The potential of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) to reduce local pollutant and global greenhouse gas emissions strongly depends on their real-world usage and the share of kilometres driven on electricity, the so-called utility factor (UF). In the European CO2 fleet targets, generic functions for UF of PHEV are used derived from in standardized testing procedures, or test cycles, such as the Worldwide Harmonized Light-Duty Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP). We find that the current WLTP UF parameters are too optimistic about real-world UF since long-distance driving was missing in earlier estimates, actual charging is less frequent than commonly assumed and real-world all-electric ranges are lower than WLTP ranges.
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