Measures to promote the diffusion of alternative fuel vehicles in EU27

Passenger and freight transport continuously in terms of passenger-km and ton-km continuously grew in the last decades in EU27, only interrupted by the economic crisis. The contribution of transport to total GHG emissions in 2007 reached a share of 20%. Facing fossil fuel scarcity in the coming decades, these developments demonstrate the responsibility of actors in the transport sector to stop this trend. Policy-makers reacted by setting CO2 targets for passenger car and light duty vehicle fleets in EU27 until 2015 and 2020. Manufacturers already offer a range of efficient ICE vehicles, but even the 2020 targets can hardly be achieved by only selling vehicles with ICE. Alternative fuel technologies for passenger cars need to be pushed. The question to be raised is how to accelerate the diffusion of alternative fuel technologies efficiently. The paper at hand analyses the potential and suitable incentives to accelerate the diffusion of alternative fuel technologies with the integrated assessment model ASTRA. It considers socio-economic trends like ageing societies as well as rebound effects.