Future Mobility Index

How much energy is needed to transport a person? The life cycle CO2 emissions of a vehicle are defined by the energy it needs for driving – outnumbering emissions from production by far. Hence, we use the rated WLTP consumption (including charging losses for battery electric vehicles) adjusted by actual vehicle occupancy to derive our score. For combustion-engine vehicles, we convert the litres of diesel / petrol consumed into their kWh equivalent to allow comparison.

How much volume is covered to transport a person? On average, a car driven in Germany is occupied by 1.46 persons. Hence, we calculate the vehicle body’s volume (simplified as a rectangle) and divide it by 1.46 to come to the volume occupied per person transported. Volume efficiency is the single most important driver of traffic jams, scarce parking and a proxy for resource intensity in production.

How circular is a vehicle? Already today, vehicles can be recycled to very large shares of their weight. The same is true for battery electric vehicles where recycling processes are increasingly efficient and available at scale. With circularity ambition, we go a different route. We assess the amount of secondary materials going into a vehicle. In this assessment, we rely on information published by the OEMs.

How expensive is a vehicle? Any form of mobility must be affordable for its users. This is why we include the undiscounted sales prices for the German market at the time of market introduction in the Future Mobility Index. Over time, prices are not adjusted for inflation, and we exclude any OEM-granted rebates.