According to a new report, car fleet renewal schemes in theUS,FranceandGermany, meant to stimulate consumer spending on cars following the economic crisis have failed to meet their environmental and safety objectives.
The report from Dutch research and consultancy organisation TNO assessed three different schemes – the French Prime a la Casse; the German Umweltpramie; and the US Cars programme; and looked at the impact on CO2 and NOx emissions of 2.8million transactions in which old cars were traded for new vehicles.
It looked at the value for money of the different schemes and concluded it is vital to consider the objectives of the schemes carefully when setting design parameters to guarantee success. It suggested that while scrappage schemes have potential to deliver on objectives such as reducing pollutant emissions, they may not have done so as well as they could.
Among its key findings were that increased awareness of the monetised societal benefits of avoided NOx, in addition to CO2, would have helped improve the cost effectiveness of the schemes.
It also showed that the three schemes helped reduce CO2 but there were variations based on the class and age of the scrapped vehicles – it is believed that replacing younger vehicles may deliver more CO2 reductions but at a higher economic cost.
