Car scrappage incentives policies: a life cycle study on GHG emissions

In the last decade a certain number of car scrappage incentives programs have been promulgated to promote earlier replacement of aging vehicles with new ones, cleaner and more efficient, with the aim of pollutant emission reduction and transport safety improvement. Some concerns have been raised about the effectiveness and efficiency of those measures, in particular in relation to the overall environmental impacts along the life of the vehicle phases production, use, end of life and fuel life chain. This life cycle study is focused on the effects on greenhouse gases emissions of a car scrappage scheme in a time range of 24 years, from 1996 to 2020, reducing the average vehicle life from 12 to 10 years; the reference value of retirement age is calculated from the Italian vehicle fleet and used cars market statistics. Two case studies are analyzed for two reference gasoline cars and one diesel car, representative of the European and USA fleet in 2005, considering emissions and consumption data respectively from the MIT and JRC reports published in 2008. In the baseline case it is considered the expected technological evolution of conventional gasoline vehicle both on propulsion and non-propulsion systems. The advanced case takes into account a higher technology improvement up to 2020, with hybrid propulsion systems. Both case studies show that the GHG emissions on the whole vehicle life cycle are neutral with respect to car replacement acceleration, provided that the promoting incentives are restricted to the more energy efficient new vehicles, and new technologies development expected for 2020 will be achieved.