Abstract
In 2020, vehicle sales decreased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, several voices have demanded a vehicle subsidy similar to the “environmental subsidy” in Germany in 2009. The ecological efficiency of vehicle subsidies is controversially discussed. This paper establishes a prognosis of the long-term environmental impacts of various car subsidy concepts. The CO2 emissions of the German car fleet impacted by the purchase subsidies are determined. A balance model of the CO2 emissions of the whole car life cycle is developed. The implementation of different subsidy scenarios directly affects the forecasted composition of the vehicle population and, therefore, the resulting life-cycle assessment. All scenarios compensate the additional emissions required by the production pull-in within the considered period and, hence, reduce the accumulated CO2 emissions until 2030. In the time period 2019–2030 and for a total number of 0.72 million subsidized vehicles—compensating the decrease due to the COVID-19 pandemic—savings of between 1.31 and 7.56 million t CO2 eq. are generated compared to the scenario without a subsidy. The exclusive funding of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is most effective, with an ecological break-even in 2025.
Highlights
As a result of the containment measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, international vehicle sales collapsed dramatically in the first half of 2020
The goal of this work is to analyze the impact of a subsidy on the CO2 eq emissions of the German passenger car fleet
This paper shows that all considered subsidy concepts eventually have a positive effect on reducing the CO2 equivalent emissions of the German passenger car fleet
Summary
As a result of the containment measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, international vehicle sales collapsed dramatically in the first half of 2020. The German Association of the Automotive Industry (Verband der Automobilindustrie, VDA) predicts a decline of −23% of new passenger car registrations in Germany compared to the prior year [1]. According to the VDA president Hildegard Müller, the massively reduced production will lead to a decrease in employment [1]. From an economic point of view, the COVID-19 pandemic shows some similarities to the 2008 financial crisis: At that time, the passenger car registrations in Germany decreased to the lowest level since the German reunification. The forecast without any car sales stimulation predicted 2.8 million new registrations, almost 0.3 million less than the already historically low number of 3.09 million new registrations in 2008
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