CO ₂ Emission and Energy Reduction Evaluations of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles

Energy consumption and exhaust emissions are the most challenging issues in transportation that car makers and policy makers have to deal with. As a consequence, several technologies have been developed in order to limit fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. So far, some of the promising technologies for passenger cars are hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and, later on, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV).

The study presents an assessment in terms of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions for gasoline HEV and PHEV compared to Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles. This comparison intends to assess carbon dioxide and energy consumption reduction ability of PHEV for several countries or geographical region (EU 15, USA, Japan, and France).

The energy consumption is computed with a detailed drive train model taking into account different driving patterns. The emissions are calculated depending on the electricity mix of the studied countries or group of countries. The study details the abatement potential of the new technology by geographical area. A detailed analysis of hourly carbon dioxide content of electricity is performed in order to study the impact of the electricity mix variation.