Industry, not policies, should decide the course of electric mobility
th Mar 2021 8:00 am
Aston Martin’s former CEO, Dr Andy Palmer, suggests that the industry should be free to experiment and choose the best zero emissions tech to meet regulations.
Castrol 0 Comments Electrification is fast becoming the dominant force of change in the auto industry the world over. And though the need for the shift towards electric mobility is undisputed, the ‘how’ and ‘when’ do throw up plenty of debate. At the recent EV Forum organised by our sister publication Autocar Professional, Dr Andy Palmer, Chairman, Switch Mobility and former CEO of Aston Martin, said, “While we must be single-minded in the journey to zero emissions, we must not be myopic.” He went on to say, “My problem with legislation is that, frankly, politicians aren t qualified to mandate the solution. If they mandate the solution, they make mistakes.”
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On Friday, February 26, the Biden Administration’s newly-resurrected Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) announced new values for three specific metrics that seek to monetize the environmental impacts of greenhouse gases: the Social Cost of Carbon, Social Cost of Nitrous Oxide, and Social Cost of Methane. Collectively these are known as the Social Costs of Greenhouse Gases, or SC-GHG.
Using 2020 as a baseline and a 3 percent average discount rate (explained further below), the IWG calculated the Social Cost of Carbon at US$51/metric ton (mt), the Social Cost of Methane at US$1,500/mt, and the Social Cost of Nitrous Oxide at US$18,000/mt. This represents a dramatic reversal in the federal government’s valuation of the impacts of climate change, as under the prior Administration these social costs were set at essentially insignificant levels.
UMD collaborative study finds that fuel efficiency of one car in household may be cancelled out by next car purchase
A recent collaborative study led by researchers from the University of Maryland (UMD) College of Agriculture and Natural Resources found that consumers tend to buy something less fuel efficient than they normally would for their second car after buying an eco-friendly vehicle. While this sounds like an all-too-logical conclusion, the study reports a 57% reduction in the benefits of driving the fuel efficient car for carbon emissions purely based on the purchase of the second vehicle.
Since about three-quarters of cars are purchased into multi-car households, these findings could have major implications for carbon emissions, and especially for the design of carbon mitigation programs like Cash-for-Clunkers and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that aren’t taking into account the decisions of consumers with multiple vehicles, the researchers said.
A Cultural Arms Race
I am about to cover the most contentious topic in all of modern auto writing. It isn’t the classic arguments that leap to mind first electric motor vs. internal combustion, Ferrari vs. Lamborghini, turbocharger vs. supercharger it’s something much more mundane. Is a truck an appropriate purchase for the majority of people that buy them?
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First, some background on the subject matter: Pickup trucks are massively popular in America, with the Ford F-series truck being America’s best-selling vehicle for a staggering
The typical argument for truck enthusiasts is what amounts to a success story for the unencumbered free market. Americans vote with their dollars, and the utility, increasing comfort over successive generations of pickups, and ever-increasing sales must mean that for the people that purchase them, a pickup is the correct choice the rational consumer of the macroeconomic model personified.