New cars CO2 emissions go down in EU in 2010

In 2010, the CO2 emissions per kilometer in the new cars registered in the European Union (EU) has gone down by 3.7 per cent.

According to the preliminary data, which was published on Thursday by the European Environment Agency (EEA), the emissions are now falling, after twenty years increasing – between 1990 and 2009 CO2 emissions rose 23%.

In 2009 the average CO2 emissions of a new passenger car registered in the EU27 was reduced by -5.4g of CO2 per kilometer. In 2010 the number was reduced to 140.3 g/km

The study shows that the improvement in terms of CO2 emissions is to be attributed to the efforts made towards fuel efficiency but also to the fall in vehicle registrations caused by the economic recession. In 2010 vehicle registrations have suffered a cut of 2.3 million units, comparing to 2007, considered to be the last year before the economic recession.

The EEA report also shows that people are increasingly opting to buy vehicles with alternative fuels. Throughout 2010 13,000 flex fuel vehicles (vehicles working with several types of fuel such as ethanol and gasoline) and 700 electric vehicles were registered in the EU.

A curiosity that can be taken out of the report is that the difference between average CO2 emissions of new diesel and new gasoline vehicles has been cut drastically over the last decade. The gap has fallen from 17g of CO2/km to 3.3g of CO2/km over the last ten years. Besides being known as more fuel efficient, diesel cars are constantly becoming more eco-friendly.