A Toyota SUV placed above a line of human skulls, accompanied by the slogan ‘Let’s destroy everything’; another model from the BMW brand described in large letters as “guaranteed climate catastrophe”… After deflating tires and putting accusing stickers on large vehicles, Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists continue their rebellion against manufacturers automobiles by displaying hundreds of counter-ads on the streets of big cities.
Impossible, a priori, to reconcile these two worlds. “The fact that XR and others are attacking car advertising is more than legitimate, because it pushes us to make purchases that are not in line with current issues”, explains Pierre Ozer, climatologist at the University of Liege. The International Energy Agency (IEA) summarizes the problem well: in 2021, SUVs generated 900 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. If they were a country, it would be the 6th largest emitter on the planet.
However, some imagine a more acceptable SUV, a vehicle that, after undergoing a slimming diet, would receive less criticism. In a recent article published in the prestigious journal Natureseveral researchers, for example, encourage manufacturers to “lighten their range of electric vehicles in order to maximize the benefits for the climate and safety”.
It must be said that the overweight of SUVs has several harmful consequences. First on accidentology: the probability that passengers are killed in a collision increases by 12% for each difference of 500 kilos between the vehicles, recalls the article. However, electrification has accentuated weight gain over the recent period. The most striking example comes from the United States where the green version of the famous F-150 pick-up weighs 700 kilos more than its gasoline-powered predecessor!
Logic: bulky batteries replace fossil fuel with high energy density. And the structure of the vehicle must also become heavier to accommodate these new elements. Also in the United States, light vehicles have already gained, depending on the category, between 136 and 573 kilos since 1990. But similar trends are observed elsewhere in the world. With concrete consequences on the roads. According to a recent studythe replacement of SUVs by more modest cars would have avoided the death of 1,100 pedestrians in the United States over the period 2000-2019.
This cost for society reduces, for large models, the advantage of going electric, especially if the manufacturing, which requires energy and many components, takes place in a place where electricity is not available. is not carbon-free enough. Moreover, and the IEA figures remind us, we must not forget that there is still a large volume of non-electric SUVs, the weight of which poses a problem from an environmental point of view.
“Advertising still promotes SUVs that run on fossil fuels and consume more than 10 liters per 100 kilometres. We know that the service life of these is around eleven years. This means that if we sell a vehicle at the end of 2022 of this type, it will still be in circulation in 2033. We must, by 2030, reduce the emissions of the European Union by at least 55% compared to the level observed in 1990. I think that at a moment, we should ban advertisements for these extremely energy-intensive vehicles because they deviate from the objectives that we have collectively set for ourselves”, considers Pierre Ozer.
And for the other models – electric therefore – a slimming cure would be more than welcome. But how to do it ? Several ideas are on the table: using more energy-dense materials, eliminating heavier components… An encouraging sign, the development of solid batteries, more efficient and lighter than lithium-ion models, is now mobilizing many researchers. and capital. The improvements could also be digital, since a wireless battery management system can eliminate up to 90% of the cable network.
Tesla, Volvo, GM and other automakers are already considering using the battery structure to support part of the vehicle chassis. In the longer term, the chassis of the vehicle could itself become the means of storing energy. As we can see, engineers are not lacking in ideas. It remains to be hoped that the slimming diet does not take too long to materialize and that it does not increase the price of vehicles. Currently, a one-tonne electric car is sold for around 20,000 euros, while another 2-tonne is sold for 50,000 euros, underlines a recent article by Release. A price far too high for a majority of French people. “If this continues, individual mobility will become unaffordable for a significant part of the population”, warns Pierre Ozer. What generate a new crisis.
