We’re getting a new car. So how does this fit with less stuff? Well – with difficulty!
Anne & I think of ourselves as environmentalists. Our Home Energy and Transport emissions are now less than a quarter of 10 years ago. But this new car’s embodied carbon (the total emissions involved in its manufacture, delivery, etc) is massive in comparison.
Our 10 year old Peugeot 306 has been getting unreliable, with repair and service bills rising. The clincher was an engine part falling off as Anne was going to a work meeting.
After lots of checking, we’re getting a Skoda Fabia Greenline II, the lowest emission estate car: claiming 81mpg and 89gCO2e/km. It has a VW blue motion diesel engine, giving it the emissions of a Prius, with less complexity and cost. As early adopters, we might help encourage really low-emission cars.
But the big choice here is continuing to own a car at all. We particularly value a car for visiting friends & relatives or taking them places – and shifting manure and firewood with a trailer – also trips to remote places with kayaks. We’re not ready to manage without one, though I admire those who do.
So what is the embodied carbon of a typical new car? Take your pick from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (less than 0.8 tonne) to Tim Berners-Lee, author of the excellent “How Bad Are Bananas?”, who says 720kg for each £1,000 cost. This implies 8.3 tonnes for our Skoda, which includes our fraction of the whole motor industry’s emissions. YUK – we’re helping pay for those bloody car adverts and loathsome show-rooms!
If we continue driving 6,000 miles each year, it will take us 9 years to break even, compared to keeping the Peugeot going, with its higher mpg. But this assumes the Peugeot’s embodied carbon is already written off and that its service & repair bills are similar to the Skoda. In fact they’re rising and I doubt it would still be running in 9 years.
We’re in it for the long run, so if we have a car, this is a reasonable choice. Or should that be “justification”?