More electric cars reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars
Published: Thursday, Jun 27th 2024, 10:20
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More and more electrically powered vehicles are being sold in Switzerland. This is the reason why newly imported passenger cars fell below the target value for greenhouse gas emissions for the first time in 2023. The target value was exactly reached for commercial vehicles.
The average CO2 emissions per car were around 112.7 grams of CO2 per kilometer, as announced by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) on Thursday. The target value is 118 grams per kilometer. Delivery vans and light articulated lorries landed exactly at the specified 186 grams per kilometer.
Of the newly imported passenger cars, almost one in three had a plug, namely 30 percent. Their share increased by around 4 percentage points compared to 2022. Among commercial vehicles, the proportion of electrified vehicles rose from 10.5% to 14.6%.
Around 257,000 new cars were registered in 2023, almost 12% more than in 2022. Both all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids gained market share. A good half of all passenger cars had all-wheel drive. Cars also became heavier: the average weight rose from 1.75 to 1.78 tons.
28,000 vans and light semi-trailers were newly registered, around 21 percent more than in the previous year.
In 2023, the SFOE reported penalties of around CHF 1.8 million for passenger cars and around CHF 4.4 million for commercial vehicles for exceeding target values. In net terms, the levies brought in around 3.8 million francs. The money goes to the National Roads and Agglomeration Transport Fund.
A large proportion of the penalties were imposed on small importers. According to the SFOE, the reason for this is that they invoice each vehicle individually. This means that, unlike large-scale and general importers, they cannot offset vehicles with high emissions with vehicles with low CO2 emissions.
©Keystone/SDA
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