Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVS): A possible perverse effect generated by Environmental Policies

Le résumé fourni par la source

The automotive industry is one of the largest polluters, affecting air quality in urban areas. For thisreason, the effect of the public policies on the sector is very important in economic and social terms.In this sense, one of the policies has been the subsidies for efficient vehicles where the plug-in hybridelectric vehicles (PHEVs) are included. Subsidies are very important for some of these vehicles, witha real price which is not competitive in comparison with internal combustion (IC) cars. As an example,the sales have dropped in Denmark in 2016 after the incentive reduction.However, in some cases, policies designed to regulate the situation can create some perverse effectsdue to the complexity of this issue.This type of vehicle is powered by an IC engine in combination with one or more electric motorsusing energy stored in battery packs. The real efficiency of this kind of vehicle depends strongly on theresponsibility of the owner. Only if the car has been plugged in, their batteries have been fully chargedand also the car is driven under “efficient mode”, the emissions will reduce significantly.Considering the fuel consumption gap between manufacturer declaration and real drive test and theemissions in different pollutants of the PHEVs in comparison with IC cars, the aim of this article is toshow a new possible perverse effect generated by them. This has happened recently with diesel cars,favoured by policies focused in CO2 emission, generating NOx high level in the urban area air quality.Finally, we highlight the main result and conclude emission cost implemented in fuel tax as ‘the firstbest’ in environmental policies.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.