Drivers of Transportation Fuel Demand: Aligning Future Scenarios and Policy Expectations

Key Points:The U.S. light-duty vehicle market represents a key test bed for some of the world’s leading vehicle regulatory policy programs. At the federal level, standards for model years 2022-2025 were established in 2012 under the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions/Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. At the state level, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate portion of California’s Advanced Clean Cars program, adopted by nine other states, was most recently revised at about the same time. Although both are emissions-related policies, they are concerned with different time frames and aspects of the vehicle market. The forthcoming mid-term review for both programs presents an ideal opportunity to reassess likely outcomes in light of new information and changing market conditions and to align them with policy expectations.Perhaps the single biggest change since 2012 is the unexpected drop in fuel prices. Low fuel prices imply low fuel cost savings, which reduces the incentive for consumers to pay up front for fuel efficient technologies. This could shorten the time horizon under which meeting GHG/CAFE standards via technology improvements is economically feasible.The ZEV mandate currently straddles the line between an innovation policy and a technology-forcing policy. The near-term goal is to foster innovation and introduction of ZEV technologies in a way that accelerates both cost reduction and consumer familiarity, while the long-term goal is to achieve extensive GHG reductions.GHG/CAFE and ZEV place different types of requirements on manufacturers simultaneously. It is worth exploring whether their goals could be achieved through a single, unified policy, given the ultimate goal of cost-effective GHG reduction over the longer term. This could require a combination of more stringent performance standards with an appropriately designed system of credits for new technologies

关键点：美国轻型汽车市场是全球领先的车辆监管政策项目的重要试验场。在联邦层面，2012年根据温室气体（GHG）排放/企业平均燃料经济性（CAFE）计划，确立了2022-2025年车型的标准。在州级层面，加州高级清洁汽车计划中零排放车辆（ZEV）强制令部分，已被其他九个州采纳，最近一次修订也是在同一时期。尽管两者都与排放相关，但它们关注的时间框架和汽车市场的方面不同。这两个计划的即将到来的中期审查为根据新信息和变化的市场条件重新评估可能的结果提供了一个理想的机会，并将之与政策预期相一致。自2012年以来，最大的变化可能是燃料价格的意外下降。低燃料价格意味着低燃料成本节约，这减少了消费者为燃料效率技术预先付费的激励。这可能会缩短通过技术改进满足GHG/CAFE标准在经济上可行的时间框架。ZEV强制令目前处于创新政策和强制技术政策之间的界限。短期目标是促进创新和ZEV技术的引入，以加速成本降低和消费者熟悉度的提升，而长期目标是实现广泛的GHG减排。GHG/CAFE和ZEV同时对制造商提出不同类型的要求。鉴于长期有效降低GHG的成本目标，值得探讨是否可以通过单一、统一的政策来实现其目标，这可能需要将更严格的表现标准与为新技术设计得体的信用体系相结合。