If everyone in London switched to hybrid cars (eg Prius), how much less CO2 would be produced in a year?

Question

A long-winded question I know, but I'm really interested in finding out! :) come on boffins, put your best thinking caps on and give me a really good well thought-out answer...

Answer 1

Well, London would have to redesign their Congestion Charging, if everyone in London switched to hybrid cars.  Currently, hybrid cars (well, at least the Prius, since it is in the exempt VED tax band B) are exempt from Congestion Charging after paying a yearly £10 registration fee.  (The fee is usually £8 per day for a regular car.)

To calculate the difference in CO2, we'd need to know:

How many km Londoners on average drove (since CO2 amounts are given as g/km)

How many Londoners drive automobiles

How much CO2 Londoners currently put out driving their current vehicles

How much CO2 Londoners would put out if those vehicles were all replaced with hybrids

What hybrids were used to replace the currently driven Londoners' vehicles

Not all hybrids are created equal.  Some may be tuned for fuel efficiency and/or low emissions, like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid, while others may be tuned for better performance (acceleration, power), like the Lexus hybrids...

When calculating the CO2 produced, please use the UK data (UK Dept. of Transport).  (Different countries have different spec. cars.  For example, the North American NHW20 Prius has the CHHS (thermos bottle for warm coolant) and the bladder fuel tank, while the UK/Europe Prius does not.)

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/...

Which is 104 g/km of CO2 emissions for the NHW20 Prius.

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/...

Which is 109 g/km of CO2 emissions for the Honda Civic Hybrid.

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/...

Which is 192 g/km of CO2 emissions for the Lexus RX400h.

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/...

Which is 186 g/km of CO2 emissions for the Lexus GS450h.

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/...

Which is 219 g/km of CO2 emissions for the Lexus LS600h.

Unfortunately, the Honda Insight is no longer being produced, so I cannot quote the CO2 figure for the UK model as it isn't a new model able to be purchased like the above.

According to http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/informa... :

<quote>

At the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in December 1997 all developed countries agreed to legally binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in response to warnings over global climate change. Following this the European Commission and the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) came to an agreement in July 1998 that committed ACEA to reduce the CO2 emissions from new passenger cars by over 25% to an average CO2 emission figure of 140 g/km by 2008.

</quote>

However, that still doesn't tell us how much CO2 is being produced, as we do not know if that target has been met, nor do we know how many cars are on the road in London...

And where do you draw the boundary for London?  Just the congestion charge zone, or do you extend out to the Greater London area?

Answer 2

--  Dana has it right.

--  however, many Londoners use public transit, which is equivalent to NY.

--  with gas there costing something like $8 a gallon, you can bet they are already way more careful than we are here.

it's my guess that a Prius is heavier than most of their cars, so there should not be a great difference.

Answer 3

Any fuel source has baggage, i.e., emissions.  If all vehicles are fueled with any one source, we can and will have problems associated with it because of the sheer volume of vehicles.  Solving one problem and creating another isn't what we need.  We need to be making projections based on all possible combinations of energy sources, to find the most friendly palette of fuels that we can live with.

Answer 4

This site:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/04/...

claims an average of 169 g/km for new cars in the UK, based on new sales. We can take that as gospel, and pretend that most of the fleet will be replaced within 5 years at this figure. It's impossible to know what the contribution of each of these cars is, though - maybe the most efficient cars are driven least, and vice-versa. However, assuming that all cars are driven equally, this means going to 104 g/km means you'd reduce CO2 production from petrol cars by ~40%. The only figures I could find for petrol consumption were from 2002, during which petrol cars consumed 21,513 thousand tonnes of petrol, which is, by my math, 70 million tonnes of CO2 produced. The total UK burden is ~ 600 million tonnes, so reducing the above number by 40% would reduce the total burden by ~5%.

These numbers are VERY fuzzy and should be taken with a lump of salt.

Though these numbers are for all of the UK, not for London, as you asked.

Answer 5

You'd have to do a lot of research to determine the answer.

A Prius has 104 g/km of CO2 emissions.

http://www.hybridsynergydrive.com/en/pri...

People in the UK generally drive small cars, so you'd have to figure out how many cars Londoners drive, the average distance they travel per year, and what types of cars they drive (or the average emissions of a Londoner's car).  I'm not sure those statistics are available.