Plenary Lecture II Analysis of the European Market of New Passenger Cars and Correlations with their CO2 Emissions

Automobile CO2 emissions constitute a significant percentage of the total anthropogenic CO2 emitted. During recent years, significant efforts are made to control automobile CO2 exhaust emissions: however, the decrease achieved is quite limited. Several parameters influence automobile CO2 emissions: fuel used, engine technology, after-treatment technology, vehicle weight, driving profiles, annual mileage, etc. However, fleet composition is another important parameter, not frequently taken into consideration. The European market of new passenger cars is very different from one country to another and also changes very rapidly during last years. Even within one European Union country, the characteristics of new passenger cars market are very different. This work performs an analysis of the new passenger cars market in European Union (former 15 states members) during last years and presents the impact of the main characteristics of the new passenger cars and the exhaust CO2 emissions. The parameters studied are vehicle weight, engine displacement, engine maximum and specific power, vehicle segment and firms distribution. The average values of these parameters, the distribution of their values and their change during last years are presented and discussed. This analysis aims to contribute from another point of view to the question "why automotive CO2 emissions cannot easily decrease".