The gap between official and real CO₂ emissions from plug-in hybrids continues to grow. According to a new analysis by Transport & Environment, PHEVs emitted on average about six times more CO₂ under real-world conditions in 2024 than official figures suggest.

Transport & Environment (T&E) bases its analysis on data from the European Environment Agency. According to this, the real-world CO2 emissions of plug-in hybrids registered in 2024 were, on average, about six times higher than the official figures. In 2023, T&E reported that this factor was still around five.

For drivers, this discrepancy also has financial consequences. T&E calculates that the additional fuel costs – compared to official consumption figures – for a PHEV sold in 2024 amount to an average of €680 per year. Even compared to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles and non-plug-in hybrids, the real-world advantage is smaller than the official figures suggest. According to T&E’s analysis, the actual emissions of plug-in hybrids were only 14 per cent lower than those of these vehicles. In contrast, official test values suggested a reduction of 83 per cent.

According to T&E, one reason for this is that the internal combustion engine also runs regularly during supposedly electric operation. The analysis found that this was the case for about one-third of the kilometres driven in battery mode.

A gap between the test bench and real-world conditions is not a new problem, as demonstrated by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) this summer. In an evaluation of around eight million vehicles, the researchers found that in 2023, real-world PHEV emissions were, on average, about five times higher than official test values.

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