Passenger Land-Based Road Transport

Even with technological advances, internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) are unlikely to meet net zero targets, whilst emitting high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in addition to impacting public health. Technological improvements of ICEVs are not enough to meet targets. Therefore, phasing out and banning the sale of new ICEVs as soon as possible could provide a stronger impetus to reduce transport emissions. The integration of low emission vehicles including battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles is often seen as a method to reduce transport emissions. Although these vehicles are often considered ‘zero emission’ at their point of use, their true environmental impact is dependent on the carbon intensity of electricity used to ‘fuel’ the vehicle. Therefore, without the decarbonisation of electricity generation, environmental benefits of low emission transport will be diminished. This chapter focuses on private vehicles and shows that transitioning to low emission transport faces many barriers including cost, range anxiety and charging infrastructure distribution, which need to be overcome for an effective transition to low emission vehicles. This has resulted in numerous monetary and non-monetary incentives being introduced to encourage this transition. However even with this transition, emission levels will remain high per person per kilometre travelled and other low carbon alternatives need to be considered.