The EC raises the benchmark of plug-in hybrids

[[MC]Ronin[MC]]

The EC raises the benchmark of plug-in hybrids

Measures aim to measure the true eco-friendliness of plug-in hybrids.

New European CO2 emission standards for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles oblige the European Commission to monitor actual fuel and electricity consumption from next year. This is emphasized by ICCT (International Council for Clean Transport).

According to the ICCT, on-board fuel consumption measuring devices (OBFCMs) must be installed in all new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles as of January 1, 2020. As for plug-in hybrids, these devices will measure the extent to which they move only on electricity and will be transmitted to an external center, where general statistics will be generated for this type of drive.

This type of hybrid car (PHEV) has been criticized for many years (and not just by ICCT) for the amount of CO2 it emits. It depends very much on the way you drive and how you charge the car. In Germany, in the context of increasing environmental subsidies, PHEVs were again criticized for their eco-friendliness. In short, if a plug-in hybrid is charging frequently (say, at the end of any point of travel - office or home), it will run almost entirely on electricity. But if the owner does not make these frequent refills, the fuel consumption of the plug-in hybrid becomes very high.

According to the ICCT, when the previous regulations were adopted, the authorities only had data on ICE vehicles. At that time, it was assumed that PHEVs would be loaded once a day. "With OBFCM data, real consumption and charging schemes for plug-in hybrids will be analyzed."

The purpose of collecting this data is to trace the evolution of the difference between standard homologation consumption and actual CO2 emissions. If a large gap is identified, the European Commission could put in place regulatory measures to ensure that this gap does not increase over the years.

OBFCM data is also useful for other purposes. Customers will be able to get more information on eco-friendly cars by seeing actual fuel and electricity consumption. It will also be possible to record the effect of the age of the car on actual consumption.

You need to understand what the data transfer method will be. ICCT points out that there are four ways to do this: by manually downloading service data (during service), accidentally downloading data during routine police checks, special software for company fleets and car rental companies, and of course - wireless transmission. In the latter case, data can be uploaded directly to European Commission servers.

The latter method is recommended by ICCT. There is another reason for this: new electric vehicles undergo first inspection or TUV after years. And getting the data in routine police checks will further increase the workload of law enforcement agencies until the fleet decision covers private clients.