Sustainability Newsletter – September 2024

The pressures to switch from internal combustion power to electric propulsion are coming both politically and socially, but with stalling sales and a sudden drop-off in demand governments, manufacturers and regulators are facing some tricky choices.
As we reported last time, industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) wants the new government to reduce VAT on electric cars to incentivise sales, especially for the private buyers currently not benefiting from the tax breaks granted to company drivers. Which seems in everyone’s interests. But as someone clever once said every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and while the government is pushing manufacturers hard to sell more electric cars it also has to consider the unintended consequences. Like, where will it recover all the lost fuel duty from people who previously lined the chancellor’s pockets with the hefty tax on petrol and diesel? Given many electric car owners now ‘fuel’ their cars on their domestic energy it’s impractical to tax EVs the same way. So could this open the door to pay-per-mile road charging? Transport charity the Campaign for Better Transport has got itself in the headlines recently asking new chancellor Rachel Reeves to consider this, especially for the EVs currently swerving the fuel duty paid by petrol or diesel cars. This would obviously recover some of the tax revenue lost on fuel duty. But would potentially harm the already fragile state of electric car sales, keeping more polluting combustion engined cars on the roads. For all the noise in the media the government isn’t saying anything for now but, longer term, it’s clear electric car drivers will at some stage – and somehow – pay their way.

Elsewhere Volkswagen has teamed up with a German start-up called Revoltech to find ways of using waste matter from the industrial hemp industry to create a sustainable, eco-friendly and fully recyclable bio alternative to leather for use in car upholstery. ‘Circular’ material use of this type is increasingly important as manufacturers attempt to clean up the business of building cars through increased use of sustainably sourced and hopefully reusable materials. Or, in the case of Revoltech’s branded LOVR (it stands for Leather-free, Oil free, Vegan, Residue-based) compostable and biodegradable. Early days but VW says customer reaction has so far been positive, and as previously reported this could be a genuinely greener alternative to the oil-based ‘pleather’ materials sometimes misleadingly marketed as sustainable alternatives to leather itself.
This pattern of big car manufacturers supporting green tech start-ups is one repeated here in the UK with a ‘business unit’ called BMW Startup Garage, which is funding a company called Aeromine Technologies to fit its pioneering ‘motionless’ wind turbines to the top of the Mini factory outside Oxford. Rather than operate like a conventional venture capitalist investor, Startup Garage instead considers itself a ‘venture customer’, helping these innovators bring their tech to market by demonstrating proof of concept in a practical application.

The Aeromine Technologies generator uses fixed vanes to channel wind into an internal turbine, which is neater, means no turning blades harming birdlife or causing noise and can be made from what are described as ‘durable, recyclable materials’. The devices will join existing solar panels covering an area equivalent to five football pitches already in place at the Mini factory, and generate electricity when solar can’t. Which is to say when it’s cloudy or dark.
And if football pitches are now officially a unit for measuring the size of solar arrays Bentley is winning at Top Trumps here, with the equivalent of nine pitches of solar panels atop its Crewe factory. This is enough to generate as much as 75 per cent of the facility’s daytime power needs, and a big part of Bentley’s drive to sustainability. Elsewhere repurposed Jaguar I-Pace battery packs from engineering prototypes and test cars are being combined into Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in a project between JLR and Wykes Engineering, each BESS capable of storing 2.5mWh of energy from when the grid is running off-peak or using a large proportion of renewables and then putting it back into the system when demand is high.

All of which has contributed to an impressive halving of the carbon ‘cost’ of building cars in the UK since 1999, according to the SMMT’s 25th Sustainability Report. Using figures from last year’s production – the first period in a while that the UK has built over a million cars in a year – the report says consumption of energy and water in the production of cars continues to fall, all of which is helped by manufacturer initiatives like those above investing in green energy at plants and other efficiency measures. True, building cars will never be an entirely clean business. But through sponsoring green innovation and supporting the start-ups developing the tech to help us live more sustainably it can at least be made cleaner.

• Sustainability newsletter – August 2024 | Is stimulating electric car sales ‘green’ and how improved charging infrastructure is helping with the great summer getaway
• Sustainability newsletter – July 2024 | Hidden carbon cost of tech, Volvo pushes for more recycled plastics and Renault secures greener supply chain for EV batteries • Sustainability newsletter – June 2024 | Farewell chrome plating, bravo for Renault’s recycled interiors and a cheer for the … circular economy for recycled tyres • Sustainability newsletter – May 2024 | Lithium is key in the production of electric car batteries, but where does it all come from and at what cost? • Sustainability newsletter – March 2024 | The importance of renewable energy in making sure electric cars really are the green choice, and one Dutch couple’s mission to prove it! • Sustainability newsletter – January 2024 | French act on heavy SUVs and embedded CO2 of imported electric cars, BYD plans European factory and Nio opens battery swapping centres • Sustainability newsletter – December 2024 | Vauxhall electrifies Britain’s streets, a second life for electric car batteries and recycled Alcantara seat fabric combines luxury and sustainability • Sustainability newsletter – November 2023 | Costs for EV batteries fall, funding for UK-sourced lithium project, GM goes renewable and Lynk & Co commits to life cycle CO2 audits • Sustainability newsletter – November 2023 | Costs for EV batteries fall, funding for UK-sourced lithium project, GM goes renewable and Lynk & Co commits to life cycle CO2 audits • Sustainability newsletter – October 2023 | Costs for EV batteries fall, funding for UK-sourced lithium project, GM goes renewable and Lynk & Co commits to life cycle CO2 audits • Sustainability newsletter – September 2023 | Erin Baker shares her thoughts on the UK's changing net zero targets and delaying the 2030 ban for new petrol and diesel cars. • Sustainability newsletter – August 2023 | Zapmap reports increased charger installations, Lime's e-mobility revolution and Nissan's autonomous driving • Sustainability newsletter – July 2023 | Public charging network expands, hydrogen back on the agenda and choosing green tyres • Sustainability newsletter – June 2023 | BMW helps electrify the UK’s national parks and Kia ditches leather across its range of cars • Sustainability newsletter – May 2023 | What upholstery will you be choosing for your next car - leather or pleather? • Sustainability newsletter – April 2023 | Polestar’s ‘moonshot’ for a zero emissions car and a look into synthetic fuels as a possible lifeline for internal combustion classics • Sustainability newsletter – February 2023 | Our regular sustainability round-up continues with a look at some new recycled materials this month, all of which could be in your car soon • Sustainability newsletter – January 2023 | Eco awareness is driving more and more car buying decisions for a variety of reasons -here we celebrate those doing it right!