Quantifying the real-world CO2 emissions and energy consumption of modern plug-in hybrid vehicles

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) can be classified as low CO2 emissions vehicles in Europe if they emit no more than 50 g/km, and are viewed as favourable transitional technology for road transport electrification. Some recent studies challenge their effectiveness in reducing CO2 emissions in real-world conditions. This study tested four Euro 6 PHEVs, both in the laboratory and on the road, for CO2 emissions and energy consumption. The experimental results show that PHEVs in-use CO2 emissions can range from 0 to 6 times the official type-approval CO2 value. The results were analysed to derive relevant operation models and emission factors and benchmark their in-use performance with respect to the officially declared consumption values. A three-dimensional CO2 emissions model is proposed based on charge-level and average trip speed or wheel energy. When considering different users ' charging practices and representative real-world conditions, PHEVs in-use CO2 emissions are within 1.5 to 2 times the official type-approval CO2 value. Although the real-world emissions of plug-in hybrids appear to increase compared to the official values, they generally remain lower than conventional powertrains. The single-modelling element approach presented offers a novel, robust, and simple to implement a way to include PHEVs in planning exercises, emissions calculation models to support national and regional inventories, lifecycle emissions estimates, and fleet-wide emissions monitoring tools.

TANSINI Alessandro;  PAVLOVIC Jelica;  FONTARAS Georgios; 

2022-06-22

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC128660

0959-6526 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622017978,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128660,   

10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132191 (online),