Urban fleet vehicles ‘should be more efficient’

The study into the costs and benefits of hybrid electric and battery electric vehicles, and possible measures to stimulate their uptake has concluded that fleet vehicles should be first targeted for changes to electric or hybrid power.

It suggests council vehicles, police and public transport fleets would benefit as urban road transport is more fuel intensive.

Targets have been set for Ireland to reduce the emissions from the transport sector which accounts for 35% of the country’s energy related emissions.

Brendan Halligan, chairman of SEI, said: “This research is of particular importance within the context of our ability to understand how we can use currently available technologies to bring about improvements in the CO2 intensity of the transport sector.”

The report concludes that switching petrol cars to battery electric vehicles would be most beneficial in terms of CO2 emissions reductions.

Hybrid power is seen as the second most favourable.

In the future tax incentives could be put in place for buying energy efficient cars.

Similar incentives currently exist for businesses purchasing efficient equipment.