The government wants to postpone the automobile penalty based on the weight of hybrid vehicles until 2027

This “mass penalty” concerns cars with thermal engines weighing more than 1,600 kilograms, and 1,500 from 2026.

Respite for SUVs. The government intends to grant a two-year reprieve to hybrid cars, which in certain cases should have suffered the weight penalty from 2025. Filed on November 22 and published Tuesday, November 26 by the Contexte site, an amendment to the draft law finances for 2025 proposes “postpone the entry into force of the limitation of the benefit of the mass penalty reduction – from which all non-rechargeable hybrid vehicles currently benefit – to only environmentally efficient vehicles”.

Ce “mass penalty” concerns cars with thermal engines weighing more than 1,600 kilograms, and 1,500 from 2026, with a scale ranging from 10 to 30 euros per excess kilogram, which greatly increases the purchase of a large thermal SUV, for example . Hybrid vehicles, equipped with a small battery and an electric motor which allow them to drive a few kilometers without plugging in and without emissions, now dominate the French new car market. They benefit from a reduction of 100 kilograms which allows most of them to escape the mass penalty. This reduction was to be reserved for vehicles “environmentally efficient” from 2025.

But the government explains in its amendment that taking into account the maximum net power of the electric motor, which is used to calculate the penalty, requires “an evolution of the vehicle registration system”. “This new measure can therefore only be implemented, from an operational point of view, from January 1, 2027,” he specifies.