Dominus servum vocat (English version)

(„The master calls the servant“)

A report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) about an alleged drop in emissions from car traffic as a result of new e-car registrations has turned out to be fake news. How could this happen?

On 10 June 2024, the EEA announced: „New data: CO2 emissions from new cars and vans further decrease as electric vehicle sales grow in Europe“

The decline is stated as 1.4 %. The EEA writes further: „These provisional data show that, in 2023, 10.7 million new cars were registered in Europe, which translates to an increase of 13.2% compared to 2022. Almost a quarter of these new car registrations were electric – either fully or plug-in hybrid.“

23.6 % of new registrations correspond to around 2.5 million BEVs and PHEVs. The share of this growth in the total car population is around 1%.*1
This should puzzle more attentive readers: How can 1% of cars reduce emissions by 1.4%?
Using the dashboard provided by the EEA, let’s take a look at the data sources:

And lo and behold: the emissions of e-mobility are actually set at zero!
At this point at the latest, even those readers who are not quite so attentive should be puzzled, as it is generally known that some coal, gas and even oil-fired power plants are still in operation in Europe. The website Energy-charts.de provides data for various time periods. It reports for 2023:

Completely ignoring the fossil emissions from electricity generation is completely out of the question.

Error no. 1: The value of 0 g CO2/km for e-cars stated by the EEA is clearly wrong

The average emissions of new diesel hybrids assumed by the EEA follow:

Almost four times higher values are assumed for new cars with purely diesel engines:

The ratio of petrol engines to petrol hybrids is 133 to 35 grams. Such large discrepancies cannot be explained solely by the allegedly non-existent emissions of the electric drive mode. In order to calculate plug-in hybrids so cleanly, the assumption must be made that they are predominantly driven electrically.

However, it has been widely reported in the press for years that this is not the case. Could it really be that the EEA has missed this?
We are investigating. Quote: „More information and analysis on these data are provided by the European Commission.“

A link leads to the following text. You can read the second paragraph there: „For plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the real-world CO2 emissions were on average 3.5 times higher than the laboratory values, which confirms that these vehicles are currently not realising their potential, largely because they are not being charged and driven fully electrically as frequently as assumed.„

Is there a plausible reason to believe that the EEA staff might simply have overlooked this?

This brings us to

Error no. 2: The EEA incorrectly assumes a far too high proportion of all-electric driving of PHEVs

You can’t imagine that EEA employees deliberately write untruths? But this can be proven.
The EEA maintains a chapter on its website entitled „Real CO2 emissions from new cars and vans“ with an informative graphic:

The blue dots mark PHEVs from different manufacturers. The further to the left of the 45 degree line a point lies, the greater the discrepancy between the EEA’s mathematical assumptions and reality.
The EEA employees have long since analysed this correlation. They know exactly what they are doing.

Nor can they use the excuse that they are applying the current WLTP regulations. These will change shortly: „In essence, from 1 January 2025, the proportion of kilometres driven predominantly electrically is assumed to be smaller than before … and from 1 January 2027 … even smaller.“
If I, as a scientist, know that the previous standard clashes with reality, what might be the reason for not using the newer standard straight away?

Mistake no. 3: The EEA applies outdated, unrealistic and PHEV-favouring rules for determining emissions against better knowledge

Conclusion:
The EEA’s claims about the favourable consequences of the electrification of the vehicle fleet have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The EEA’s completely indisputable and factually incorrect approach is quite simple to explain: The purpose of this institution’s publications is not at all to provide information about the actual effects of „climate protection measures“. They are merely intended to legitimise them. This is basically nothing more than agitation and propaganda on behalf of the state.

These specialists are also ready to provide qualified services at any time

The role of the EEA is not to advise policymakers as objectively as possible. Rather, it should support the industrial policy project of electromobility and accelerate its market ramp-up. To this end, it is essential to suggest an ecological advantage. As this does not actually exist*2, the actual emissions of the additional electricity consumers are concealed in the EEA’s press releases.

Unfortunately, this also eliminates any potential signalling or warning function of this institution. If politicians want to sink taxpayers‘ money into ecologically nonsensical subsidised projects out of simple ignorance or due to lobbying influences, the public will certainly not be made aware of this by the EEA.

Its employees act as political collaborators – always ready to turn the truth on its head in order to deliver publications with politically desirable content and the appearance of scientific respectability.

———– Addendum:

Anyone who tries to point out these false claims to e-car fans or lobbyists should be prepared for a deeply relaxed and slightly supercilious smile: „Please – why don’t you inform yourself a little more thoroughly before you ask me such naive questions? Don’t you know that emissions from electricity generation are capped by a CO2 budget? New electricity consumers can therefore not trigger any increased CO2 emissions.“

The e-car bubble firmly believes in a free lunch. It imagines that certificate trading ensures that other consumers have to save the emissions they cause.
In fact, on closer inspection, this mental construct collides with reality in several places:

  • The CO2 budget is far from exhausted. CO2 certificates are more expensive than they were several years ago, but there has been no clear trend towards a price increase since the end of 2021. As in the past, the future trend will depend heavily on political decisions. Higher electricity consumption does tend to result in higher certificate prices, but of course only at the price of higher emissions. The emissions trading system is far from being capped.
  • Even if rising certificate prices were to trigger savings and reduce the consumption of imported fossil fuels, these would be cheaper due to falling demand and would be readily purchased by consumers in other continents.*3 Emissions are thus only shifted (see „Green paradox“ by Hanns-Werner Sinn).
  • Furthermore, the mechanism that could theoretically bring about a cap must never be activated in practice under any circumstances. Emissions would only actually be limited if CO2 certificates were so scarce and expensive that energy prices exploded. However, this would stifle the economy.

More on this there.

The cap only exists in the papers of pseudo-scientific front organisations of the Greens and in the imagination of EU economic bureaucrats.

Kai Ruhsert, 16 June 2024

Endnotes:

*1 https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1451350/umfrage/pkw-bestand-europa/

*2 See there: „E-cars are a miserable climate protection measure in Germany. I can’t calculate any CO2 avoidance costs because no CO2 will be avoided until 2045. E-cars even cause additional CO2 emissions until the coal phase-out! Even after the coal phase-out, they are no better for the climate than a diesel. The emissions will then merely be shifted from the transport sector to the electricity sector.“:

*3 Exception: German lignite. This would remain in German soil. However, this does not apply to the other fossil primary energy sources.

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