As countries all over the world embrace electric vehicles (EVs), a report aimed to settle the debate over whether or EVs are much cleaner that tradition internal combustion vehicles. It says that even for cars registered today, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have by far the lowest life-cycle GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.
A white paper by ICCT (International Council on Clean Transportation), a non-profit body, revealed that emissions over the life-cycle of average medium-size BEVs registered today are lower than comparable gasoline cars by 66 to 69% in Europe, 60 to 68% in the US, 37 to 45% in China, and 19 to 34% in India. As the technology continues to be fine-tuned, we can assume these figures are set to improve in the future.
“Even for India and China, which are still heavily reliant on coal power, the life-cycle benefits of BEVs are present today,” said Peter Mock, ICCT’s Managing Director for Europe.
The study takes into consideration more recent data on industrial-scale battery production and regional battery supply chains. This is the reason behind significantly lower battery production emissions than in earlier reports. GHG emissions produced during every stage in the life cycles of the vehicles and fuels — including eventual recycling or disposal — have been included in the calculations.
The life-cycle emissions gap between BEVs and traditional vehicles increases substantially when considering medium-size cars expected to be registered in 2030. The report draws sharp and meticulous distinctions between the climate impacts of battery and fuel cell electric vehicles on one hand and combustion vehicles on the other.
Only battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) running on renewable electricity can help decarbonise road transport and meet climate goals in accordance with the Paris Agreement’s aim of keeping global warming well below 2-degree Celsius.
The analysis was performed separately and in depth for the European Union, the US, China and India, and captured the differences among those markets. These four major markets together account for about 70% of new car sales globally.
The ICCT study was comprehensive in considering all the relevant powertrain types, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and an array of fuel types, including biofuels, electrofuels, hydrogen and electricity.
For the study, the lifecycle GHG emissions of cars registered in 2021 were laid out against those of cars expected to be registered in 2030.
“Our aim with this study was to capture the elements that policymakers in these major markets need to fairly and critically evaluate different technology pathways for passenger cars,” noted ICCT researcher Georg Bieker.
“We know we need transformational change to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and the results show that certain technologies are going to be capable of delivering deep decarbonisation and others are clearly not,” he added.
Edit: The article has been updated with the link to the original white paper.
