Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 September 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

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

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.