Vehicle Emissions Reduction

Actual Experiences With Gasoline Fueled Vehicles

1. Budapest

By the end of 1993, catalytic converters became mandatory equipment on all new cars in Hungary, whether imported or assembled domestically. The government also hoped to persuade owners of older cars to install converters and offered financial assistance (up to 60 percent) of the cost to motorists who did so. Part of the money for this effort came from the European Union's PHARE fund, a fund set up initially to help Poland and Hungary in their economic reconstruction but which has since been broadened to include other Eastern European nations.

The financial assistance was the positive inducement; the negative was that municipalities prohibited cars without catalytic converters from entering the centers of cities under certain conditions. This was left up to municipal administrations, but during a smog alert the national authorities expected that municipalities would ban polluting cars from entering.

In 1972, 100 vehicles were retrofitted with oxidation catalytic converters and each was driven for at least 20,000 miles. With the exception of two or three vehicles that were misfueled with leaded gasoline, the results were excellent - HC and CO emissions were reduced by more than 70%. Although the demonstration program was a technical success, no tax or other incentive or retrofit requirement was established. Consequently, no market for the retrofit converter developed.

In 1997, an emission upgrade program began in the County of San Diego. The program consisted of retrofitting a TWC catalyst and a closed-looped air/fuel ratio control system on vehicles originally equipped with oxidation catalysts and open loop engine controls. After 30,000 miles, the average emission reduction from 6 durability vehicles was 70% for HC, 68% for CO, and 50% for NOX based on the US FTP-CVS emission test. Vehicles owners volunteer for the program and receive the kit at reduced cost. Most vehicles are high emitters that have failed emission inspection tests. Approximately 150 vehicles have been converted to date.

Germany conducted a voluntary retrofit program using tax credits as an incentive during the 1980s. A vehicle which had an approved system installed received a special certificate. The certificate was then used to obtain a 550 DM credit (about $275 at the time the program was in operation) for a TWC converter only or a 1100 DM credit ($550) for TWC with closed-looped control. The tax credit offset about 50% of the installation cost to the consumer.

The converters used in this program were typically the original vehicle manufacturer's converter used on current production vehicles. Most of the vehicles involved in this program were Volkswagen, Mercedes, and BMW models. The German program focused primarily on privately owned vehicles. Since 1985, hundreds of thousands of vehicles have been retrofitted with catalysts. The program included several stages of increasingly stringent emission reductions with proportionally higher tax credits.

The Federal Ministry of Transport in Bonn published, on March 14, 1997, new rates of road taxation to enter into force on July 1, 1997. As an incentive for drivers and manufacturers to further reduce the exhaust emissions generated by traffic, the road tax for private cars equipped with the latest exhaust technology (Euro 3 or 4) or that are especially fuel efficient (90 ("3 liter car") or 120 ("5 liter car") g/km CO2), was lowered. The tax burden for other private cars that are permitted to be driven when the ozone warning is announced remained unchanged for the time being, while cars with a high level of emissions of harmful substances were taxed more heavily. At the same time, consumers were urged to convert cars that are not equipped with clean exhausts if this is feasible and useful. An overview of the tax rates is shown in the table.

                Road tax rates in DM per 100cm3
Car group     present   1997   2001   2004   2005
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
Euro 3,4 (3 liter car)
- petrol                10     10     13.20  13.20
- diesel                27     27     30.20  30.20
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
Euro 2
- petrol      13.20     12     12     14.40  14.40
- diesel      37.10     29     29     31.40  31.40
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
Euro 1        
- petrol      13.20     13.20  21.20  21.20  29.60
- diesel      37.10     37.10  45.10  45.10  53.50
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
other cars used with ozone alerts

- petrol      21.60     21.60  29.60  29.60  41.20
- diesel      45.50     45.50  53.50  53.50  65.10
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
cars not used with ozone alerts

- petrol      13.20     33.20  41.20  41.20  49.60
- diesel      37.10     57.10  65.10  65.10  73.50
------------+----------+-----+------+------+-------
cars with partially clean or w/o clean exhausts

- petrol*     18.80     41.60  49.60  49.60  49.60     
- petrol**    21.60     
- diesel*     42.70     65.50  73.50  73.50  73.50
- diesel**    45.50
--------------------------------------------------

*  First registered before 01-Jan-86
** First registered after 01-Jan-86

Euro 3 and Euro 4 cars benefit from tax relief until 31-Dec-05 or until it reaches 250 DM (petrol) or 500 DM (diesel) for Euro 3 cars and 600 DM (petrol) and 1200 DM (diesel) for Euro 4 cars.

Under this program it is estimated that approximately 800,000 cars in Germany have now been retrofitted.