Electric vehicles have significantly lower life cycle emissions than internal combustion vehicles, study finds
In Europe, electric cars have 66–69 per cent lower emissions over their lifetime than a comparable petrol vehicle
A new study conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has finally put an end to claims that electric vehicles are not much cleaner than combustion engine vehicles and produce almost similar amount of carbon during their life cycle.
The study, which is based on the data from Europe, the US, China and India, says that the battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have by far the lowest life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions among different types of vehicles.
Moreover, the emission savings are set to improve in coming years, with better access to clean, renewable energy sources.
The aim of the ICCT study [pdf] was to understand how the transportation sector across the world needs to align with efforts towards achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming.
The study involved a life-cycle analysis of BEVs, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and internal combustion vehicles.
It also took into account the present and estimated future GHG emissions attributable to different stages in the life cycles of both vehicles and fuels - from extracting raw material to making batteries for vehicles.
The researchers then compiled driving data for four different markets that currently account for nearly 70 per cent of the world's all vehicle purchases.
The study found that the life cycle emissions of a BEV in Europe today are 66-69 per cent lower than a comparable petrol-powered car. For other regions, the range is 60-68 per cent in the US, 37-45 per cent in China, and 19-34 per cent in India.
"We have a lot of lobby work from parts of the automotive industry saying that electric vehicles are not that much better if you take into account the electricity production and the battery production. We wanted to look into this and see whether these arguments are true," said ICCT researcher Georg Bieker.
He hopes the latest findings will help policymakers in making more informed decisions about the future of transportation.
Peter Mock, ICCT managing director for Europe, said that results highlight the importance of grid decarbonisation alongside vehicle electrification.
"The life-cycle GHG performance of electric cars will improve as grids decarbonise, and regulations that promote electrification are crucial to capturing the future benefits of renewable energy," he added.
The study findings come as the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated in its Electric Vehicle Charging Market Report last week that the government needs to increase the number of charging points across the UK tenfold to support the plan to ban combustion cars from 2030.
The CMA said the government must work on infrastructure to ensure that electric vehicle charging becomes "as simple as filling up with petrol or diesel".
The UK currently has about 25,000 charging points, and the regulator estimates that between 280,000 and 480,000 charging points will be needed by 2030.
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