IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i3p1241-d318364.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sensitivity Analysis in the Life-Cycle Assessment of Electric vs. Combustion Engine Cars under Approximate Real-World Conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Eckard Helmers

    (Department of Environmental Planning and Technology, Environment Campus, University of Applied Sciences Trier. PO Box 13 80, 55761 Birkenfeld, Germany)

  • Johannes Dietz

    (Department of Environmental Planning and Technology, Environment Campus, University of Applied Sciences Trier. PO Box 13 80, 55761 Birkenfeld, Germany)

  • Martin Weiss

    (Department of Environmental Planning and Technology, Environment Campus, University of Applied Sciences Trier. PO Box 13 80, 55761 Birkenfeld, Germany)

Abstract

This study compares the environmental impacts of petrol, diesel, natural gas, and electric vehicles using a process-based attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) and the ReCiPe characterization method that captures 18 impact categories and the single score endpoints. Unlike common practice, we derive the cradle-to-grave inventories from an originally combustion engine VW Caddy that was disassembled and electrified in our laboratory, and its energy consumption was measured on the road. Ecoivent 2.2 and 3.0 emission inventories were contrasted exhibiting basically insignificant impact deviations. Ecoinvent 3.0 emission inventory for the diesel car was additionally updated with recent real-world close emission values and revealed strong increases over four midpoint impact categories, when matched with the standard Ecoinvent 3.0 emission inventory. Producing batteries with photovoltaic electricity instead of Chinese coal-based electricity decreases climate impacts of battery production by 69%. Break-even mileages for the electric VW Caddy to pass the combustion engine models under various conditions in terms of climate change impact ranged from 17,000 to 310,000 km. Break-even mileages, when contrasting the VW Caddy and a mini car (SMART), which was as well electrified, did not show systematic differences. Also, CO 2 -eq emissions in terms of passenger kilometers travelled (54–158 g CO 2 -eq/PKT) are fairly similar based on 1 person travelling in the mini car and 1.57 persons in the mid-sized car (VW Caddy). Additionally, under optimized conditions (battery production and use phase utilizing renewable electricity), the two electric cars can compete well in terms of CO 2 -eq emissions per passenger kilometer with other traffic modes (diesel bus, coach, trains) over lifetime. Only electric buses were found to have lower life cycle carbon emissions (27–52 g CO 2 -eq/PKT) than the two electric passenger cars.

Suggested Citation

  • Eckard Helmers & Johannes Dietz & Martin Weiss, 2020. "Sensitivity Analysis in the Life-Cycle Assessment of Electric vs. Combustion Engine Cars under Approximate Real-World Conditions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-31, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:3:p:1241-:d:318364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/1241/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/1241/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meylan, Frédéric D. & Moreau, Vincent & Erkman, Suren, 2016. "Material constraints related to storage of future European renewable electricity surpluses with CO2 methanation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 366-376.
    2. Yajing Gao & Shixiao Guo & Jiafeng Ren & Zheng Zhao & Ali Ehsan & Yanan Zheng, 2018. "An Electric Bus Power Consumption Model and Optimization of Charging Scheduling Concerning Multi-External Factors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Maarten Messagie & Faycal-Siddikou Boureima & Thierry Coosemans & Cathy Macharis & Joeri Van Mierlo, 2014. "A Range-Based Vehicle Life Cycle Assessment Incorporating Variability in the Environmental Assessment of Different Vehicle Technologies and Fuels," Energies, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Susan C. Anenberg & Joshua Miller & Ray Minjares & Li Du & Daven K. Henze & Forrest Lacey & Christopher S. Malley & Lisa Emberson & Vicente Franco & Zbigniew Klimont & Chris Heyes, 2017. "Impacts and mitigation of excess diesel-related NOx emissions in 11 major vehicle markets," Nature, Nature, vol. 545(7655), pages 467-471, May.
    5. Arminda Almeida & Nuno Sousa & João Coutinho-Rodrigues, 2019. "Quest for Sustainability: Life-Cycle Emissions Assessment of Electric Vehicles Considering Newer Li-Ion Batteries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Bauer, Christian & Hofer, Johannes & Althaus, Hans-Jörg & Del Duce, Andrea & Simons, Andrew, 2015. "The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 871-883.
    7. Zhou, Boya & Wu, Ye & Zhou, Bin & Wang, Renjie & Ke, Wenwei & Zhang, Shaojun & Hao, Jiming, 2016. "Real-world performance of battery electric buses and their life-cycle benefits with respect to energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 603-613.
    8. Khan, Muhammad Imran & Yasmin, Tabassum & Shakoor, Abdul, 2015. "Technical overview of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a transportation fuel," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 785-797.
    9. Greg Cooney & Troy R. Hawkins & Joe Marriott, 2013. "Life Cycle Assessment of Diesel and Electric Public Transportation Buses," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 17(5), pages 689-699, October.
    10. Urszula Motowidlak, 2016. "Identification of Behavioral Changes in Transport as a Means for Decarbonisation of the Economy," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Monika Bąk (ed.), Transport Development Challenges in the Twenty-First Century, pages 171-180, Springer.
    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. Woo, Seungchul & Lee, Kihyung, 2022. "Development and feasibility assessment of on-board catalytic reforming system for LPG engine to produce hydrogen in the transient state," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    2. Wojciech Cieslik & Filip Szwajca & Jedrzej Zawartowski & Katarzyna Pietrzak & Slawomir Rosolski & Kamil Szkarlat & Michal Rutkowski, 2021. "Capabilities of Nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) Electricity Generation to Charge Electric Vehicle (EV) Operating in Real Driving Conditions (RDC)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-22, November.
    3. David Borge-Diez & Pedro Miguel Ortega-Cabezas & Antonio Colmenar-Santos & Jorge Juan Blanes-Peiró, 2021. "Contribution of Driving Efficiency to Vehicle-to-Building," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-30, June.
    4. Zhou, Wenbin & Cleaver, Christopher J. & Dunant, Cyrille F. & Allwood, Julian M. & Lin, Jianguo, 2023. "Cost, range anxiety and future electricity supply: A review of how today's technology trends may influence the future uptake of BEVs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Thomas Hennequin & Mark A. J. Huijbregts & Rosalie van Zelm, 2023. "The influence of consumer behavior on the environmental footprint of passenger car tires," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(1), pages 96-109, February.
    6. Van Can Nguyen & Chi-Tai Wang & Ying-Jiun Hsieh, 2021. "Electrification of Highway Transportation with Solar and Wind Energy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-28, May.
    7. Anne Magdalene Syré & Florian Heining & Dietmar Göhlich, 2020. "Method for a Multi-Vehicle, Simulation-Based Life Cycle Assessment and Application to Berlin’s Motorized Individual Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-26, September.
    8. Maciej Neugebauer & Adam Żebrowski & Ogulcan Esmer, 2022. "Cumulative Emissions of CO 2 for Electric and Combustion Cars: A Case Study on Specific Models," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-17, April.
    9. Robin Smit & Daniel William Kennedy, 2022. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance of Electric and Fossil-Fueled Passenger Vehicles with Uncertainty Estimates Using a Probabilistic Life-Cycle Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-29, March.
    10. Aleksandra Wewer & Pinar Bilge & Franz Dietrich, 2021. "Advances of 2nd Life Applications for Lithium Ion Batteries from Electric Vehicles Based on Energy Demand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-22, May.
    11. Nora Schelte & Semih Severengiz & Jaron Schünemann & Sebastian Finke & Oskar Bauer & Matthias Metzen, 2021. "Life Cycle Assessment on Electric Moped Scooter Sharing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-20, July.
    12. Dominik Husarek & Vjekoslav Salapic & Simon Paulus & Michael Metzger & Stefan Niessen, 2021. "Modeling the Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure on Regional Energy Systems: Fields of Action for an Improved e-Mobility Integration," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-27, November.
    13. Jun-Der Leu & Wen-Hsien Tsai & Mei-Niang Fan & Sophia Chuang, 2020. "Benchmarking Sustainable Manufacturing: A DEA-Based Method and Application," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.
    14. Janusz Adamczyk & Maciej Dzikuć & Robert Dylewski & Erica Varese, 2024. "Assessment of selected environmental and economic factors for the development of electro-mobility in Poland," Transportation, Springer, vol. 51(6), pages 2199-2223, December.
    15. Marco Raugei, 2022. "Update on the Life-Cycle GHG Emissions of Passenger Vehicles: Literature Review and Harmonization," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-13, September.
    16. Mihai Machedon-Pisu & Paul Nicolae Borza, 2023. "Is the Transition to Electric Passenger Cars Sustainable? A Life Cycle Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-22, February.
    17. Munjed A. Maraqa & Francisco D. B. Albuquerque & Mohammed H. Alzard & Rezaul Chowdhury & Lina A. Kamareddine & Jamal El Zarif, 2021. "GHG Emission Reduction Opportunities for Road Projects in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi: A Scenario Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-22, July.
    18. Diskin, David & Kuhr, Yonah & Ben-Hamo, Ido Yohai & Spatari, Sabrina & Tartakovsky, Leonid, 2023. "Environmental benefits of combined electro-thermo-chemical technology over battery-electric powertrains," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 351(C).
    19. Eckard Helmers & Chia Chien Chang & Justin Dauwels, 2022. "Carbon Footprinting of Universities Worldwide Part II: First Quantification of Complete Embodied Impacts of Two Campuses in Germany and Singapore," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-24, March.
    20. Peiseler, Leopold & Cabrera Serrenho, André, 2022. "How can current German and EU policies be improved to enhance the reduction of CO2 emissions of road transport? Revising policies on electric vehicles informed by stakeholder and technical assessments," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    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. Anne Magdalene Syré & Florian Heining & Dietmar Göhlich, 2020. "Method for a Multi-Vehicle, Simulation-Based Life Cycle Assessment and Application to Berlin’s Motorized Individual Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-26, September.
    2. Harris, Andrew & Soban, Danielle & Smyth, Beatrice M. & Best, Robert, 2020. "A probabilistic fleet analysis for energy consumption, life cycle cost and greenhouse gas emissions modelling of bus technologies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    3. Cai, Yanpeng & Applegate, Scott & Yue, Wencong & Cai, Jianying & Wang, Xuan & Liu, Gengyuan & Li, Chunhui, 2017. "A hybrid life cycle and multi-criteria decision analysis approach for identifying sustainable development strategies of Beijing's taxi fleet," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 314-325.
    4. Nenming Wang & Guwen Tang, 2022. "A Review on Environmental Efficiency Evaluation of New Energy Vehicles Using Life Cycle Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-35, March.
    5. Cox, Brian & Bauer, Christian & Mendoza Beltran, Angelica & van Vuuren, Detlef P. & Mutel, Christopher L., 2020. "Life cycle environmental and cost comparison of current and future passenger cars under different energy scenarios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    6. Felipe Cerdas & Paul Titscher & Nicolas Bognar & Richard Schmuch & Martin Winter & Arno Kwade & Christoph Herrmann, 2018. "Exploring the Effect of Increased Energy Density on the Environmental Impacts of Traction Batteries: A Comparison of Energy Optimized Lithium-Ion and Lithium-Sulfur Batteries for Mobility Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-20, January.
    7. Siqin Xiong & Junping Ji & Xiaoming Ma, 2019. "Comparative Life Cycle Energy and GHG Emission Analysis for BEVs and PhEVs: A Case Study in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, March.
    8. Robin Smit & Daniel William Kennedy, 2022. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance of Electric and Fossil-Fueled Passenger Vehicles with Uncertainty Estimates Using a Probabilistic Life-Cycle Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Say, Kelvin & Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Brown, Felix Gabriel & Wang, Changlong, 2023. "The economics of public transport electrification: A case study from Victoria, Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    10. Shafique, Muhammad & Azam, Anam & Rafiq, Muhammad & Luo, Xiaowei, 2022. "Life cycle assessment of electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles: A case study of Hong Kong," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Kevin Joseph Dillman & Áróra Árnadóttir & Jukka Heinonen & Michał Czepkiewicz & Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir, 2020. "Review and Meta-Analysis of EVs: Embodied Emissions and Environmental Breakeven," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-28, November.
    12. Khan, Muhammad Imran & Shahrestani, Mehdi & Hayat, Tasawar & Shakoor, Abdul & Vahdati, Maria, 2019. "Life cycle (well-to-wheel) energy and environmental assessment of natural gas as transportation fuel in Pakistan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 1738-1752.
    13. Li, Pengshun & Zhang, Yuhang & Zhang, Yi & Zhang, Yi & Zhang, Kai, 2021. "Prediction of electric bus energy consumption with stochastic speed profile generation modelling and data driven method based on real-world big data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    14. Anna Brdulak & Grażyna Chaberek & Jacek Jagodziński, 2020. "Development Forecasts for the Zero-Emission Bus Fleet in Servicing Public Transport in Chosen EU Member Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-20, August.
    15. Manzolli, Jônatas Augusto & Trovão, João Pedro & Antunes, Carlos Henggeler, 2022. "A review of electric bus vehicles research topics – Methods and trends," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    16. Li, Pengshun & Zhang, Yi & Zhang, Yi & Zhang, Kai & Jiang, Mengyan, 2021. "The effects of dynamic traffic conditions, route characteristics and environmental conditions on trip-based electricity consumption prediction of electric bus," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    17. Ali Saadon Al-Ogaili & Ali Q. Al-Shetwi & Hussein M. K. Al-Masri & Thanikanti Sudhakar Babu & Yap Hoon & Khaled Alzaareer & N. V. Phanendra Babu, 2021. "Review of the Estimation Methods of Energy Consumption for Battery Electric Buses," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-28, November.
    18. Małgorzata Mrozik & Agnieszka Merkisz-Guranowska, 2020. "Environmental Assessment of the Vehicle Operation Process," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    19. Andrzej Macioł & Bogdan Rębiasz, 2018. "Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA): A comparison of private passenger vehicles," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 28(1), pages 5-26.
    20. Mustafa Hamurcu & Tamer Eren, 2020. "Electric Bus Selection with Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Green Transportation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-19, April.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:3:p:1241-:d:318364. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.