With world economies in the mess they are, I would have expected a dramatic drop in emissions. Don't the data reflect that over the last four years?

At average Japanese mileages, it is difficult to amortise the extra cost of electric cars.
Of course, for BEVs it is also difficult to drive more than 70 miles in a day, so sales are dependent on people with relatively limited need to go long distances, but high annual mileage.
Hence the comparative popularity of EREVs.

Henrik...the Global Economy may not be in a complete mess yet but it is getting very near fast. The accelerated shift of wealth from the 97% to the 3% and the HUGE national debts will bring the downfall of the current system by 2029 (or before) unless drastic corrective measures are taken. Many countries in EU are getting there at a fast pace. USA will soon follow. No country will avoid the final crash. Fortunes will tumble. The all mighty USD will fall to $0.01 or less.

Refuges will be rare. Real states will tumble with the rest for lack of buyers and owners going under their unmanageable debts. Solid Gold may offer some limited safeguard. Basic essential food and energy products may go down a bit less. Non essentials will crash like they did in 1929 and more so. The current unmodified pyramidal economic system is bound to fail.

People living in very isolated areas like Bhutan, above the Arctic Circle and a few other similar places may be better off.

Figures splitting out petrol vs diesel and cars by region would be interesting.

@Henrik,
Sorry to inform you otherwise that, NO, economies around the world are not booming like you think. Even in China, many factories are closing due to lack of demand due to economic collapses elsewhere in the world. This is very easy to understand: When jobs are outsourced to the lowest labor cost in the world, workers in the developed world are losing their jobs and can't buy anything, while workers in the developing world are paid too little to buy any foreign imports. As the results, economies will have to collapse when the bubble burst.

>>>"Do not expect much to happen with the global sales of hybrids or plug-ins until it is required by legislation or until oil approaches 200USD per barrel'

The best kept secret is that HEV and PHEV and BEV have much lower overall costs than ICEV. Much lower fuel costs and much lower repair costs and last much longer. As the result, the mfg can charge a HEV or PHEV or even BEV the same price as their comparable ICEV, while putting the price differential on payment plan, over 5-10 years. Because fuel cost and repair cost will be so low, the monthly payment + the fuel cost will still be far lower than the fuel cost of an equivalent ICEV.

When the HEV or PEV's are priced the same as their ICEV counterparts, we will see that the choice for the customer will be obvious. People will all rush out to buy PEV's and HEV's and will forget about ICEV's.

"With world economies in the mess they are, I would have expected a dramatic drop in emissions. Don't the data reflect that over the last four years?"

US CO2 emissions peaked in 2005. Since then they have fallen to 1990s levels. 2010 CO2 emissions were 6.6% lower than the 2005 level, approximately the level of 1998. First quarter 2012 was at the first quarter 1992 level.

CO2 levels were going down prior to the economic crash.

GDP increased $1,903.5 million or 15.1%, 2005 to 2010. GDP was higher for every single year following 2005, only dipping a bit in 2009.

Electrical generation increased 72,226 tMWhs or 1.8%, 2005 to 2010.

Oil consumption dropped 1,622 thousand barrels per day or 7.8%, 2005 to 2010. Some of that is due to less flying. Miles driven was down only 0.8% from 2005.

The 6.6% drop in CO2 is likely due to a number of factors. Less coal and more natural gas, an increase in non-hydro renewable generation (now ~4% of our grid supply) and higher fuel efficiency for cars and planes.

Europe (EU27) also seems to have peaked, perhaps as early as 1990, and is falling but at a lower rate than is the US.

Yes BW... there are many reasons for reduction in CO2 in many industrial countries including USA between 2005 and 2011. Most of the one you mentioned are important and correct.

One major reason you haven't mentioned is the important transfer of production facilities (and associated pollution) from USA to Asia, mainly to China. Didn't we effectively pushed pollution to Asia in order to reduce ours.

By careful with GDP increases because a growing percentage is really due to increased local sales of imported goods from Asia, mainly from China; not due to local production increases. If imported goods were excluded, our GDP would be much lower.

Roger and others

The global economy is booming as can be seen from the GDP growth numbers given in CIA factbook (see link below).

GDP (purchasing power parity):

$80.33 trillion (2011 est.)
$77.46 trillion (2010 est.)
$73.65 trillion (2009 est.)
note:data are in 2011 US dollars

GDP (official exchange rate):

GWP (gross world product): $69.99 trillion (2011 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:

3.7% (2011)
5.2% (2010 est.)
-0.8% (2009 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):

$12,000 (2011 est.)
$11,700 (2010 est.)
$11,300 (2009 est.)
note:data are in 2011 US dollars

Any growth rate above 2% pro anno is considered a boom with falling unemployment. From 0 to 2% it is slow growth with slowly increasing unemployment as new technology enable more production with less people. The annual technological progress is about 2% so the economic growth rate needs to be higher than that in order to create more new jobs than are destroyed by technological advances.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

@Bob

You are right. I did not mention technological advances and they matter especially in the long-term. However, with regard to fuel efficiency I think you will see that changes in oil prices and legislation are what will trigger and guide the technological change. The point is that unless oil prices go much up or legislation will require it technology will be developed to make faster and more convenient cars rather than more fuel efficient cars. Don’t expect cheaper batteries to be developed fast unless there is an urgent need for it.

Have taken my own advice one more time and have cashed in 3 more investments today. Will stay in a cash situation for a while but will continue to monitor. Will resume to cash in more during the next 4 to 5 weeks with on-going after sale monitoring. Future investments are also being monitored closely.

"...careful with GDP increases because a growing percentage is really due to increased local sales of imported goods from Asia, mainly from China; not due to local production increases. If imported goods were excluded, our GDP would be much lower."

I don't think so. Here's the definition of GDP that I found...

"The monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp#ixzz26IPGicgp

BW...all sales, regardless of where the goods come from, are part of the national GDP. Are sales discounted to account for the imported one? To some extend that may be done but there is a huge time lag. The discounting is very difficult to do accurately because the value of imported goods vary each time it changes hand.

I fully agree with you that driving electrified vehicles are currently less costly than driving ICEVs. Sooner or latter, States/Provinces and Fed authorities will have to tax the electricity used to charge our PHEVs and BEVs to compensate for lost revenues with lower liquid fuel sales. One way to avoid that would be to progressively increase liquid fuel taxes to offset lost of revenues with reduced volumes. Some places may do both.

The problem with BEVs is (with a few exception such as the Tesla S) lack of range per charge. We are used to 300+ miles or 500+ Km and since quick recharges are not available everywhere

Increased sales of foreign produced goods might increase overall US economic activity but those goods are not part of the US GDP. Nothing produced outside of the US is counted in the Gross Domestic Product.

It's also possible that increased sales of a foreign-manufactured product could boost US GDP if that product used exported US machinery or materials. That would increase GDP.

Do you have a link to that claim? I'd like to read it. I suspect they were talking about overall economic activity, not GDP. Possibly what they were discussing is a new imported product might stimulate economic activity and that increased activity might lead to more money sloshing around in our economy and creating more demand for US made products.

--

But, whatever, the 2005 peak in US CO2 emissions happened before the current recession started. Our GDP is significantly higher now than in 2005 and our CO2 levels are down. They are moving in opposite directions and have been for seven years.

USA should be better recognized for its anti-pollution programs. Very few industrialized countries did better, certainly NOT Canada with its 25 tonnes per capita and rising. Canada is NOT a good example to follow.

However, when your are a top polluter, it is normally easier to take off the first 20%, specially during an extended recession and a period when mass production is being transferred to others.

The same applies to obese people, the first 25 lbs are rather easy but the next 25 or 50 lbs are more of a challenge. People that are already at their normal weight (17 to 25 ratio) do not have to take off 25 lbs or so, very few lbs to get back to the middle of the fork (if required) would do.

Countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark and a few others are good examples to follow.