governments put in place different policies in order to discourage the shift towards SUVs. We have some positive examples arising from the bonus malus system in France. In Germany, they have started a discussion on having taxes on large and high emission vehicles like SUVs. Thank you for the time and I am happy to take questions.

An Cathaoirleach

Thank you, Mr. Petropoulous for your opening statement. I will now ask Mr. Nix to make his opening statement.

Mr. James Nix

I will give a little bit of background about my organisation. Our Irish members are the Irish Environmental Network and An Taisce. We have about 60 members all across Europe, and we are working for cleaner and safer trends. This presentation is complementing what the other speakers have said. I will give some key statistics, then a word safety, a little bit more detail on France's weight tax and then some suggestions for Ireland.

From 2017-18 onwards, average weight rises quite sharply right across Europe, and Ireland is no different. It had been reasonably stable between 2010 and 2017. We have touched on why and how this happens before. The yellow dots represent SUV sales and essentially, they come to dominate and that trend is continued across the early 2020s These are data from France, taking all different vehicle types and showing their penetration and sales, but the trend is similar across Europe.

We have talked a little bit already about how over the past seven years SUVs, have gone from just over 20% to now just over 50% but 70% in the case of hybrids. The slide on display shows the data over the same time period for Ireland, looking at a time horizon from 2017 to 2022 where about 18 kg every year is being added to the weight of a new passenger car. It is more for electric cars as they are SUV-ised and given greater range.

The issue with safety is twofold. One is lower vision. As can be seen with the black car on the current slide, in the case of the taller vehicles, up to 12 or 13 children can be seated in front without the driver seeing them and as a result, there are more fatal collisions, particularly involving children. The other issue is that when a high-fronted vehicle strikes a cyclist or pedestrian, the severity of injury is much worse and rates of deaths and serious injury are much worse. As can be seen in the image on display, generally, the torso is impacted, which affects the vital organs in the centre of the body. It is very difficult to recover from those kinds of impacts.

The current slide shows a headline from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the US on the impact on pedestrians and cyclists, stating that today's SUVs are more lethal than other cars. We have talked about the impact of vehicle height and the likelihood of the vehicle running over the injured party rather than deflecting, which is what lower fronted vehicles are more likely to do. Head injuries are particularly acute in the vast majority of case where an SUV is involved.

I will speak now about what is happening with tax. Dr. Mock referred to the situation in France. As the slide shows, since January 2022, when France introduced a weight tax, there is €10 payable for every kilogram above the threshold of 800 kg. Taking an example of a vehicle weighing 1,850 kg, an additional €500 is payable upon registration. Since 2022, France has exempted hybrid and fully electric vehicles, EVs, but they are very much in the crosshairs. There is a realisation that as their sales increase, they will need to be brought within the tax net. There are exemptions, such as that relating to wheelchair-accessible vehicles, as I have flagged. As Dr. Mock mentioned, France plans to lower the weight threshold from 1,800 kg to 1,600 kg from 1 January 2024. Consideration was given to including hybrid and electric vehicles in the tax but, from what we hear, they will remain excluded, with the possibility of their inclusion in budget 2025.

As to what we could do here in Ireland, I suggest that we apply the threshold level for a weight tax at the 2022 French level but include hybrid vehicles. Dr. Mock's evidence on those vehicles is particularly noteworthy in that their emissions are nowhere near what is claimed. Battery electric vehicles, BEVs, could stay out for the initial year at least. What would this mean? Having looked at the 2021 registration data, my proposal would capture the heaviest 10% of new internal combustion engine, ICE, and hybrid sales. Departmental officials often note that there is a short time window to get a new tax measure ready for 1 January. My suggestion is to use the upcoming budget to flag that a tax will apply from mid-year, for the second vehicle registration period starting on 1 July. Subsequent phases could follow that. There is already discussion in France and other countries on what higher threshold could and should be applied to EVs. A like-for-like comparison would suggest it should be set at approximately 300 kg more than the limit for other vehicles. A signal really needs to be sent in this regard and there is a good opportunity to do so on 10 October. That is my key suggestion.

I thank the committee for the kind invitation to attend this meeting. I am happy to take members' questions.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Mr. Nix for his presentation. I will now take questions. I remind colleagues that we have agreed there will be five minutes per person for questions and answers. I will be as fair as I can be in this regard. If witnesses want to respond to a question, even if it is addressed to somebody else, they should indicate and I will call them in due course. The first speaker is Deputy O'Sullivan.

Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. The Chairman will be revelling in this SUV bashing as he certainly is not a fan. Not many of us are fans. The discussion so far has been very one-sided but defending SUVs is difficult, especially when we consider the information in Mr. Nix's last slide, which referred to the safety implications of these larger cars. It is very hard to defend any policy that includes SUVs. However, we will carry on with questions.

I am an advocate for EVs, particularly those that are fully electric. There are many myths about EVs relating to their range. We hear lots of debate in the Chamber, with stories about a person who can only drive 100 m up the road before his EV breaks down. That is not what is happening. EVs are reliable and they have long and increasing ranges. They are not worse for the environment, as many bashers of EVs would have us believe.

They will play a large part in the future of transport in Ireland, particularly when we are looking to decarbonise. For this reason, I will champion EVs. Obviously there is a cost implication that we need to address, which leads to one of my questions. My questions are directed at all the witnesses.

Professor Daly touched on the increase in sales of EVs, which was outdone by the increase in the sales of SUVs. What impact has the reduction in grants for EVs had on the attractiveness of purchasing these vehicles? Do we need to maintain or increase those grants? There is an issue with benefit-in-kind, which also seems to have an effect on the attractiveness of EVs for businesses for their employees.

What impact has the slow speed of the roll-out of fast charging points had on the attractiveness of EVs as a viable option? Motorways, central highways and urban areas are very well served by fast-charging points but, unfortunately, the west and some of the peripheral areas are not. EVs can really contribute to reducing emissions in transport in those rural areas we are struggling to provide with adequate public transport. Should that be part of the policy?

I know the price of EVs is becoming more competitive but, for the most part, they are expensive. What is the cost of buying a brand-new SUV versus the cost of buying a fully electric car? When we talk about new vehicles, there does not seem to be much of a difference. Obviously the second-hand market is an issue.

I was going to touch on the size of cars in the US because when you look at the size of SUVs in the US, it is hard to fathom how big they are getting. Will the witnesses comment on that? Regarding Professor Daly's point about the size of fully electric SUVs, as we move towards a decarbonised energy system, which basically involves its electrification, will that reduce the impact of the size of SUVs? Families, particularly larger families, benefit from having bigger cars because it is far more convenient.

Professor Hannah Daly

I am happy to take a few of those questions. I would not like to frame my contribution as SUV bashing. I would advocate a more efficient transport system that is safer for vulnerable road users in particular. In general, I agree with the Deputy's comments that EVs are the future of passenger cars and are reliable and increasingly affordable. EV sales are growing exponentially. They grew by about 60% so far this year relative to last year, which is a very positive trend, but the growth in sales is slowing down. Before the cutting of the grant, it was something like 80% to 100% growth every year. This is an observation rather than tying the change to the cutting of the grant. The grant was cut along with increasingly more affordable lower cost EV models coming on stream. There are valid distributional concerns about continuing to subsidise new vehicles. While the carbon tax, to which people who drive fossil fuel cars are subject, is increasing, and given that we want to strike a balance between carrots and sticks, I do not think it would be valid to increase the grant again but we must cut fossil fuel car sales as quickly as possible. Again, to reinforce my statement, it is not so much about rolling out more EVs; it is about cutting new fossil fuel car sales and their use.

This is why putting a tax on the upfront cost of new fossil fuel cars is more effective than meeting our carbon budgets. Once a new fossil fuel car enters the market, it is going to emit dozens of tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, well into the third and maybe the fourth carbon budget period. Anecdotally, the slow roll-out of the fast-charging network is a barrier to the uptake of EVs. People still think that the lack of such a network, or the poor charging network, is a barrier. Most people will charge at home but it is still very important for people who take long journeys to have access to a reliable charging network. I agree with the Deputy that EVs will have a big impact on rural transport.

Deputy O'Sullivan also asked about the cost of EVs versus SUVs. The average new car bought in Ireland costs around €40,000 - I do not have the latest information there - but there are EVs on the market that will do more than 400 km on a single charge which cost around €30,000. While you are not going to get a large luxury seven-seater EV for that, it is well within the budget of most people who buy new cars to buy an electric car. They might have a preference for a larger, higher, more luxury brand but cost is not such a major barrier. However, availability of electric cars on the second-hand car market is a real barrier to their affordability for the majority of people. That is something that can only be addressed by increasing new car sales now and in the second-hand car market.

As a segue, and something I did not cover in my initial statement, we also need to be very mindful of used car imports. Right now, almost all used car imports are fossil fuel vehicles. There is a missing piece there on incentivising the import of second-hand EVs and targeting the wait for second-hand imports, which mainly come from the UK.

The final question was on renewables. It is true that as electricity decarbonises, additional demand on electricity from electric cars, as well as heat pumps and other sources of electricity demand, becomes less impactful on CO2 emissions. As the power sector is already struggling to reduce its emissions while growing demand significantly, any additional demand creates more emissions or else will strain renewables deployment. As I said, the difference between EVs becoming more efficient and smaller versus EVs continuing to grow in weight and becoming less energy-efficient will consume 200 MW of wind capacity in 2030 or else it will increase emissions. It is very important to electrify transport but at the same time to do it as efficiently as possible.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Professor Daly for that. Does anybody else want to come in on those questions?

Dr. Peter Mock

I will add to this and provide the European perspective first of all. In the first half of this year, we had about 14% battery EVs in Europe among the new car registrations. That is pretty much the same amount or share as last year. At the European level, the market share for EVs is stagnating at the moment. That has a lot to do with the CO2 standards at European level, which are not demanding enough.

From what I understand, Ireland had between 20% and 30% of the market share in the first half of this year, which is definitely above the European average. In June, it was about 50% which I assume relates to the fact that the grant was about to be reduced in Ireland so people probably wanted to get EVs at the last minute. Even with the lower grant Ireland is now providing, the total cost of ownership for electric cars still looks very positive. It is not only about the purchase costs. One has to look at the total costs throughout the usage rates of the vehicle. Our analysis shows, at least in the compact cars segment, that even without any grant, EVs are already competitive today. The real problem is with small electric cars because typically there are not enough offered at the moment and they tend to be relatively expensive compared to the counter-powered vehicles.

I recommend that we focus more on that social aspect and make it easier for people with a lower income to have access to electric cars. Typically, that means supporting them with smaller electric cars which are more affordable and also making sure used cars become available more quickly. That is also linked to the weight aspect we just discussed because typically the heavier, SUV-type vehicles are the more expensive vehicles. It should be possible to develop a taxation system that has a higher tax for those types of vehicles, those which are bigger and more expensive, and provides a stronger incentive, a grant, for those types of vehicles that are smaller and lighter. That would benefit people on lower incomes more. It is the equity aspect that I want to highlight.

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos

It is true that when we are trying to reach the climate targets and curb emissions we need to target highly utilised cars. It makes sense that in rural areas where people run their cars more, they gain more from electrifying their car. We also need to look at different company cars and what leasing companies offer consumers. We must try to electrify as quickly as possible those areas where the majority of emissions exist.

On electricity, we are at the worst point in terms of carbon intensity because in future, there is great potential from solar and wind. Renewables are becoming very cost competitive. What is happening in the power sector is not worrying because, on one hand, renewables are becoming cost competitive while, on the other, there are ambitious EU targets to decarbonise the system. We have been talking about the penetration of electrified SUVs in the EU but in China there has been big penetration of smaller city cars, which are relatively cheap for the consumers. Dr. Mock mentioned the need to keep in mind and advocate on that. EVs have a higher upfront cost but running costs are much less than for vehicles with an internal combustion engine. This means that the pay-back period means it is not impossible for consumers. For this reason, Governments need to find mechanisms to support consumers to that end.

Mr. James Nix

I emphasise Professor Daly’s point about comparative advantage. The comparative advantage for EVs will be supported by taxing the internal combustion engine and hybrid passenger vehicles first and with a lower threshold than might apply to EVs in future years. That change is quite urgent now. When we see that high fossil fuel figures remain and are continuing down to the car market, there is a case to act quickly.

The other point is the erosion of the tax base as the new fleet increasingly electrifies. Some form of tax will be needed to replace that loss of revenue as the fleet electrifies. That is why we are seeing increasing attention in France, Germany and other countries on weight taxation.

On the EV side, it is also about restraining that EV size growth for reasons of protecting the grid, wider safety issues and the need to keep resource consumption as reasonable and as low as possible.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I thank the witnesses for the interesting presentations. To get down to brass tacks, as they say, can the witnesses give us a label for each car being sold that would indicate weight or embodied carbon - I do not know whether they are the same thing or are linearly connected - and its CO2 over a prospective 300,000 km lifetime? It would be a huge step forward if we could see that information for the different cars that consumers are contemplating purchasing.

Allied to that is my next question. The paper from Dr. Peter Mock stated that the advertised fuel efficiency of hybrid cars was out by a factor of nine in terms of the performance recorded, which was 14.5 l for 100 km, versus the advertised fuel consumption of a BMW hybrid. How can that not be a misleading description if the figures are so dramatically out?

In an Irish context, no car is made in Ireland. Therefore, the embodied carbon of these huge cars does not count in our national inventory. Should there be some system in place in Europe to ensure the thinking about national policy does not ignore the fact that we are buying cars which are imported, with such huge impacts? Is Europe, and the Paris inventory system, unwittingly promoting some myopia in the way policies are discarded?

How was the figure of €10 per kilogram arrived at? Is there some carbon equivalent basis? Is there something behind that or did someone put their finger in the air to see what the market would bear at a given time?

My last question relates to the outstanding stock of cars. One paper referred to incentives to discard them and replace them with more efficient vehicles. If people get rid of a car with an embodied carbon cost of ten or 20 tonnes or whatever and replace it with a new one which has a slightly lower embodied carbon, there is a gain of, I understand, 3.5 tonnes, as stated in one paper, over the lifetime of the vehicle. By promoting the scrapping of cars with a lot of embodied carbon, would we end up worse off? There will be more efficient cars on the roads, but we will have dumped a lot of embodied carbon. Is there a balance to be struck in the second-hand market in terms of what we really promote?

Dr. Peter Mock

I can briefly answer the question on plug-in hybrids and leave it up to my colleagues to respond to the other questions. In the example I showed, the BMW vehicle, at least according to the test drive from the magazine I cited, has fuel consumption and CO2 emissions about nine times higher than other vehicles advertised. That may be an extreme example, but we have analysed plug-in hybrid vehicles for markets in Europe and worldwide for several years. Based on data from thousands of vehicles, I can say that the typical plug-in hybrid car, as a company car, consumes about five times more fuel and emits about five times more CO2 than advertised, on average. A plug-in hybrid vehicle used as a private car uses about three times as much. It is not nine times as much, but a figure which is three or five times higher is significantly more than one would expect.

The European Commission has acknowledged this and in the meantime has changed the regulations so that from 2025 onwards the procedure for determining the official fuel consumption and CO2 values of plug-in hybrids will change.

From 2025 onwards, the advertised numbers will become a lot more realistic than they are today. That is still a little bit in the future but we can already see the implications of it today because most manufacturers are moving away from plug-in hybrids. They are not on offer as much as they used to be and people are not buying them so much any more. At least we are moving in the right direction but we still have some extreme cases, as the BMW vehicle that I referred to demonstrates. The real problem for the future is the energy consumption of battery EVs because plug-in hybrid vehicles will disappear from the market in the next couple of years for sure.

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank Deputy Bruton for his questions. On plug-in hybrids, it is important to understand that people do not plug them in as much as the tests assume.

On labelling, if I understood the question correctly, the Deputy asked whether we can label cars with their lifetime emissions and fuel consumption. That would be a straightforward thing to enact because we know from vehicle testing what they emit per kilometre and there is a standardised advertisement of weight, known as the kerb weight of a vehicle, when it is sold. That would be a straightforward thing to add to cars at the advertising stage. It would also be straightforward to include weight as a component in the vehicle registration tax. Norway has done that, for example, along with carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, as we have done. It would be a straightforward part of calculating the tax. Advertising information-----

Deputy Richard Bruton

Is there a linear connection between weight and embodied carbon? Is that a straightforward multiplication?

Professor Hannah Daly

The rationale for including a tax on weight would be more than just embodied carbon. It would be reflective of both environmental damage and public health damage. The latter is related to weight but I would not be able to give the Deputy a number on that. I do not know where-----

Deputy Richard Bruton

Is there a simple way of converting weight into embodied carbon? People do look at the figures for embodied carbon but they may not look at the figures for higher accident rates or greater road maintenance. The latter are issues for Government. Can we calculate the embodied carbon of different cars?

Professor Hannah Daly

No, not with any degree of certainty because we do not track the embodied carbon of individual car models. That would depend on where they are manufactured and the power grid in the countries in which they are made. We do not regulate for embodied carbon but we do have a target in the climate action plan to start tracking embodied carbon or at least consumption-based emissions from imported goods. The main emissions from any vehicle come from its use rather than its manufacture.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Is that correct? I have seen newspaper articles quoting very substantial numbers for the embodied carbon of SUVs, which are much greater than their lifetime fuel consumption.

Professor Hannah Daly

I can get back to the Deputy with some studies on that.

The Deputy's last question was on incentivising the scrappage of older, second-hand cars. EVs have a higher embodied carbon because they have a higher weight and the battery takes more carbon to manufacture. However, that extra carbon typically pays back over the course of driving between 15,000 to 20,000 km, or one year of driving. The most effective policy is to stop selling new fossil-fuel cars in the first place because then we will not have to scrap those. That said, if it does come to scrapping second-hand cars, if those were replaced with efficient EVs, there would be a substantial carbon saving, even with the embodied carbon in the EVs.

An Cathaoirleach

Am I correct that this was the rationale for Professor Daly's research, and that it was not looking at embodied carbon it was looking at these vehicles driving over the course of their lives, and how that would require our energy system to be ramped up to support that and, therefore, the emissions linked to that as well?

Professor Hannah Daly

That is correct, yes.

Mr. James Nix

I will speak briefly on the situation in France. Hybrids were excluded from the 22 measures largely down to representations from French car makers Renault and Citroën who have heavily invested in hybrids. Obviously, that is not a consideration that would apply in Ireland.

On the €10 figure, I have not seen research data around the selection of that figure but in very rough terms let us say the heavy hybrids, such as that given by Dr. Mock in the example, are approximately 2.8 tonnes. If someone was to go 1,000 kg above the existing French trésor, an additional VRT cost may be €10,000. I believe it was a little bit pitched or calibrated based on trying to push back on the growth of the very heavy internal combustion cars.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Mr. Nix.

Dr. Peter Mock

I will just jump in here on the embodied carbon. It is true that for a combustion engine car, the production phase only accounts for approximately 10% of a vehicle's total greenhouse gas emissions. For a battery EV, that changes about half of the emissions come from the production phase. The overall emissions of the vehicle are much lower than for the combustion engine car but the production phase, and the embodied carbon, is much more for battery EVs. I agree with Mr. Nix that the idea of introducing a tax on weight is not so much about the embodied carbon but because of the overall CO2 emissions, pedestrian safety and so on.

The labelling or the monitoring of CO2 emissions for the production phase is super complex, as Dr. Daly has said. One would really need to go many steps back in the supply chain. This is something that is under way and some manufacturers are trying to build up a system that would accumulate all these numbers. There are also governments looking into this. Such a database is being built in China. I expect that in the next years in Europe we will do much better in monitoring what are the carbon emissions for vehicles. At some point we may regulate it also but we are not there yet. We do not have good data on this at the moment and this is not something we can communicate to the customer.

Senator Lynn Boylan

I thank everybody for the really interesting presentations. There is a lot of information for us to digest. My first point is to pick up on that comment of SUV bashing. A narrative is put out there that people begrudge others having new cars or high-end cars. It is not about that; it is actually about the design of the SUV. Apart from the weight of the vehicle and its carbon impact, it is also about anybody who uses the road. As a pedestrian or a cyclist knows, they feel much less safe on the roads now as a result of the design of the cars.

I was struck by what was said about efficiency having stalled since 2014. Is anything happening at an EU level regarding the design of vehicles to bring the bonnets back down? We have seen so much progress in making cars safer for the drivers and passengers with air bags and seat belts but it seems bizarre that we now allow the proliferation of cars that are actually really dangerous for other road users. Is anything happening at EU level in this regard? I would be very interested to hear about that.

My other question is around how we disincentivise people from buying these cars. I am aware that for SEAI grants, there is a cap on the value of cars but should we also look at company cars and the fact there is no cap on the tax benefit? Should that also be an option whereby we would look to disincentivise companies buying their employees these very high-end and heavy vehicles?

I have another question because I do not pull a trailer, and I do not have a boat or a horse. Is 1,600 kg quite a large vehicle when you look at the French model? For that urban-rural divide, or for people who need a heavier vehicle for their day-to-day lives, would a 1,600 kg vehicle do the job? I honestly do not know, so I wonder if anyone can answer that question. My final point was about Norway, which has been cited a couple of times. One of the incentives they brought in to encourage people to buy electric cars was to remove toll fees for them. Is there a possibility that you could distinguish between passenger cars on weight when it comes to toll bridges too? Is there any jurisdiction doing that?

Mr. James Nix

Regrettably, the answer to the Senator's first question is "No". There is very little action at EU level to bring down the bonnet height. Unfortunately, we are seeing the trends going in the opposite direction. We are noticing double digit growth in the importation of US pick-up trucks - Dodges, Rams, Ford F-150s and so on. It is all going in the wrong direction on that. I think there is a pushback against the weight tax because, for example in France, commercial vehicles are not generally included. Vans, farm jeeps and anything registered to a commercial user are out, with the exception of vehicles with four seats. These are sometimes known as crew cab pick-ups with a flatbed at the back and so on. What they are trying to do in the design of the weight tax is stop large pick-ups from becoming ordinary passenger vehicles.

The Senator asked a question about 1,600 kg vehicles. We have looked at mid-market Audi cars with an internal combustion engine for example. They are about 1,500 kg. A point mentioned earlier referred to bank or club seating for larger families. This is where three children can be strapped in across the back with a single unit car seat. There are definitely solutions. They are not very well known, but it is not true to say that a medium-sized car cannot take three child seats across the back. They can, but they need to be unified child seats.

We see some analysis of what tolling could do, but it is generally localised and there is not any EU push to vary toll rates based on passenger vehicle weight.

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos

As has been mentioned, it does not exist yet at EU level. There are some initiatives and discussions. For instance, Belgium or Germany are talking about this trend towards SUVs. In terms of ways to disincentivise, we have already mentioned miles and bonus policies, which exist in France. There are even some policies about parking and also congestion. Depending on how big your car is, there is an additional fee for your parking slot. What can be done at EU level is to look more closely at the different fuel economy targets, where they use a reference like where the fuel economy target varies depending on whether it is a heavier or lighter car. There is always a reference weight for that. What needs to be done is to look more closely at that and incentivise the penetration of smaller cars rather than having the opposite trend.

Dr. Peter Mock

I will add some numbers. The average European car weights approximately 1.4 tonnes meaning that, with 1.6 tonnes, one definitely, as Mr. Nix said, has some good options also for families that capture a typical car. For battery-electric cars, though, one has to take into account that the battery itself is quite heavy. For a typical vehicle, the battery would weigh an additional 400 kg or so. This is also the reason the battery weight for battery-electric vehicles is not accounted for in the French regulations, for example. Typically, the battery is subtracted and only the remaining weight of the vehicle is regulated, which makes sense. Under those conditions, the 1.6 tonnes cap in France is a very good one and makes sure that a vehicle that weighs 2.7 tonnes, such as the BMW I showed, is at least taxed pretty heavily.

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank Senator Boylan. Unfortunately, I am not aware of measures at EU level and defer to my colleagues in this regard.

Sixteen hundred kilogrammes is approximately the average weight of new diesel cars in Ireland. While the tax in France kicks in at approximately 1,600 kg, the Norwegian tax kicks in at a lower, but steadily increasing, rate from approximately 1,300 kg. It is worth bearing in mind that different countries have different designs.

The Senator asked about different ways of disincentivising fossil-fuel car sales at different levels. It is important to address company cars. I am not aware of research that looks specifically at the company car market but I am aware that the tax incentive might not be well designed.

There are other ways of disincentivising fossil-fuel car sales. For example, I have seen a proposal that each city would announce an end date when fossil-fuel cars can drive through the city. That will have to come, as, for example, Cork and Dublin have committed to become net-zero cities in the 2030s and that would require no fossil-fuel cars being driven in the cities. Sending that signal now and making that announcement now would send a very powerful forward-looking signal to the car market and would indicate that any new fossil-fuel cars being bought would become effectively stranded assets or would reduce in value as they would not be allowed to be driven in cities.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Professor Daly and I also thank Senator Boylan for her questions. I call Senator Pauline O'Reilly.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly

I thank the Chair and thank all of the witnesses. Putting it simply, it is quite clear from all of the evidence that more people die, more people are injured and our emissions are going in the wrong direction from these heavier vehicles and also from the height and structure of the vehicles themselves. The question is what to do about that because all the evidence is quite clear. The ramp up of EVs is being offset, at least partially, be the size of these vehicles and there is little choice for consumers. If it is not an SUV, it is at least a crossover, particularly on the EV market, at this stage. What I am hearing quite clearly from Professor Daly is that if we do not take action now, it will almost be too late, we will fail to hit our targets and all choice will be eliminated from the market.

I attended the ploughing championships last week. We can certainly see, with vehicles being towed out by tractors, that we need different types of vehicles for different terrain. As has been pointed out from many of the responses that the witnesses have given and their opening statements, however, this started as a status symbol, we have arrived at this position from urban, not rural, sales of these vehicles and those vehicles are the ones at the higher end of the numbers of sales. What exactly are the policies that can shift things? Is it to do with weight tax? Is it to do with incentivising people through, as Senator Boylan said, reduced tolls for smaller vehicles in a clear set of policy measures? How fast can we implement that and how fast should we do so?

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank Senator Pauline O'Reilly and agree there is now a really high urgency to enact measures to meet our sectoral carbon budgets. There is a very high risk that if we overshoot our sectoral emissions ceilings, it will not be possible to make those up at a later date because the remaining sectoral carbon budgets after 2030 really need to be reserved for those very hard-to-abate sectors; sectors where there is no mitigation option right now. It is clear there are mitigation options right now for passenger car transport. My opinion is that the justification for buying new fossil fuel-powered vehicles is dwindling very significantly. The Senator rightly pointed out that some people need a certain type of vehicle for their work and that should be protected, of course. However, many people buying new cars buy fossil fuel cars. Maybe they think they will replace them in three years' time or something with a battery electric vehicle but that new fossil fuel car stays on the market and will emit dozens of tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime. Then there will be fewer new or second-hand EVs on the second-hand car market in the future.

I do not want to propose a set of policies to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuel cars and away from heavier cars. However, I would certainly point to an increase in the progressive VRT bands on CO2 emissions and to adding weight as a component to VRT both for fossil fuel and electric cars, as well as a number of softer measures including announcing the phasing out of fossil fuel cars in the cities in the future, in the 2030s, and to measures to tackle tolling and parking. If we think about how we regulated smoking, there was a big transformation within our lifetimes, in that it was normal to smoke indoors and then through a range of public health information measures, regulation and taxation, as well as information campaigns, that sort of mindset has completely shifted now. We no longer smoke inside. The framing of that was not really around that smoking is bad or that people were bad for smoking. It was around protecting vulnerable workers. At the time that Ireland brought in the smoking ban in pubs, people thought it would be impossible and that it would be very unpopular politically. It took a lot of political bravery to drive that through and it was framed around protecting vulnerable workers.

We need the same type of framing of how we think about the future car market. This is not about SUV bashing, this is about protecting vulnerable road users. I gave evidence as to the fact that the number of children walking and cycling to school has really plummeted since the 1980s, since we started tracking it in the census, as the number of children being driven to school and college has quadrupled. It is not that parents are to blame. Parents are just doing what they need to do to protect their children. They often buy a bigger car in order to justifiably protect their children. That makes sense from an individual perspective but by not providing walking and cycling facilities or safe routes to school, the State is not providing a global optimum solution where children can safely walk and cycle to school any more. The same argument can be made for the increasing size, especially the bonnet height and road space taken, by increasingly larger cars. I will leave it there, thank you.

Mr. James Nix

Choice was deliberately eliminated from the market and we know this because towards the end of the recession, car makers started to plan a clear SUV strategy and rolled it out increasingly from 2017-18 onwards. We know this particularly from the advertising spend. It increased by an order of magnitude in those years when we look at French data. For every SUV sold in the years 2017 to 2018, between €2,000 to €3,000 was spent on advertising to sell each SUV.

There is now a belated push by some car makers to make smaller, battery electric vehicles. In large part, that is coming as a belated response to Chinese imports, and a realisation that there is still a demand for smaller cars. The European manufacturers made a strategic decision during the last recession to try to move away from that market altogether.

Industry will not change voluntarily. It will be countries like Norway, France, Ireland and others implementing weight-based taxes that will bring those bonnet heights back down. It will not happen by itself. Cities are also acting. Lyon and Paris are good examples. They followed the national example set by the French Government and will apply higher monthly and annual residential parking tariffs to heavier passenger vehicles.

An Cathaoirleach

I will jump in. I do not know if Mr. Nix or Dr. Mock mentioned in their opening presentations size-based taxes too, or a combination of weight and size. If we are talking about policy instruments, to refer to Senator O'Reilly's question, should we be looking at size-based tax as well?

Mr. James Nix

It is a difficult area to regulate. What we generally see is that since the mid-1990s, the top sellers have become about 30 cm wider. If you imagine a street with two cars parked in parallel, with two lanes of moving traffic, that is a cumulative loss of space on that street of 1.2 m for cyclists. If two vehicles are over-parking or parking two wheels on the pavement, that is a loss of space to the pedestrians. There is no width limit in Europe for light duty vehicles. There is for trucks and buses, so it is a huge regulatory gap at European level. There is some discussion in the Netherlands about taxing width, but it is at the earliest stage and is difficult to do without a European regulatory framework.

In a way there is a similar conundrum on bonnet height. It would be almost impossible to get an aerodynamic, pedestrian-friendly, cycle-friendly bonnet profile through the European lawmaking process. It is obviously desirable but the industry is too strong to allow pedestrian-friendly vehicle fronts.

An Cathaoirleach

Would Dr. Mock like to contribute? I see one of his slides had two Volkswagen cars side by side, which had the same weight and power but very different emissions profiles. What can he say about that? It seems that physical size and the aerodynamic characteristics are something we should be thinking about too.

Dr. Peter Mock

I totally agree. It is not just the weight, as Mr. Nix has said, but also the size of the vehicles for pedestrians, cyclists and cities in general. They are typically not built for these big cars. Data on the size of vehicles are readily available. Maybe members will remember that a few years ago in Europe, we debated whether the CO2 regulation for passenger cars should be based on the mass of vehicles or on the size of vehicles. The idea was always the same, namely, the bigger or heavier the vehicle, the higher the CO2 emissions that should be allowed. That was the argument of the industry. In the end, the European Commission decided for weight. Since then, data have also been collected on the dimensions of the vehicle. The data are readily available.

I agree with Mr. Nix that it is unlikely that any regulation would go forward at a European level. However, if there were any fiscal measure at a national level to regulate the size of vehicles, that would be a possibility for sure.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank the witnesses. I want to pick up on a couple of points that have already been touched on, but are generally on the theme of how we have ended up where we are. I will ask Mr. Nix to expand on those points in terms of the argument about whether this is a supply-side issue, or a supply-driven or demand-driven phenomenon. It is quite the phenomenon. I wonder if he has additional points to add to those he has already made in terms of a deliberate choice being made, and the role of advertising. I would also like to hear if anybody else has anything to contribute on that.

There is an argument often heard, and it was touched on today, that people prefer the SUV because of the driving position. Second, and I have some experience of this myself, they prefer it because of the three Isofix points in the back seat. I know from our own recent experience that my wife was switching to a vehicle that could accommodate three children in the back seat, and contacted a number of car dealers locally and within the region. She was really pushed towards a SUV, which is something she did not want to do, and did not do in the end. I am interested in what is driving that. Is it driven by policy or education, and how might we address this? I would like an understanding of why people opt for SUVs, and specifically those two points about the Isofix bases or the three children in the back seat and the driving position. We have lots of older people with hip replacements, whom we might not have had in the past. I know from speaking to them that they prefer the higher driving position. Is that something that could be designed out?

I am also interested in the French and Norwegian experiences thus far. Do the policies they have introduced influence purchasing behaviour, or do the driving forces - marketing, sales or people's preferences - overcome that? What have these policies done to the sales of these larger, heavier vehicles?

Mr. James Nix

I think thousands of people have had exactly the same experience as the Deputy and his wife. They do not go to buy a SUV and the dealer is invariably nudging them towards one. That in turn comes from the car makers themselves, because their output is planned in advance. More than 50% of vehicles they are making across all powertrain types are SUVs. They therefore nudge their dealers accordingly.

In terms of the impact of advertising, we know that exposure to SUV ads leads to a 70% increase in likelihood to buy. That is based on large-scale surveys in the UK. Margin plays a huge part. SUV margins are 40% to 60% higher. I think there was a realisation that with action on climate change, there would probably be an overall decrease in the number of vehicle sales. Car makers, therefore, have prioritised the higher margin vehicles seeking to more than make up that trend. There is also financialisation. As everybody knows, you rarely buy a full car anymore. You buy a percentage of that car, if you like, and then in three to five years time you sell on that percentage. Financialisation obviously changes the fiscal dynamics of purchase in the first place.

I take the point made on medical needs. That is something that definitely could be exempted, for example, in a weight tax. On foot of a medical certificate, the weight tax is disapplied from that registration. I will leave it at that.

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos

Following on what Mr. Nix mentioned, if one can simplify that, it is both a supply and demand issue. On the supply side, original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, are focusing on SUVs because they have a higher profit margin on them. We have seen, specifically, in Europe, that they go out from the market of producing smaller cars. It is not only for EVs but also we see a similar example happen also for ICE vehicles.

On the demand side, it is also for consumers a status symbol, and especially for emerging markets. The SUV trend is not only happening in Europe. It started much earlier in the US with much bigger SUVs. I have seen this happen in China, India and even in Africa. People tend to buy this type of vehicle - more premium luxury vehicles - due to the fact that they can afford them. I would say it is a combination of both patterns but, of course, OEMs have strategically shifted to this to avail of the higher profit margin.

Dr. Peter Mock

There was a question about France and Norway and the experience there. For France, it is a little bit early because, as Mr. Nix mentioned, they only introduced that weight-based aspect in 2022. However, the typical French new car is on average already lighter than the European and Irish cars. It is approximately 10% lighter than cars in Ireland, for example. The hope of the French regulators is that cars in France stay lighter than the European average or become even lighter. That is why they introduced this measure.

For Norway, it is a bit more tricky. The average new car in Norway weights approximately 2 tonnes. It is significantly heavier than the average car in Ireland and the European Union. However, one also has to take into account that in Norway 90% of new cars are fully electric or plug-in hybrid electric and, therefore, one needs to subtract the battery weight. If one subtracts approximately 400 kg or 500 kg from that 2 tonnes, one gets the European average, meaning that the Norwegian cars are not heavier than the European average. It is a little tricky. It deserves more attention but I would expect, because, typically, people always try to avoid taxes, that these taxation measures really have a strong effect on consumer choice.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Dr. Mock for that. I call Deputy Paul Murphy.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I thank all the speakers, and the Chair for suggesting this. It is an important discussion. Obviously, the speakers are all in agreement about the problem that the rise of SUVs represents.

It seems we have an example here of the Jevons paradox in operation where, supposedly, an increase in resource efficiency will lead to a decrease in resource usage but, in fact, it actually is the opposite where we end up using more resources. It points to the illusion of the idea of green growth.

I agree with all the presenters that there is a big problem here in terms of carbon emissions, in terms of road safety and in terms of road space that needs to be addressed. Fundamentally, all four of the speakers pointed towards the way of doing this effectively being to change the taxation model to nudge a change in people's behaviour. I wonder whether that does not go far enough and whether it will not have an impact quick enough but also will lead to a resentment and a sense of injustice whereby those with more wealth can continue to drive SUVs and merely pay the taxes to do so. Ordinary workers cannot afford to do so. It leads to a kind of resentment towards climate policy begging the question as to why the rich get to continue to pollute and how come having more money allows one to continue to have an SUV. I want to pose the question, should we not go further than taxation measures? For example, Professor Daly spoke about the change in smoking behaviour.

Professor Daly mentioned a number of things we did but, fundamentally, what we did was ban it. We said that people cannot smoke inside. Ireland led the way on that internationally and that has now become accepted in large parts of the world. Why do we not introduce a ban on the sale of cars for ordinary usage above a certain weight? We do not have a car industry in this country. We have the Green Party in government. Why do we not introduce such a ban?

Slightly less radical than that, why not introduce a ban on car advertising? When one becomes aware of it, one realises an incredible proportion of the advertising that we are subjected to is for cars and they are all pushing this model of a certain type of car - SUVs, etc. They even try to pretend that if one buys one of the EV SUVs, one is doing one's bit for the environment, which, unfortunately, is not true, but people think it is.

Finally, to pose another broader question, the question of EV SUVs points to the limitation of horizons of those who think that the answer to all the problems we currently have with cars is for us to keep driving cars individually, keep storing big hunks of metal that have huge embedded carbon emissions in them outside each of our homes, but change them so that they become electric cars as opposed to petrol-driven cars. It is a limited vision in terms of the kind of change that we need to see. I do not deny that in a future society many people in rural areas will need to have access to private cars, but should we be arguing that electric SUVs and electric cars are not fundamentally the answer? We need a radical shift towards public transport. We then need to have car sharing within cities. I would be obliged if they could elaborate on some of the problems that large heavy SUVs have in terms of air pollution and the carbon emissions that are embedded in them because of the energy that goes into them, but also in terms of the planetary boundaries other than carbon by going to get all this lithium that we are using for this as opposed to batteries related renewable energy, etc.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Deputy Paul Murphy and call Professor Daly.

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank Deputy Murphy. There are lots of challenging questions there, which is to be expected. I welcome the call to increase the ambition on policy here. As I have alluded to previously, we are not on track to meet our carbon budgets and that requires an urgency to look beyond the current measures that we are taking.

It is not up to me to say whether policymakers should be looking to ban cars of a certain weight. I do not know how that would be designed to protect people who need certain cars, for example, for their business, and how that would affect the second-hand car market. However, I would agree with the Deputy that a carbon mitigation measure or climate action measures that focus just on vehicle electrification is not optimal and one does not get these benefits of moving urban areas to be far less car dependent. Let me make it clear, the primary measure that we need to take is to reduce car dependency in the first place and we can do that in cities as we roll out public transport. Public transport, cycling, etc are less attractive because there are cars. There is a real self-perpetuating aspect here.

I would say that our dispersed settlement patterns in the countryside lock us into car use to a certain extent for a long time and electric vehicles are meaningfully better for the environment than fossil-fuel cars. There are negative consequences from the mining of lithium but that pales in comparison to the damage that burning fossil fuels is doing to our climate and in pushing the Earth past its habitable boundaries. The perfect solution is nobody needs to own a car but, given our settlement patterns and the slow roll-out of large-scale public transport infrastructure, it would be very difficult to see that happening within the next few decades. In the meantime, the sooner that we can fully electrify new car sales, the better for the environment, the more likely we will reach our carbon budgets, etc.

The Deputy also talked about car advertising. I alluded to the smoking pan. We also do not advertise cigarettes. The Government could look at regulating the advertising of cars as we know they have such a negative impact on the environment, on public safety, on air pollution, etc.

I know that in France, at a minimum, the advertising for new cars must include suggestions around considering taking public transport and car sharing. We also have a lot of softer measures. For example, celebrities are often paid with cars, and that may be something that can be regulated. In general, car ownership and luxury car ownership are promoted as something to aspire to. As we do with cigarettes, we can use public policy to move away from that.

Dr. Peter Mock

I am not a legal expert but I believe the situation is the same as it is for cigarettes, meaning that the advertisement of SUVs can be banned. I think that is possible. Also, cities can ban SUVs or certain types of vehicles from entering their urban areas, or other areas. We would still face a lot of angry people going to court against that sort of position but I think there is a good chance that governments or cities would be allowed to impose these bans. However, banning sales of SUVs would not be allowed. That would be against European Union Internal Market regulations. I am pretty sure it would not be possible.

The idea of taxation is that external costs are internalised. This means that if SUVs are heavy, pollute more, damage roads more and kill more people, this is taken into account and it is basically made more expensive to drive or own those vehicles. Yes, it is right that it is, so to speak, unfair because rich people can still afford them but at least the costs are internalised and are paid by the people who own these cars rather than by society overall. It is, therefore, a little fairer than the current situation.

Mr. James Nix

The legal questions around bans are really interesting. For example, there is political momentum in northern Belgium - Flanders - to ban new sales of fossil fuel vehicles five years earlier than the EU phase-out, so around 2030 rather than 2035. This issue is causing a huge amount of debate here in Brussels. Is it legally possible? There are different views on it. What is clear is that it needs to be very rigorously justified from an environmental perspective to overcome the Single Market rules that essentially state that when a vehicle is type-approved under EU law it should be allowed to be sold in every single member state. By the way, on that issue it will probably take more member states to join with regions such as Flanders to insist on the 2030 end of internal combustion engine sales to flush out, if you like, that legal issue which, to me, is important to do in order to bring clarity to this regulatory area.

To go back to Professor Daly's points about French advertising rules, they are very interesting and well worth looking at. From 2028, it will not be lawful to advertise vehicles with more than 123 g of emissions per kilometre. It is a fair criticism that this is too little, too late but the direction of travel can be seen.

To pick up on Deputy Paul Murphy's point, I certainly think we could explore and identify a weight level for the internal combustion engines of a number of vehicles and pick out a particular weight level. The same could be done for electric vehicles and the advertising of such vehicles could then be banned. There is, therefore, much more flexibility around advertising bans than there is around sales bans.

The Deputy's points are well made. We do not talk much about tyre particles at all. If we look at particle pollution in the ocean, according to some estimates, almost half of it is in some way linked to vehicles. I am referring to tyre wear, road wear and brake wear and the heavier vehicles get, the more particles go into water courses and, ultimately, the oceans.

Deputy Alan Farrell

Good afternoon to our witnesses whom I thank for their contributions. It has been a really interesting conversation. Part of this discussion has prompted an analysis of the psychology of the sales strategies some of the companies are using, the consumer behaviour they are seeking to influence, and the impact that has on the market and our capacity as a State to reduce transport emissions associated with private car ownership. I want to state very clearly that I do not think anyone on this committee is under any illusion that the target of banning new internal combustion engines - originally our own target was to be from 2030; it is now 2035 - is because of the European Union internal rules.

The idea is not to replace all of the ICEs with EVs, and that is borne out, I believe, in the policies that have been adopted by the Oireachtas on the basis of the likes of the 2:1 expenditure that we are putting into cycle paths, footpaths, and public transport etc. I do accept, and I am looking at Professor Daly in particular, that it is very late in the day to be making that level of investment, since we have seen a dramatic reduction in walking and cycling both to work and to school, which is a matter of concern to all of us. That being said, the policies are there and with more proactivity on the part of the European Union on the regulation side I think we can make a significant change.

My own view of the taxation versus regulation argument that has been fleshed out in this conversation is that while I am sceptical about moving away from carbon-based taxation on vehicles I would like to see more movement on the regulation side. I would not be as sceptical - as I think it was Mr. Nix - about the EU's capacity to regulate out certain design choices car companies are making. To look at consumer electronics, for instance, there is the largest player, Apple, with its Apple lightning charger. Apple is now marketing it with its brand new phone as a brilliant idea it came up with when in fact it was the EU that regulated to remove the lightning charger and bring in USB-C. The interrelated point is, I believe that the European Union can regulate in, for instance, passenger safety through the Euro New Car Assessment Programme, NCAP, system which I think has been extremely successful in terms of occupant safety but also regarding the build quality of a vehicle.

Interrelated to that, we talked extensively about the weight and size of vehicles increasing, mimicking the American market, which I think is the main driver of this unless somebody more knowledgeable than I am can correct me. I think European consumers are the most discerning in the world. Perhaps the Koreans and Japanese would give us a run for our money but from a regulation point of view, for instance in food safety, and vehicle safety, all of those things are incorporated into the regulations. I believe that regulation is the way to resolve the issue of the massive increase in the number of SUVs that are on our roads. I am intrigued by the commentary related to Norway, in particular, and its approach. I would very much like to see the overall weight of vehicles reduced and the battery weight excluded. Ireland unfortunately, or fortunately, has a vast array of rural communities that are not readily served by public transport. They will be in the future but they are not readily served today. Therefore, different types of vehicles will absolutely be required for ten, 15, 20, possibly even 30 years. My view is, if we reduce the curb weight of a vehicle, minus the battery, and maintain the safety standard, then we will have a better approach to this.

It will not be a surprise to hear that I do not agree with Deputy Murphy's commentary and the idea that just because a person has money in their pocket that they cannot spend it, with the caveat that it should not impact upon the public good. I think it is important that from the start we regulate out weight as much as we can and improve what I think has been a very successful programme of NCAP, to include the likes of pedestrian and cyclists.

I will have to study the Norwegian and French approach. The Norwegian one of excluding the battery weight is intriguing because it would maintain the carbon taxation element of it that we already have, and it has the capacity to influence the European regulators. Is it the only policy that can be duplicated? Are taxation and regulation the only two changes that we could make to try to change consumer behaviour, notwithstanding the comments on the banning of advertisements?

Professor Daly mentioned that she is of the view that EV car sales had reduced as an overall percentage as a result of the removal of the grant from higher cost vehicles. I am not correcting her, but I am just offering the opinion that I do not think that is right because I believe EV car sales as a percentage of the market have increased steadily and are continuing to increase, which is of course a good thing. I do not know whether the influx of more smaller and cheaper EVs in the coming years will perhaps change that dynamic further. Perhaps Professor Daly could explore it a little better than I have.

Professor Hannah Daly

I will provide a few points of clarification. Certainly EV sales are still growing very strongly but the rate of growth is slowing down. Previously, EV sales were almost doubling every year and now the rate of growth has slowed to about 60%, which is still very strong.

I will make another point on the fossil fuel phase-out plan. We certainly will need to stop selling new fossil-fuel cars as quickly as possible in order to meet our legislative sectoral emission ceilings for transport. The low-hanging fruit is to stop fossil-fuel car sales. At the current rate of 60% growth in EV sales, we are looking at 100% EV sales by 2027 or before. It might be a surprise but that is actually the rate that we would need to reach to meet our carbon budget, along with increasing the import of second hand EVs. There is something of a policy gap in regard to the target gap in terms of incentivising the import of second hand and limiting the import of used fossil-fuel cars.

I have a second point of clarification. I believe there may be a bit of confusion. My opening statement was not proposing to move away from the current VRT policy of taxing based on carbon and N2O emissions; it is to include weight as an additional component in VRT. How that would be designed would need to be examined as to whether, for example, it would be revenue neutral, so we are reducing the cost of lighter cars and increasing the cost of heavier cars like in Norway and France. The idea would be to include this as an additional component because weight in itself is an external cost on society. Depending on one's opinions on that, if one can afford to pay it, one should be paying that external cost back into the public good.

Deputy Farrell asked as well about measures other than taxation and regulation. I mentioned a few already, for example, limiting access to city centres for fossil-fuel cars by a certain date. That would be consistent with the city's net-zero target. We could also, for example, ban cars of a certain weight. Advertising is a very powerful force here. The Government does already regulate advertising. For example, on any car that is advertised, we could also advertise the lifetime carbon emissions from that. People do care about carbon emissions.

We could advertise the weight and also include a disclaimer, for example, that heavier cars are more damaging to vulnerable road users.

An Cathaoirleach

As no other witness wants to come in on those questions, I call Deputy Kenny, who has been waiting patiently.

Deputy Martin Kenny

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. Most of the issues have been covered and I have just a few points to raise. In regard to the models operating in other countries, is it correct that when the weight goes over 1,600 kg, the charge of €10 per kilogram kicks in straight away, or is there a gradient such that when the really heavy cars come into play, the charge is higher? Has such a model been examined anywhere? I am conscious that many people in this country drive the likes of a Ford Focus, Opel Astra or that size of car, which would probably be below the threshold weight, whereas with slightly larger cars such as the Ford Mondeo, one would be there or thereabouts. From what I can see, it is the much larger cars that are the problem, including large Range Rovers and large Mercedes models. That is where we need to target this tax. I take the point, which reflects my experience, that very wealthy people will pay whatever the charge might be. They want what they want and they will pay for it. That is one of the issues in regard to the taxation aspect. We need to find some way of regulating that.

I am conscious that a lot of these vehicles are being driven in cities, where they are not needed at all. I live in a rural area and very few people near me drive Range Rovers or vehicles like that because it is a poorer part of the world and, by and large, they cannot afford them. It is in the more affluent areas that one sees all these vehicles, where they are not needed and are doing very low mileage.

We have talked about electric vehicles. I travel approximately 1,000 km a week to and from my rural constituency. I have tried out EVs twice, doing tests at the weekend. I found it difficult to find an EV that could do the range I would need to be assured I can get to where I want to go, particularly if I have to go to Dublin and back. With motorway driving, where one is travelling in excess of 80 km/h, the battery goes down very fast. I am interested to find out whether we are near the stage where we will see the development of better battery technology, including for mid-range cars. I understand alternatives to the lithium-ion battery are being tested. Are we near the point where we will have commercial alternatives, based on resources that are more abundant in the world and can be produced more cheaply? Even a lighter battery could be part of the solution. I would like to hear the witnesses' views on that.

The issue of the weight of vehicles is one factor but their height and bulk are also an issue we must find a way to address. I take on board the points made about how it is difficult to do that, but we need to look for a way of doing so.

Mr. James Nix

On the regulation point, it is unfortunate that the European Commissioner has no plans right now to regulate the shape of light-duty vehicles. It is something we have checked on but we are almost at the end of the European Parliament's term. It will end next May, with the European elections taking place in early June. With no proposals on the horizon, the issue really is over to member states. It relates back to one of Deputy Farrell's points. We are suggesting the use of weight as a proxy for harm across a number of areas, including energy emissions and vehicle safety. In the context of harm to others, there is what the makers of US pick-ups call the outside lane intimidation factor. That is basically where the vehicle has such an aggressive grille that when it moves onto the overtaking lane, other cars give way.

However, the exact same issue of the intimidation factor applies in an urban environment. We know it does. Is it harm to others if a child is afraid to walk or parents are afraid to leave these children to walk to school? Without action at EU level, it will be up to national parliamentarians to decide how to regulate this issue, certainly in the next two to three years.

Dr. Peter Mock

On the structure of the systems, in the French system, someone does not pay for the weight of the vehicle at all until it reaches 1.8 tonnes. That will soon be 1.6 tonnes and only then will every additional kilogramme costs €10, as we mentioned earlier. The Norwegian system is different. There the first 500 kg weight are free and then one pays for every kilogramme of weight and the heavier the car becomes, the more someone pays for the weight. It is a progressive system where not every kilogramme costs the same but where the first 500 kg are free, then the next ones cost a certain amount and then the next even more. Those are two different systems.

On range and battery technology, there are constant developments in batteries. The sodium ion battery is on the horizon and there is hope that battery technology will be cheaper and less problematic from the management perspective than the current lithium ion batteries and much cheaper. However, at the moment, more electric range costs money meaning the cars with a higher range tend to be more expensive. There are already cars on the market that can easily have a range of 800 km in real life. Someone driving 1,000 km per week is what we would call a long-distance driver. We have worked on a study, which we will publish in the coming weeks, which looks at different consumer types - urban commuter, rural commuter and long-distance driver - and at the different electric range a bigger battery does for those types of consumers. We find that for most consumers, for the urban and rural commuters, a larger battery size is not needed. That battery size is hardly ever used, makes the vehicle more expensive, heavier and creates a lot more emissions in battery production and it really does not help the commuter because they cannot make use of the battery at all. Long distance drivers account for a relatively small portion of the population who need these longer ranges. For those drivers, it makes sense. It is a necessity to convince those people to drive electric cars but it is very important that we provide consumers different choices so they can really select the EV that they need and that we also provide an incentive for consumers not to choose a large-battery EV with a long range if they do not make use of it. It is just a waste of resources and it is a problem for society.

Mr. Apostolos Petropoulos

The point that only rich people are buying SUVs is not really true. Approximately one out of two cars bought in Europe today are SUVs. That means that a vast majority of people are buying SUVs and particularly heavier cars and, therefore, this has to be done as a specific exercise - in Ireland's case, for example, depending on how one defines how much of the population will be affected. Dr. Mock spoke about range. It is true if people are long-distance drivers that currently some of the battery's capability will not cover their needs but the majority of people do not drive that far. Therefore, already with the current technology, most car drivers can use an electric vehicle.

Let us imagine in the future that there will be the roll-out of infrastructure plus battery chemistry development. We will have a portfolio of technology to electrify in almost all cases. We have also seen swappable technology popping up in China and some other Asian markets where people change their batteries in certain places to provide the additional range that is needed to cover mobility needs.

Professor Hannah Daly

I thank the Deputy. As a long distance driver, he is the market that needs to be targeted at the earliest opportunity for EV adoption because long-distance drivers have the most to gain from electrification. They would save a huge amount in fuel, but it is also the largest market in terms of CO2 per person.

While new sodium ion batteries and so on with longer range at lower cost are coming down the line, we should not peg our hopes on technological breakthroughs. The current battery technology is already really good. What is not good enough is our charging infrastructure. Any of the typical new EVs on the market would enable people to reach most parts of the country on a single charge. However, people need to be guaranteed parking at charging points. We need guaranteed workplace charging and charging for those staying somewhere overnight. We also need rapid chargers on the network.

We also had a discussion on SUVs or luxury cars as status symbols. Public opinion about what is or is not high status can change very quickly. It does not have to take the form of taxation and so on; rather, it is about sending a signal that driving with a high bonnet, especially in urban areas, is really antisocial unless people need to have or are commercial users of such cars. People will respond to that social signal very quickly if that is made clear.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank Professor Daly. Can I pick up on her previous point regarding the challenge of the electrification of the rural fleet? It is real; people living rurally need to drive further. There may not be many electric vehicle options for them. Perhaps our colleagues based in Europe might take my question. Is there an analysis of range anxiety as an issue in terms of how it drives - excuse the pun - the sales of larger vehicles? I am trying to get my head around how real that problem is or how much of it is a marketing tool to sell bigger and more expensive cars. If it is the latter, what can be done through a policy approach to remove range anxiety?

Professor Hannah Daly

That is a very good question. We agree that electrification in rural areas is very important. Home charging is much easier in rural areas, but there is still anxiety about whether EVs are appropriate. There is a concept that people might suddenly have to jump in a car and drive to the country. People are uncomfortable with that idea. That is a normal response to a new development.

People hear negative stories about charging infrastructure not being available or being full when they need it. One potential solution to that is targeted advertising. We need to explain the benefits, especially the financial and climate benefits, of electrification. One idea is to provide targeted information to drivers to make sure that those driving longer distances understand the benefits of electrification. This could be done via the NCT. The odometer reading of a car is tracked by the NCT and it also knows the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of a particular car make.

It could be feasible, for example, for car owners to be told in their NCT report what financial and climate benefits they would stand to gain from switching to an electric car. Very targeted information could be provided to rural car drivers. I say that in the context of the more general point about public information increasing.

I am not aware of any research about whether range anxiety is meaningful but my colleagues here would have more information on that at a European level.

An Cathaoirleach

Do our other guests wish to come in on that? Mr. Nix referred earlier to a strategic decision in the early 2010s to promote the bigger car market but this narrative of range anxiety is really pervasive. To what extent has that been driven by manufacturers as a marketing tool?

Dr. Peter Mock

A consultancy in the UK called Element Energy conducted a study for the European Consumer Organisation, BEUC, which is the most recent and best quality research that I know of. What it shows, based on a lot of surveys, is that in most European countries consumers actually have a pretty positive attitude towards EVs. Their attitude is different from what it used to be. Based on the assumption that the framework conditions are the same, that is, that the cost, range and comfort of the vehicles are equal, people would be positively inclined towards EVs. In the UK the attitude is a little less positive, if I remember correctly, whereas in Germany, people tend to be quite open to electric cars.

Of course, the framework conditions are not equal yet. EVs tend to be more pricey if one looks at the showroom costs and their range is lower than that of combustion engine cars. Those are the main hurdles - cost and range anxiety. It is a very complex issue but it has a lot to do with educating consumers. My personal experience, as well as that of a lot of the people I talk to, is that once people have an electric car or get a chance to drive one, they realise that typically they do not need that range. There are exceptions, of course, for example, people living in a rural area will have a lot of driving to do. That is different but for the majority of people, especially in urban areas, the range is really not an issue. I have an electric car and I charge it every week at most, or even every two weeks. Charging is really not an issue for me. Even if I did not have a charging point at home, it would be fine for me. However, before I purchased that electric car, I certainly wondered a lot about the range. I had concerns about the range but I no longer have them. That is why a lot of this is about education. There is research going on in this area and the Element Energy study is the best one to which I can refer committee members.

An Cathaoirleach

Is there evidence that consumers are purchasing bigger vehicles than they need? I can understand why they would do so because they do not want to get caught, even if it is only once a year, halfway between two cities, for example. Is there evidence that, just to be safe, people are buying the bigger vehicles?

Dr. Peter Mock

Yes, definitely. In the study I mentioned that we are going to publish, we have a chart at the beginning which shows that battery capacity has increased over the past few years in pretty much all countries. The International Energy Agency, IEA, is also predicting that battery capacity is going to increase quite quickly in the future. That is all driven by consumers asking for more range and manufacturers advertising that more range is better. While there are plenty of data suggesting this trend, that does not mean the trend will continue. If the regulators step in, if there is better education, labelling and advertising, and possibly also some regulation, that trend can be changed. We can try to use the battery capacity in the most efficient way, thereby reducing the energy and resource consumption of EVs.

An Cathaoirleach

No other members are indicating that they wish to ask questions. If the witnesses have anything to add that they may not have got across yet, I ask them to indicate. Otherwise, we will conclude the session. We have had a very good debate. I sincerely thank the witnesses for joining us at such short notice. Despite it being hastily arranged, we have had an excellent meeting. There is a lot for the committee and the Government to think about with regard to the upcoming budget and future budgets and what levers can be used to bring about a more efficient vehicle fleet. There are also co-benefits, separate from the environment and carbon budgets, such as safety and public health.

This committee did a very good report, if I may say so, two years ago but we did not look at the issue of vehicle weight. In light of today's session, it may be timely now to consider inserting an addendum to that report. We have heard there is a fundamental problem when it comes to vehicle weight and vehicle size, notwithstanding the difficulties with regulating vehicle size. The committee will look at that issue more closely.

I again thank the witnesses for their time. We will meet in private session at 3.30 p.m.

The joint committee adjourned at 3.16 p.m. sine die.