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According to a study, stricter CO₂ target values would make new cars more expensive - however, buyers will save money in the medium term
Photo: Marin Tomas / Getty Images
Cars will have to be much cleaner in the future - will that mean driving a car more expensive?
Industry and environmentalists are arguing about this question.
Transport is seen as a problem sector in which greenhouse gas emissions have to fall particularly sharply.
In July, the EU Commission wants to propose stricter CO₂ target values.
From 2050 onwards, the EU wants to be climate-neutral as a whole; by 2030, CO₂ emissions are to fall by at least 55 percent below the 1990 level.
That arouses warning reflexes in the auto industry.
CO₂ reduction costs money, threatened their industry association VDA when the federal government tightened its climate protection law.
The logic is clear: in the end, customers pay the price for fewer emissions.
A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) arouses doubts about this thesis.
Accordingly, stricter requirements would have a pleasant side effect: car buyers would benefit from them, especially when gasoline prices rise.
According to the study, stricter CO₂ targets for cars are not only technically achievable, they even save consumers costs - calculated over the entire service life of the vehicle.
This applies in particular to battery vehicles.
Already today parity between e-cars and combustion engines
Because clean cars need less fuel, and at the same time e-cars attract with low maintenance costs.
According to the ICCT calculations, electric cars the size of a VW Golf with a range of 350 kilometers should be cheaper than a gasoline-powered vehicle as early as 2025 - even without state purchase premiums.
But how plausible is the calculation of the environmental protection organization that started the emissions scandal?
The calculation contains some uncertainties, says the ADAC expert for electromobility, Matthias Vogt.
Whether it works depends "on factors such as the development of electricity and gasoline prices and the depreciation of new e-cars and combustion engines."
Nevertheless, he thinks it is conceivable that the e-car will be cheaper overall from 2025 even without funding.
Thanks to the state subsidy of 6,000 euros, the total costs are already parity between the electric car and the combustion engine, according to Vogt.
This ratio is likely to continue to develop in favor of the electric vehicle, as vehicles become cheaper and fuel tends to become more expensive.
The authors of the study conservatively calculate with a petrol price of 1.40 euros per liter over the entire period.
There is still a lot of potential for savings in internal combustion engines
The investigation is not just about the possible cost advantages of electric cars.
According to the ICCT, fuel-saving technology in vehicles with internal combustion engines should still play a role until 2030 - especially if the industry had to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of new cars by at least 70 percent compared to 2021, as the organization demands.
Currently, emissions are only to be reduced by 37.5 percent for this period.
Mild hybrid systems, in which a battery relieves the internal combustion engine, would then increasingly be used.
According to the ICCT, their costs will be amortized within three years.
According to the study, gasoline engines have a CO₂ saving potential of around ten percent.
This could reduce friction or make greater use of the Miller cycle, in which the intake valves close earlier.
Other experts trust the combustion engine even more.
A clever hybridization can save up to 20 percent CO₂, says Olaf Toedter, Head of New Technologies and Ignition Systems at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
"But I find it difficult to expect prices and possible savings for the customer here," Toedter restricts.
The money saved depends on driving style and mileage
Whether consumers save in the end depends on the individual case. Expensive technology will hardly pay off in a city center vehicle that remains well below the average annual mileage of 15,000 kilometers. "On the other hand, if you drive very cautiously or achieve a higher mileage per year, it is definitely worth it," says Toedter. The study calculates with a high mileage of 230,000 kilometers over the entire service life of a vehicle.
Frequent drivers in particular could benefit even more from CO₂ rules with even stricter requirements.
According to the ICCT, a CO₂ reduction in the WLTP cycle to zero grams by 2030 means that the costs for an average vehicle will rise to 1703 euros.
In contrast, according to the study, consumers save EUR 3107 over the first eight years.
"Climate protection and consumer protection," says ICCT-EU Director Peter Mock, "go hand in hand with high CO₂ target values for cars."
But buyers of cars with internal combustion engines do not always benefit.
With these vehicles, according to Mock, there is a point at which further CO₂ savings are no longer cost-effective, for example in the case of extremely lightweight construction.
"However, especially in the first few years with stricter CO₂ standards, buyers of combustion cars also save," says Mock.
According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV), buyers of combustion cars are better off with stricter CO₂ limit values.
This is due to the lower consumption, which will also benefit used car buyers later, explains VZBV traffic expert Gregor Kolbe.
"Lower consumption increases the residual value, which means that leasing customers also benefit."
The ICCT sees the battery car as the cheapest option for the future.
The vehicle price alone will be at the level of gasoline cars by the end of this decade.
According to the organization, two other vehicle types have poor prospects: Plug-in hybrids are expensive due to the combination of a combustion engine and an electric drive and are therefore obsolete models. Classic diesel cars were left out of the study - due to the shrinking market share, the researchers do not expect any further investments in diesel technology and thus no further savings.
From the point of view of the organization, the use of synthetic fuels, so-called e-fuels, which could reduce CO₂ emissions from combustion engines, is not worthwhile - they are even an expensive wrong way. KIT expert Toedter sees it differently. Toedter said the ICCT study was mostly well prepared. "In my opinion, however, the e-fuels are based on data that are too old, which leads to inflated prices," says the engineer. There are now publications that assume a price of one euro per liter of e-fuel.
Toedter believes that e-fuels will definitely play a role in the future.
All available technologies are needed to achieve the climate goals.
However, this does not refute the basic statement of the study.
A dispute from the German auto industry, which is divided into opponents and advocates of synthetic fuels, is thus repeated on a scientific level.
The ICCT study, on the other hand, attests to another technology that has opportunities in the passenger car sector: the fuel cell.
It could help to achieve the climate targets from 2030 - but at a higher cost than battery-powered vehicles.
For the authors, it therefore seems questionable whether car manufacturers will produce them in large numbers.
For example, the hydrogen pioneer Toyota is now using battery technology as well as fuel cells.
