“Continued increase in engine performance of passenger cars prevents reduction in CO₂ emissions”

The continued increase of engine performance of newly registered passenger cars in Germany prevented a reduction of their total CO₂ emissions between 2008 and 2015, writes Germany's statistics agency Destatis in a press release. New cars registered in 2015 had an average engine performance of 105.7 kilowatts (kW). In 2008, this figure was 96.4 kW. Passenger cars emitted a total of 112.3 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2015, compared to 107.3 million in 2008. CO₂ reductions of 9.8 million tonnes (-8.7 percent) would have been possible in this period – despite increasing numbers of cars and total kilometres driven - had the engine performance of Germany’s passenger car fleet remained unchanged. Even a falling average fuel consumption has not led to a reduction of emissions, writes Destatis.

Find the press release in English here and a longer version in German here.