It’s So Funny How We Don’t Talk About Significant Zero Emissions Capability Anymore
This is the third in a series of blogs which summarises New AutoMotive’s response to Government’s consultation on phasing out sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 and supporting the ZEV transition. You can find a summary of our consultation response elsewhere on the New AutoMotive website, as well as the earlier blogs, and the later ones when we get round to them.
Those alluring words - significant zero emissions capability - or SZEC to the initiated - hung over ZEV mandate discussions in the UK for most of the early 2020s. Government’s 2030 switch-off, which would supposedly end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles never really did that at all. 20% of cars sold in 2030 could be hybrid vehicles with Significant Zero Emission Capability. Although of course what that would actually mean was to be put back to a future consultation.
Fast forward through Prime Minister Sunak’s disastrous rollbacks of pro-environmental policies in the hope of an electoral boost which never came, to the current Government’s consultation on restoring the 2030 phase out. References to SZEC are strangely missing.
It is of course part of a conspiracy at the top of Government. Not really. But it would certainly be inconvenient for those writing a consultation piece which is seriously proposing to allow hybrids with no plugs to be sold from 2030 to remind us of what the previous administration once proposed and how much more ambitious it was than what is being floated now.
By definition, petrol and diesel vehicles have absolutely zero emissions capability. Nor do mild hybrids where a battery charged by braking helps power your lights or stereo but offers no help at all in propelling the vehicle - despite the warmth felt for them by some other environmental groups.
And it would be quite a stretch to propose that full hybrids - typical battery size of 1 kWh, corresponding to a maximum of 3-4 miles range on zero emissions - meet the spirit or letter of SZEC either. So if Government decides to permit these, despite the issues we’ve outlined about their analysis, and the practical unworkability of allowing hybrids with any emissions tightening - then this would be a major dilution of the policy supported by crazed eco-zealots like, er, Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps.
So let’s assume Ministers prioritise the manifesto commitment (because the facts have not changed, the demand is there, and manufacturer discounts are readily sustainable, as future blogs will show), recognise that crap hybrids are not part of the solution, and only permit plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) to be sold. What would represent significant zero emissions capability?
Thankfully, Government has all the data at its fingertips in its own Mode of Travel statistical dataset. An extract is below.
Extract from table NTS0308d: Average distance travelled by trip length and mode (cumulative percentage): England, 2023
| Mode | Under 1 mile (%) | Under 2 mile (%) | Under 5 mile (%) | Under 10 mile (%) | Under 25 mile (%) | Under 50 mile (%) | Under 100 mile (%) | All lengths (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Car or van driver | [low] | 3 | 15 | 32 | 58 | 74 | 86 | 100 |
In plain English, trips of under 2 miles account for 3% of the average distance travelled by car, a further 12% accounted by trips of 2 to 5 miles, an additional 17% by trips of 5 to 10 miles and so on.
From these figures, it’s easy to work out how many miles of trips you could decarbonise with a variety of different fully electric ranges on your plug-in hybrid.
[We need to make some basic assumptions - people charge in the 10-80% range, their driving roughly corresponds to the WLTP combined cycle, that they always top up at home, but they only top up at home - after the return leg. When visiting friends we tend not to whip our charging cable out and say “mind if we refuel?” Clearly some destinations such as shops and offices will allow charging, but currently it’s charged at rates which, sadly - through no fault of the charge point operators - usually make it cheaper to run the petrol engine. This needs to change, but it’s where we are right now.]
Here’s the result.
Percentage of miles which could be decarbonised with PHEVs of different ranges
This tells us that a PHEV range of 50 miles is really a minimum. Traditional PHEVs with a range of 30 miles aren’t really doing the business. You’ll only decarbonise about 30% of miles, and even with a fairly modest 20 mile round trip commute you’ll need to plug in at the end of every single day. It’s easy to imagine falling out of the habit of doing that.
But a range of 55 miles will decarbonise half of miles, and 75 miles will decarbonise 60%. If you’re driving the Lynk & Co 08 PHEV, pictured above next to Sir Cliff and set to hit Europe in June (no news on the UK yet), your record-breaking zero emissions range of 124 miles means you’ll be getting over 70% of miles without ever calling on your petrol engine.
This is a model. A few drivers will do many more long journeys and therefore more journeys which are fossil fuel powered, and some will do none, meaning all their miles will be zero emission. Which of those groups the PHEV is best suited for is moot. The long distance driver will get more low cost miles if they have access to home charging, but they will pay a higher average cost per mile and still create significant emissions. A driver who is always short haul doesn’t really need the petrol engine at all, but their driving will be cheaper on a mile-for-mile basis.
But this isn’t a transition driven by spreadsheets and distributional analysis of journey lengths, fun as those things are. Both gut instinct and edge cases matter. PHEVs offer an excellent opportunity for cautious drivers to familiarise themselves with battery technology, demystifying electric driving. And these cars will be on the road until 2050 and beyond, with many owners with different needs.
124 miles of zero emission capability is lovely but probably not appropriate as a minimum for PHEVs sold as an interim solution between 2030 and 2034. 50-70 miles feels about right. 30 miles is too short, and with the need to charge so often, drivers risk falling out of the habit. FHEV’s 3-4 mile range is rubbish, and MHEVs just aren’t delivering.
Let’s talk about SZEC, baby.
Let's talk about you and me
(And how some of us aren’t ready for BEV but could get familiar driving a PHEV)
Let's talk about all the good things
(Driving 50 miles clean from end to end, and cutting our petrol bills by 50 per cent)
And the bad things that may be
(Hybrids mild and full, batteries tiny not large, short ranges, every day must charge).
Salt-N-Pepa, for the unfamiliar.