TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weiss, Martin
A1  - Irrgang, Lukas
A1  - Kiefer, Andreas T.
A1  - Roth, Josefine R.
A1  - Helmers, Eckard
T1  - Mass- and power-related efficiency trade-offs and CO2 emissions of compact passenger cars
T2  - Journal of Cleaner Production
N2  - Passenger cars in Europe have become both heavier and more powerful over the past decades. This trend has increased vehicle utility but it might have also offset technical improvements in powertrain efficiency. Here, we analyze efficiency trade-offs and CO2 emissions for three popular compact cars in Germany. We find that mass, power, and front area of model variants has increased by 66%, 147%, and 22%, respectively between 1980 and 2018. In the same period, fuel consumption decreased 14% for gasoline models but it increased 9% for diesel models. However, if vehicle mass, power, and front area had remained at 1980 levels, technical efficiency improvements would have decreased the fuel consumption of gasoline and diesel models by 23% and 24%, respectively. The related efficiency trade-offs amount to 24 g CO2/km or 13% of the current fuel consumption for gasoline models and 40 g CO2/km or 25% of the current fuel consumption for diesel models. These findings suggest that about half of the technical efficiency improvements in gasoline models and all of the technical efficiency improvements in diesel models are offset through other vehicle attributes. By accounting for the observed efficiency trade-offs, climate policy could become more effective.
KW  - Personenkraftwagen
KW  - Kohlendioxidemission
KW  - Klimaschutz
KW  - passenger cars
KW  - efficiency trade-offs
KW  - CO2 emissions
KW  - vehicle power
KW  - vehicle mass
KW  - climate policy
Y1  - 2019
UR  - https://hst.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/102
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:tr5-1022
VL  - 243
SP  - 1
EP  - 10
PB  - Elsevier
ER  -