IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v35y2001i3p243-266.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life cycle model of alternative fuel vehicles: emissions, energy, and cost trade-offs

Author

Listed:
  • Hackney, Jeremy
  • de Neufville, Richard

Abstract

This paper describes a life cycle model for performing level-playing field comparisons of the emissions, costs, and energy efficiency trade-offs of alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) through the fuel production chain and over a vehicle lifetime. The model is an improvement over previous models because it includes the full life cycle of the fuels and vehicles, free of the distorting effects of taxes or differential incentives. This spreadsheet model permits rapid analyses of scenarios in plots of trade-off curves or efficiency frontiers, for a wide range of alternatives with current and future prices and levels of technology. The model is available on request. The analyses indicate that reformulated gasoline (RFG) currently has the best overall performance for its low cost, and should be the priority alternative fuel for polluted regions. Liquid fuels based on natural gas, M100 or M85, may be the next option by providing good overall performance at low cost and easy compatibility with mainstream fuel distribution systems. Longer term, electric drive vehicles using liquid hydrocarbons in fuel cells may offer large emissions and energy savings at a competitive cost. Natural gas and battery electric vehicles may prove economically feasible at reducing emissions and petroleum consumption in niches determined by the unique characteristics of those systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Hackney, Jeremy & de Neufville, Richard, 2001. "Life cycle model of alternative fuel vehicles: emissions, energy, and cost trade-offs," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 243-266, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:35:y:2001:i:3:p:243-266
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965-8564(99)00057-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hadder, G.R., 1992. "Future refining impacts of the clean air act amendments of 1990," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 17(9), pages 857-868.
    2. Wang, Quanlu & Sperling, Daniel & Olmstead, Janis, 1993. "Emission Control Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative-Fuel Vehicles," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3bw4t5pw, University of California Transportation Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Young Duk & Ahn, Kook Young & Morosuk, Tatiana & Tsatsaronis, George, 2015. "Environmental impact assessment of a solid-oxide fuel-cell-based combined-heat-and-power-generation system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 455-466.
    2. Garg, Amit & Vishwanathan, Saritha & Avashia, Vidhee, 2013. "Life cycle greenhouse gas emission assessment of major petroleum oil products for transport and household sectors in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 38-48.
    3. Jochem, Patrick & Babrowski, Sonja & Fichtner, Wolf, 2015. "Assessing CO2 emissions of electric vehicles in Germany in 2030," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 68-83.
    4. Petschnig, Martin & Heidenreich, Sven & Spieth, Patrick, 2014. "Innovative alternatives take action – Investigating determinants of alternative fuel vehicle adoption," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 68-83.
    5. Weijun Wang & Dan Zhao & Zengqiang Mi & Liguo Fan, 2019. "Prediction and Analysis of the Relationship between Energy Mix Structure and Electric Vehicles Holdings Based on Carbon Emission Reduction Constraint: A Case in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, May.
    6. Lin, Chengtao & Wu, Tian & Ou, Xunmin & Zhang, Qian & Zhang, Xu & Zhang, Xiliang, 2013. "Life-cycle private costs of hybrid electric vehicles in the current Chinese market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 501-510.
    7. Lawrence Fulton, 2020. "A Publicly Available Simulation of Battery Electric, Hybrid Electric, and Gas-Powered Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, May.
    8. Skerlos, Steven J. & Winebrake, James J., 2010. "Targeting plug-in hybrid electric vehicle policies to increase social benefits," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 705-708, February.
    9. Karplus, Valerie J. & Paltsev, Sergey & Reilly, John M., 2010. "Prospects for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the United States and Japan: A general equilibrium analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 620-641, October.
    10. D'Agosto, Márcio de Almeida & Ribeiro, Suzana Kahn, 2009. "Assessing total and renewable energy in Brazilian automotive fuels. A life cycle inventory (LCI) approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1326-1337, August.
    11. Chang, Le & Li, Zheng & Gao, Dan & Huang, He & Ni, Weidou, 2007. "Pathways for hydrogen infrastructure development in China: Integrated assessment for vehicle fuels and a case study of Beijing," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 2023-2037.
    12. Silvestrini, A. & Monni, S. & Pregernig, M. & Barbato, A. & Dallemand, J.-F. & Croci, E. & Raes, F., 2010. "The role of cities in achieving the EU targets on biofuels for transportation: The cases of Berlin, London, Milan and Helsinki," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 403-417, July.
    13. Viñoles-Cebolla, Rosario & Bastante-Ceca, María José & Capuz-Rizo, Salvador F., 2015. "An integrated method to calculate an automobile's emissions throughout its life cycle," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 125-136.
    14. Sathaye, Nakul & Horvath, Arpad & Madanat, Samer, 2010. "Unintended impacts of increased truck loads on pavement supply-chain emissions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-15, January.
    15. Vedrenne, Michel & Pérez, Javier & Lumbreras, Julio & Rodríguez, María Encarnación, 2014. "Life cycle assessment as a policy-support tool: The case of taxis in the city of Madrid," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 185-197.
    16. Hu, Zhiyuan & Tan, Piqiang & Yan, Xiaoyu & Lou, Diming, 2008. "Life cycle energy, environment and economic assessment of soybean-based biodiesel as an alternative automotive fuel in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1654-1658.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shafizadeh, K. & Niemeier, D. & Mokhtarian, P. & Salomon, I., 1998. "The Costs And Benefits Of Telecommuting: An Evaluation Of Macro-scale Literature," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt1f01c191, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    2. Kazimi, Camilla, 1997. "Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Alternative-Fuel Vehicles," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 163-185, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:35:y:2001:i:3:p:243-266. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.