The European Union will tighten the screw in its calculation of emissions from plug-in hybrids, which will multiply their CO2 emissions by 2.5!
Plug-in hybrids are seen by some as a necessary step before the transition to all-electric, a kind of initiation to charging to reassure themselves before definitively turning their backs on fossil fuels. Back off to better blow up. For others however, it is an extension of the use of useless oil, a waste of time and, above all, a way of cheating, many users using them for personal or professional purposes only charging them very rarely, if ever, without having to pay the penalty they would pay without electric assistance and by obtaining tax assistance.
The problem stems from the fact that the plug-in hybrid is the only engine whose virtuous side depends solely on the goodwill of its driver, which will dictate the proportion of emission-free driving that he performs. And this is where all the difficulty lies in determining its true consumption at the level of the standards, which nevertheless establishes the government subsidies that it can receive.
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But these standards will however change radically, as discovered by our colleagues from Autocar, with the transition to the Euro 6th standard. The calculation will in fact use a coefficient granting a greater influence to the mixture between the pipes in thermal mode, with the battery at its minimum threshold, and in electric mode. This will be done in two stages, with a first threshold in 2025 and a second in 2027, and the final figure obtained multiplies by 2.5 times the emissions that we obtain today. Thus, the 50 g/km of CO2 obtained today by a plug-in hybrid would be transformed into 125 g/km, which would put an end to all current state aid.
It will always be technically possible for a plug-in hybrid to maintain the figures achieved today, but this will require a lower power heat engine to limit emissions and a battery with a capacity greater than 30 kWh, a technical sheet which does not correspond than to the less widespread electric ones with range extender. This will represent a real challenge for manufacturers, who will have to either speed up the transition to 100% electric a little more when they are already struggling to keep up, or invest massively in the development of products with technologies that will only have a limited lifespan before the last nail in the thermal coffin in 2035.
