Chapter 5 - Climate change mitigation and electric vehicles

Abstract

As transport is currently highly dependent on oil, emissions from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles contribute significantly to increasingly serious environmental issues, such as climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the combustion of these fossil-derived, petroleum-based products, which include petrol, diesel fuel, kerosene, and fuel oils. Advanced fuel and vehicle technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs) are a promising technology for mitigating the adverse effects of climate change in urban areas as well as in achieving a sustainable transport sector in the future. The electrification of the transport sector requires a shift away from internal combustion engine vehicless to alternative technologies such as hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and battery electric vehicles. However, to varying degrees, these technologies must overcome a wide variety of barriers, including technological, infrastructural, and behavioral factors, to their adoption. In this direction, this chapter investigates the main challenges faced by the deployment of EVs in urban areas. The corresponding solutions are discussed; the potential benefits in terms of climate change mitigation as well as relative impacts of each life cycle analysis (LCA) stage are analyzed. This chapter evaluates this effect in detail by presenting a case-driven LCA for EVs deployed in road transport. The findings of this study indicate that high vehicle utilization is a favorable condition for an environmentally beneficial deployment of EVs.