Shift researchers from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and University of Gothenburg have managed to isolate the effects of the super green car premium, introduced in Sweden in 2012, from the effects of other policy instruments in use at the same time.

The study finds that the super-green car premium lies behind 1 out of 3 registered plug-in hybrid cars registered during the period 2012 – 2015. The remaining 2 out of 3 plug-in hybrid cars that received the premium during the period 2012 – 2015 cannot be explained by the premium.

The results bring new light on the effects of subsidies for promoting new transport technologies and provide insight to effective future designs of policy  instruments such as the new bonus-malus system in Sweden.

Key findings

• The super green car premium caused the purchase and registration of 1 out of 3 plug-in hybrid cars with emissions below 50 grams CO2/km.
• 2 out of 3 plug-in hybrid cars that received the premium would have been purchased and registered even without the super green car premium.
• Most of the cars that received the premium were company cars.
• The super green car premium partly overlapped with several other policy instruments that were in use in Sweden at the same time also  effecting the number of registered plug-in hybrid cars. This reduced the effectiveness of the super green car premium.
• To prevent ineffectiveness, it is important to fully understand the effects from each policy instrument also during its development.