The profitability of disposing of vehicles fulfilling the older euro standards in terms of CO2 emission

The automotive market is developing very dynamically. In recent years, we can observe activities of automotive concerns in the production of new models of electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles, and conventional cars are supplied with increasingly economical and low-emission engines. There are also increasingly stringent standards related to exhaust emissions from the exhaust system. From September 1, 2018, passenger cars have to comply with the Euro 6d-Temp emission standard and be homologated according to the WLTP test procedure including the WLTC driving cycle and emission measurements in road traffic conditions. The exhaust components measured during the test, such as carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides or hydrocarbons, are toxic to living organisms. However, it seems that the most important issue in the long term may be the value of carbon dioxide emissions, the excess of which poses an ecological threat to the entire planet. The production of new vehicles equipped with modern complicated combustion engines, batteries, fuel cells and electronic devices is associated with a very high emission of this greenhouse gas The authors of the following article, based on their own research, sought to estimate the ecological profitability of replacing a used passenger car meeting the Euro-4 emissions standard for a new vehicle bearing in mind the value of carbon dioxide emissions during vehicle production. The analysis was to indicate how intensive the annual operation of the vehicle should be to make it profitable to recycle and replace it with a modern car with lower emissions considering the global sum of carbon dioxide emissions.