BERLIN, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Two thirds of vehicles in Germany will still be powered by traditional petrol and diesel engines in 2040, a study by ExxonMobil showed on Monday.

According to the Irving-based company, efforts by carmakers for transition to new energy vehicles (NEVs) would hereby only witness a relatively modest increase in the share of pure electric vehicles on German streets to roughly twenty percent until 2040.

Combustion engines will still be dominant in 2040 with a market share of 63 percent.

Speaking to Xinhua on Monday, a spokesperson for ExxonMobil emphasized, however, that the expected number of plug-in-hybrids and pure electric vehicles would gradually rise to 52 percent of all the newly registered vehicles by 2040.

While the combined number of newly-registered electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles would hence ultimately surpass that of conventionally-powered passenger cars, a parallel increase in road freight transport by one quarter in Germany would ensure that diesel and petroleum engines maintained an overall lead as the technology of choice.

The study warned that Germany would consequently struggle to meet its own carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction goals to limit the effects of global climate change. Based on ExxonMobil's calculations, CO2 emissions would be 50 percent lower in 2040 compared to 1990. The federal government in Berlin has formally set itself a more ambitious official target of a 70 percent reduction in CO2 emissions until that date.

However, Florian Barsch, the head of ExxonMobil's German operations, also highlighted on a more upbeat note that overall energy consumption in Germany would fall significantly despite continued economic growth during the period under scrutiny. "We are using energy more and more efficiently and consequently will require a third less of primary energy in Germany in 2040," a statement by Barsch read.

ExxonMobil noted that natural gas was poised to overtake petroleum as the most important energy source in Germany from 2030 onwards. The use of renewable energies would also grow by around 30 percent until 2040, with wind and solar power more than doubling their contribution to energy generation.

ExxonMobil is the globally largest privately-held "Big Oil" corporation and produced 4 million oil equivalent barrels per day in 2017.