Very harmful to the environment because they are often misused, plug-in hybrid cars are in the sights of the European Union. Thus, the Commission now wants to take actual use into account, which will have the effect of causing consumption to soar. With the result being more punitive measures.
If sales of electric cars continue to grow, with a market share of 17% in France, some drivers are still quite cautious. This is whythey sometimes turn to plug-in hybridswhich offers a good compromise on paper.
A polluting engine
It is true that with this engine, it is not obligatory to find a charging station to continue driving. However, this creates problems, since many motorists drive on a daily basis without ever plugging in their vehicle. A practice denounced by the NGO Transport & Environment, which emphasized that PHEV cars were very harmful to the planet. And this is directly because of poor practices by drivers, as was also confirmed by another study by the European Commission last March.
Obviously, Brussels wants to ensure that these cars are put out of harm’s way, even if registrations are down. Because the latter are often purchased by companies, in order to fill the mandatory quota of electrified vehicles, but also to avoid having to pay TVS (tax on company cars).
Except that employees only charge their cars very little, due to a lack of terminals available at work or at home. And while the French government wants to tighten the screw, this is also the case for Europe which is still cracking down and wants to wage war on plug-in hybrids.
The journalists of Echoes inform us of a change in the regulations, from 2025. But what is it about? In fact, from next year, official emissions from plug-in hybrid models will double, or even triple. And this is thanks to a sleight of hand carried out by the European Union, which will now take into account actual electrical usage. For the moment, this is based solely on the WLTP cycle, which is carried out in ideal conditions, with a 100% charged battery and therefore fully operational.
And suffice to say that this should change a lot of things. In its latest study, Brussels noted that plug-in hybrids actually consume 3.5 times more than official approval. And inevitably, this has an impact on emissions, with an average of 139.4 grams of CO2 per kilometer.
To compare, electric models peak at just 9g/km on average. Suffice to say that the gap is enormous, which pushes Brussels to act as quickly as possible to limit the damage.
Towards the disappearance of the plug-in hybrid?
After a study published at the end of 2022 by the ICCT (Internation council for Transport Transportation), a BMW X1 xDrive25e would pass from 46 to 96 g/km from next year. And it will be even worse from 2027, with even stricter criteria based on the Euro 6e-bis UF standard. With the latter, the PHEV SUV would simply drop to 122 g/km, which is enormous for a plug-in hybrid car, supposed to operate a large majority of the time in electric mode. Because for the record, the latter displays a zero-emission range (exhaust) oscillating between 57 and 89 kilometers WLTP.
Since the European Union wants to do everything to ban thermal cars, in particular by imposing the sale of electric models from 2035, are PHEVs doomed to disappear? For the moment, nothing has been done yet, but this obviously cannot be ruled out. Already, because sales have been declining for many years, but also because the public authorities want to get rid of them.
While theThe bonus has already been removed for plug-in hybridsthey could now be affected by the penalty.
In addition, we know that each manufacturer must respect an average CO2 emissions for its range, within the framework of the CAFE regulations. Each additional gram is punishable by a financial penalty of 95 euros, which applies to each copy sold, which quickly increases the bill. Thus, if emissions from PHEVs increase from next year, this will have an impact on the averages of brands, which should be forced to remove these models from their catalog.