Electric vehicles can potentially make significant contributions towards achieving the EU’s climate protection goals in the transport sector. In the context of the Dresden university days on ecological-social market economy and sustainability, Max Grünig, Fellow at Ecologic Institute Berlin, presented a summary of the potential and limitations of electric vehicles.
In order to meet the long term climate objectives of the EU, a drastic reduction of transport related GHG emissions is needed. Transport is one of the few sectors that has shown a steady growth of CO2 emissions, resulting in an increase in its share of total CO2 emissions. Electric Vehicles (EV and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles PHEV) are promising technologies for drastically reducing the environmental burden of road transport.
Together with Julian Fischer of the Consumer Council Saxony, Max Grünig moderated the workshop “electric mobility or efficient transport”.
Questions that were debated include:
- Can electric vehicles contribute to the integration of renewable energy sources into the electricity grid?
- What limits exist with regards to the additional grid load caused by electric vehicles?
- What options exist for recharging electric vehicles?
- How sustainable is the hype around electric vehicles and what are the interests of the different relevant actors, especially policy makers?
The slides of the presentation can be downloaded here [pdf, 177 kB, German] and here [pdf, 1.1 MB, German].