Research Reports
Zero Emission Vehicle Credits: China Program Design Inputs Brief (June 2015 / Clean Transportation Program)
This brief is meant to inspire Chinese EV stakeholders to converse on the topic of ZEV program design and action plan for China. A former iCET report described the California ZEV program, evaluated its effectiveness through qualitative and quantitative research, and studied its history and inception process. This former work was introduced to national and local stakeholders in China, including the government, academic, and private sectors through workshops, roundtables and meetings. The process of stakeholders’ engagement was important on its own, as it unveiled concerns and challenges facing a China-tailored program. These topics are presented in this brief.
China Green Car Methodology Upgrade Report (May 2015 / Clean Transportation Program)
iCET’s flagship China Green Car (CGC) ranking system methodology is based on the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) method logy, a globally leading vehicle life-cycle health and environment impact assessment. As the ACEEE is being adjusted every year according to vehicle and power technology improvements, and as China’s data inputs collected by iCET are also evolving rapidly, this report studies these changes and provides adequate revisions to the traditional CGC for ICE vehicles that have been developed in 2006. Furthermore, this report studies the life-cycle emissions and health impacts of electric vehicles (EVs) and suggests a new CGC methodology tailored for EVs in China.
Calculating Urban Transportation Emissions - PrivateVehicles: Lessons from existing tools’ development, design and implementation (Oct.2015/Clean Transportation Program)
This report is designed to provide context to iCET's City Transport Emissions Calculator and screen existing transport emissions modeling approaches available in China and abroad, best-practices and limitations for the purpose of measuring urban transport emissions towards more informed clean transportation planning and policy-making. Since private vehicles are argued to have a greater impact on emission reduction than freight transport due to the surge in private car population and its low energy efficiency, the private vehicle segment was chosen to be introduced prior to the public and freight urban on-road segments. The calculator, which will be fruit of this initial work, is meant to be simple to use, include state-of-the-art default values, and be publically available both online and through MoT's clean urban transport planning lab.
2015 China Green Car Finalists (May 2015 / Clean Transportation Program)
Since 2006, iCET is promoting the China green Car system in collaboration with China’s Vehicle Emissions Control Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (VECC-MEP). Since 2010, the China Green Car system became available both through a dedicated online user-friendly website and as an annual report release every June. In 2014 the China Green Car system received the esteemed support of the UNEP, which enabled the use of vehicle tailpipe health impact figures provided by VECC-MEP for constructing an additional vehicle smog index.Apart from tailpipe emissions, the ranking system is also based on fuel consumption, and vehicle curb-weight. In early 2015, iCET completed its periodic calculation update and created an EV evaluation method. China Green Car is meant to guide a more stringent regulatory framework governing private vehicle development in China, inform industry players of their relative performance, and assist consumers to make more sustainable vehicle purchase choices. This booklet highlights the finalists of the initial CGC assessment,following which a public testing of vehicle during the Global Clean Vehicle Summit will determine the top-ranked car models in terms of their environmental performance for the year 2015.
EU sustainable Biofuel Development Mechanism and its Implications for China（November 2014 / Clean Transportation Program)
This study is aimed at introducing to Chinese stakeholders the EU-Renewable Energy Directive and Fuel Quality Directive experiences and practices, as well as advancing the development of sustainable low-carbon alternative fuel production and certification.
Evaluating California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Credits and Trading Mechanism and its Potential Suitability for China
The report introduces the innovative California ZEV-Credits program and evaluates its effectiveness through a case study of the world’s leading electric automaker Tesla Motors, experts interviews, quantitative impact assessments, and extensive meta-analysis. The report has demonstrated the capacity building the ZEV credits program provides for small manufacturers in a fast evolving and highly dominated market place. As identified by national and local key stakeholders, a similar scheme tailored for China may advance local technology solutions and vehicle standard implementation, and be linked to broader emissions trading platforms.
2014 China Annual Corporate Average Fuel Consumption (CAFC) Report
This year’s report is iCET fourth annual report which tracks China’s fuel economy implementation status, trends and recommendations.This year report is unique as it examines the first-ever corporate reported average fuel consumption recently made publicly available by MIIT,studies new energy vehicles potential contribution to auto manufacturers in meeting their limits and standards; identifies trends and implementation issues by corporate type (importing, independent domestic manufacturers etc.), and provides policy recommendations towards the new standard design and implementation.
2014 Green Car China Annual Report (June 2014 / Clean Transportation Program)
China's MEP joined forces with iCET on marketing and improving this year's China Green Car (previously named EFV) report. Vehicle emissions of about 90% of China's model year 2013 vehicles are based on Type Approval tests rather than on China's emissions standard targets. Furthermore, a ranking of China's Top 50 sales' vehicles was added to this year's typical nine vehicle segments (Small, Compact, Medium, Large, Luxury, SUV, SPV, Sports cars, Hybrid), and separate smog index scores were added to the traditional EFV report's green rating values to indicate vehicles' air-quality impacts.
AB 32 Training Manuals VI：“A Review on Fuel Suppliers of California’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme” (June 2014 / Carbon Management Program / CHINESE)
The biggest highlight of the upcoming second compliance period of California cap-and-trade system is the new covered sector in 2015: fuel suppliers. Fuel suppliers will be the biggest covered sector considering that their compliance obligation will be about half of the covered emissions of the whole carbon market. iCET recently published a report in which fuel suppliers’ coverage and threshold, compliance obligation, compliance approaches, and other control requirements under California cap and trade system are illustrated. Peers, like Carbon pilots in China and California carbon market, tend to face the same challenges and opportunities. The regulation of fuel suppliers is just one approach toward the inclusion of transportation emissions into the cap and trade system, and California’s outcome would make a good case study for China’s pilots to learn from.
Evaluating California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Credits and Trading Mechanism and its Potential Suitability for China (May 2014 / Clean Transportation Program)
Although China has committed itself to ambitious energy consumption reduction policies and has already started incentivizing the commercial development of New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) and related infrastructure, it is clear that more aggressive, comprehensive, and innovative approaches are in need. The California ZEV-Credits scheme has been identified as a truly innovative program with high contribution value to support low-carbon development while greatly incentivizing market players to innovate commercial solutions. The ZEV-credits scheme has recently received the attention of national decision-makers (among which are NDRC, MOF, MIIT) as well as local planners (mainly local DRCs). iCET’s “Evaluating California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Credits and Trading Mechanism and its Potential Suitability for China” report, supported by the Energy Foundation, was released earlier this month. Through the single case study of global electric car leader Tesla Motors, this work has demonstrated the capacity building the ZEV credits program provided for small manufacturers in a fast evolving and highly dominated market place.