Small cars can contribute in a big way for sustainability goals

Compact cars and cars using clean fuels are perfect for the purpose argues Tom De Vleesschauwer, Senior Director at S&P Global Mobility. Mayank Dhingra has the story.

- Mayank Dhingra

Sustainability and decarbonisation have emerged as the two burning issues globally across businesses, driving the need for eco-friendly and energy-efficient solutions. In the context of the automotive industry, these two topics are currently pushing vehicle manufacturers to switch away from conventional propulsion technologies and adopt greener mobility solutions that emit low or no emissions.

While many companies in the passenger vehicle segment have already outlined their plans to shift to sell only zero-emission cars, starting as early as 2030, there's a concerted move to innovate new technologies like electrification as well as identify solutions that would offer environment-friendly mobility to a significant chunk of the global population.

Two-fold strategy for sustainability

According to Tom De Vleesschauwer, Senior Director, Transport and Mobility Practice, S&P Global Mobility, "Sustainability could be described as a two-fold strategy in the automotive industry, which is exploring mobility services or what are popularly known as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platforms, whereas the other approach, especially from an OEM's point of view, is to review their existing portfolios and select what vehicles would make sense in the future from a sustainability perspective."

Vleesschauwer mentions that ride-hailing and car-sharing platforms like Ola and Uber within the MaaS segment are helping the transportation industry enhance the occupancy rate of a vehicle, thereby improving the energy efficiency of every passenger.