Daily Management Review

The Once 'Green' Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles Could Be Banned Under New Draft Emission Rules In EU


04/12/2021




The Once 'Green' Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles Could Be Banned Under New Draft Emission Rules In EU
The plug-in hybrid cars that were in vogue not long ago as the vehicles for the climate-conscious could be phased out by auto companies due to more stringent environment rules by the European Union.
 
This one time “transition” technology – the plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), which contain an electric battery and a combustion engine, could have a much shorter life than expected by some leading automakers because of the policy plans of EU.
 
According to reports, manufacturers could be banned from labelling the PHEVs as being “sustainable investments” beyond 2025 according to draft green finance regulations. At the same time, the cost of production of these cars could be increased because of the planned rules on emissions of pollutants like nitrogen oxides.
 
The draft regulations are aimed at speeding up the shift to fully electric vehicles and meeting of the EU and United Nations climate goals. But the draft rules will also bring shift to the current EU policies such as those on CO2 standards that have given the hybrids the same status as all-electric cars and had prompted the auto industry for investing tens of billions of euros in new technology.
 
As a bridge to having all-electric and fully battery electric vehicles (BEVs) only stable of vehicles, the hybrids were planned to be sold by some car makers until the end of the current decade.
 
Only 28 PHEV models versus 86 BEV models is shown by an analysis of car production plans in Europe through to 2028 that had been compiled by AutoForecast Solutions (AFS), said a report by Reuters. That would mark a major shift in the market in which the PHEV models have outnumbered BEV models every year since 2015.
 
There are fears among some car makers in EU that the transition could be cut short permanently. The auto makers have warned that the draft regulations could make it hard for auto companies to sell PHEVs in European markets within just a few years’ time even though there are concerns among consumers about the range of the fully electric cars as well as of a lack of charging infrastructure.
 
“It’s crazy to do this by 2025 because effectively you kill demand today,” said Adrian Hallmark, CEO of British luxury carmaker Bentley, a unit of Volkswagen. The car maker has plans to continue to sell PHEVs until till 2030 prior to shifting to going all-electric only vehicles.
 
“For most people, a battery electric car is not yet practical,” he said.
 
While not making any specific comments on the green finance rules, a European Commission official said that the EU’s its policies were “technology neutral”. The official added that PHEVs were “a transition technology towards zero-emission mobility”. The Commission has said that almost all cars have to be carbon neutral by 2050 if one wants to reach an overall climate neutrality target by that year.
 
The fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of PHEVs were four times higher than the levels that they were approved for since people just do not charge those cars enough, claimed a study from the International Council on Clean Transportation last September.
 
 
(Source:www.economictimes.com)