Subject The article considers methodological approaches to forecasting the economic and ecological effects of diffusion of innovative automobile transport technologies, i.e. electric cars and hydrogen-powered cars. Methods I employ a scenario analysis. The forecast of changes in technical and economic parameters of primary and supporting technologies rests on learning curve models, the forecast of demand for new technologies – on time series, and the diffusion level of new technologies is determined by a variety of external factors, including the State policy. I propose several scenarios that further serve as a framework to forecast the economic and ecological effects of the technology replacement process subject to the impact of exogenous factors. Results A simplified version of the scenario-based analysis has been tested in the Pskov oblast (a region with the highest indicators of air pollution by automobile transport per unit of GRP and per capita). I obtained quantitative estimation of pure ecological effect for the case of full diffusion of the electric car technology in the private transport sector. Conclusions The quantitative estimations of decreasing pollution after complete replacement of private cars by electric ones prove the invalidity of concerns that positive ecological effect of new automobile technologies introduction is completely smoothed over by increased negative ecological effects at other stages of the life cycle. The increase in demand for electricity caused by the transition to new automobile technologies has been insignificant in the pilot region, and could be compensated for by increasing the use factor of existing power-generating capacities.
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