IEA Senior Transport Energy Specialist Lew Fulton has led work on the report with Energy Analyst François Cuenot.

The first ever global analysis of light duty vehicle characteristics, including fuel economy, shows that faster rates of improvement over the next 10-20 years will be needed in order to meet the targets of the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI).

The new report "International comparison of light-duty vehicle fuel economy and related characteristics", produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in cooperation with the GFEI, presents the ground breaking analysis of light-duty vehicle characteristics, including fuel economy, covering close to 90% of global car sales in 22 major markets and the EU. It was presented at an IEA side event at the COP 17 UN Climate Change Conference in Durban on 1 December.

The GFEI is a partnership of the IEA, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Transport Forum (ITF) and the FIA Foundation, an independent charity. 

The overall findings of the analysis include:

• A first ever global average estimate for LDV fuel economy world‐wide: about 8.1 L per 100km for new LDVs in 2005, improving to 7.7 in 2008. The GFEI targets a 30% improvement by 2020, or 5.4 L/100km and 50% by 2030, or 4 L/100km.
• It creates a base year estimate for use by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), and helps establish global average fuel economy estimates; it analyses how fuel economy and other vehicle characteristics compare across a range of countries and regions; and, it obtains a sense of how fuel economy and other vehicle characteristics have recently changed in different countries, by comparing the 2008 and 2005 results.
• This 2005-2008 change represents a 1.6% annual improvement, well below the required average annual improvement rate to reach the 2030 GFEI objective of a 50% reduction which calls for a 2.7% improvement per year from 2005 to 2030.

As well as showing that faster rates of improvement are needed, overall the findings suggest that the GFEI objective is ambitious. .

Sheila Watson, Executive Director of GFEI said:

This work is really exciting because it gives us such an insight into the state of fuel economy in cars and other LDVs globally. Clearly, although there are plenty of technologies out there which could be used to improve fuel economy, insufficient progress is being made. GFEI will continue to support governments and others who seek to go further in improving fuel economy, as we must if we are to address the challenges of climate change and energy security which we face. 

Click here for the full report >