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Epilogue – The Future of the Automobile: CO2 May Not Be the Great Decider

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Cars and Carbon

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Abstract

This volume has illustrated the strong link between automobiles and CO2 emissions associated with climate change. In thinking about the future of the automobile it is tempting to blame the car for its contribution to climate change. Yet it is us the drivers who have chosen to create a world of large cars and in most Western nations established a very automobile-dependent lifestyle. The automobile has given many of its owners and users greater choices on where and how to live. But it is clear that those choices increasingly impinge on all drivers, and, more important, on all others trying to move in increasingly crowded cities or between urban areas on crowded motorways. The situation in developing countries is dire at a tenth or less of the motorization rate industrialized countries. People are frozen in most large cities. It is thus hard to foresee expansion in car ownership to high levels forecast by some international organizations and analysts. Does this mean the future of the automobile is grim? Yes, if individuals, their elected officials and stakeholders in fuel and vehicle companies continue as if there are not profound problems confronting the choices automobiles give their users. In any case, CO2 is not the deciding factor over the future of the automobile, rather more fundamental issues such as the difficulty of fitting in so many individual vehicles to so little space. Technology can help somewhat, but the larger issues are what people decide to do with technology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The EU-8 are Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The EU-15 also include Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Portugal. Germany after 1994 is united Germany.

  2. 2.

    The calculations start with the real price of each fuel (year 2000 real local currency converted to 2000 US Dollars at purchasing power parity), weighted by the amounts purchased and then expressed as dollars per litre gasoline equivalent. The result is multiplied by the fuel consumed on road per 100 km to give the cost per100 km.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Precourt Energy Efficiency Centre, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Lee Schipper†

  2. Global Metropolitan Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Lee Schipper†

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  1. Lee Schipper†
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  1. Dept. of Environmental Science & Technology, Cyprus University of Technology, P.O. Box 50329, Limassol, 3603, Cyprus

    Theodoros I. Zachariadis

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Schipper†, L. (2012). Epilogue – The Future of the Automobile: CO2 May Not Be the Great Decider. In: Zachariadis, T. (eds) Cars and Carbon. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2123-4_17

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