Abstract
The actual contribution of plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles (PHEV and BEV) to greenhouse gas mitigation depends on their real-world usage. Often BEV are seen as superior as they drive only electrically and do not have any direct emissions during driving. However, empirical evidence on which vehicle electrifies more mileage with a given battery capacity is lacking. Here, we present the first systematic overview of empirical findings on actual PHEV and BEV usage for the US and Germany. Contrary to common belief, PHEV with about 60 km of real-world range currently electrify as many annual vehicles kilometres as BEV with a much smaller battery. Accordingly, PHEV recharged from renewable electricity can highly contribute to green house gas mitigation in car transport. Including the higher CO2eq emissions during the production phase of BEV compared to PHEV, PHEV show today higher CO2eq savings then BEVs compared to conventional vehicles. However, for significant CO2eq improvements of PHEV and particularly of BEVs the decarbonisation of the electricity system should go on.
Highlights
For estimating the climate impact from electric vehicles two crucial assumption hast to be made
PHEV are an alternative to BEV in terms of electrifying mileage in order to mitigate GHG emissions from transport
Little is known about their average UF and annual electrified mileage in real-world driving
Summary
For estimating the climate impact from electric vehicles two crucial assumption hast to be made. The first is on the emissions of GHG during the production process of the battery and the second is on the caused, indirect GHG emissions during the vehicle usage phase. The production process of batteries is complex[20] and run through significant improvements during the last years but is still far from being completely matured. This development is already acknowledged from literature and the average emission values are still between 39–196 kg CO2eq/kWh17. We assumed for our calculation an additional emission value of 18 kg of CO2eq per km AE
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