What is the Real-World CO2 Reduction Benefit of the 95g/km Passenger Car Average Emission Target to be Reached by 2020?

Road transport is responsible for roughly 20% of total Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Europe with passenger cars being a significant fraction. To control this, emission limits for CO2 have been set, with the target is to reach 130 g/km of CO2 as an average for all new passenger cars in 2015. The medium-term target is to reach 95 g/km average in 2020. These average values refer to CO2 emission over the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). This cycle has been recently considered to be misrepresenting actual driving conditions. Hence, a vehicle may emit significantly higher CO2 emissions in real-world than it does over the NEDC. This paper aims at quantifying the impact in real-world CO2 emissions by selecting different technology pathways to reach the 95 g/km target. Along with a basecase scenario considering, three alternative scenarios were examined. The first scenario considers downsizing to smaller and more efficient diesel and gasoline cars. The second one assumes that hybrids will be the prime technology for emission reduction. The third scenario assumes that electrification will be the main technology pathway. The 95 g/km target is reached in all scenarios. Results show that despite the statutory target is fixed, actual reductions over the basecase scenario differ. Electrification, downsizing, and hybridization scenarios achieve 3%, 4,1%, and 11% CO2 reductions over the basecase new registrations in 2020, respectively. The average CO2 emission factor in the same order is 117, 116 and 108 g/km. These results show that actual CO2 reductions to be reached not only depend on the average CO2 value agreed but also on the technology pathway selected. Conclusions were obtained under certain boundary conditions and by studying a limited suite of scenarios and technology pathways. However, our intention has been to demonstrate that real-world performance differs than statutory targets by offering a few examples. Such an approach, when further developed and adjusted to national circumstances, may be used to inform policy regarding the expected benefits of vehicle GHG regulation in view of wider targets, such as the 20-20-20 initiative.