Emission Analytics says that hybrid vehicles offer the most effective route to overall emission reduction at present, even more effective than battery electric vehicles.

The vehicle emissions monitoring organisation says that global battery production capacity is scare and efficient deployment of available capacity is vital. In these circumstances this may not be best targeted at all battery electric vehicles, with a combination of hybrid vehicles and modern petrol engines the most effective means of meeting current emission targets.  

Combining its own data with the finding of a study by industry expert Kevin Brown, Emission Analytics says that the problem with the pure electric vehicles is that the transition will be slow. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) need disproportionately large batteries to give acceptable consumer utility, just as battery capacity is currently a scarce resource.  As such a smaller reduction in emission per vehicle now, but across many more hybrid vehicles, would eliminate a far greater volume of CO2 than applying the scarce battery resource to a smaller number of BEVs.  This approach also helps mitigate naturally slow fleet turnover, with the average age of cars on the road being over twelve years.

Emission Analytics testing shows that hybrid vehicles can achieve a 30% reduction in emissions in comparison to their petrol equivalents. Using available hybrid technology would allow the EU to reach three quarters of its emission reduction targets by 2030. Together with plug-in hybridisation and other design innovations, it is plausible that the target could be met without the need for full electric vehicles.

Further findings show that mild hybrids are the most efficient method of CO2 reduction, followed by full hybrids, given scarce battery production capacity.  Plug-in hybrids are the next most effective after that. BEVs have the lowest efficiency, primarily due to requiring disproportionately large batteries to accommodate relatively infrequent, extreme usage cases where the driver will otherwise suffer range anxiety.

Emission Analytics conclude that policy unilaterally favouring one technology solution may be deeply inefficient. A better approach would be to use real-world data to allow competing technologies to flourish as they can evidence genuine CO2 reductions, delivered as soon as possible.