Environmental efficiency of electric vehicles in Europe under various electricity production mix scenarios

Abstract

Decarbonizing residential transportation sector depends on the energy mix. A need for environmental efficiency of electric vehicles considering the life cycle impacts of electricity generation under different mix scenarios is essential. This research aims to present the first empirical analysis on the environmental efficiency of battery electric vehicles across 27 European countries, considering the average electricity mix, marginal electricity mix (2015–2020), and renewable energy-based electricity mix (2030–2040) scenarios. The midpoints environmental impacts per kWh electricity generation were estimated for each country using the latest ecoinvent v3.7 life cycle environmental impact data. Well-to-wheel environmental impacts of battery electric vehicles were calculated for each country based on a functional unit per km traveled. An input-oriented non-restricted and weight restricted frontier models using the panel-based weights obtained from the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) survey was built to model the environmental efficiency. Finally, the footprint efficiency results related to different electricity production mix scenarios and future projections to improve the environmental efficiency of battery electric vehicles were suggested. The results reveal Finland and Netherland as the most environmentally efficient countries using BEVs for all the electricity mix scenarios. It is seen that average mixes cause lower environmental efficiency scores of battery electric vehicles than marginal mixes due to higher shares of renewable electricity sources in marginal mixes.