Tank-to-wheel, Well-to-wheel and Life cycle emissions of three C-UV electrification strategies

Global warming is one of the main challenges of the current century and road transport is considered among the main responsible of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The industry is dedicating its efforts to reach the EU’s goals of GHG reduction by 55% within 2030 (vs. 1990). With the current regulation, OEMs have to declare only tailpipe emissions: as a consequence, full electric vehicles became commonly known as “zero emissions” and “environmental friendly” vehicles. However, the energy generation is not carbon neutral and it has a different impact on the carbon footprint depending on the Country’s energy mix: the greener the energy generation is, the lower the emissions per kWh will be. The aim of this project is the analysis of the real effectiveness of the car park electrification in reducing the emissions and how it is influenced by different electrification strategies. The core of this work is the construction of a model to evaluate the GHG emissions of vehicles with different types of powertrains considering not only the tailpipe emissions but also the other stages of its life cycle. To allow a vision of the current panorama as complete as possible, three hypothetical scenarios of electrification in the C-UV segment have been analysed, all achieving a 100% reduction of emissions in 2035. To their tailpipe emissions, the impact of the oil extraction and of the electricity generation have been evaluated (Well-to-wheel analysis). In particular, the assessment has been done in Europe and G4: for the energy generation, historical data have been used, as well as a forecast based on the expected European average applied on each analysed Country. As a second step the stages of production, utilisation (maintenance) and dismantling have been considered (Life cycle analysis). Moreover, in this work the reinforcement of the regulatory framework in 2027 for PHEV has been contemplated (EURO 6E bis), to make these results closer to the real driving conditions. Considering the whole life cycle, BEV is still the most effective technology, allowing a reduction of about 40% vs. ICE (European energy mix). However, the results significantly change when applying the French or German energy mixes, showing a fluctuation of about  10% vs. the European average. Even if BEVs have lower overall emissions, they have higher emissions in the production stage, due to the impact of batteries. For this reason, the break-even point has been searched in order to find the mileage to be driven to make BEVs convenient in terms of emissions (about 44.000 km with the European mix). A similar approach has been used for the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); the results show a lower cost-convenience of the BEV technology compared to the other ones when incentives, taxation, and insurances are not considered; on the one hand this shows an urge to make the BEV technology more affordable, on the other hand the transition might need the support of solutions to make BEVs more cost-convenient for the buyers. In conclusion, the analysis shows that BEVs are truly effective in reducing the life cycle GHG emissions, but their effectiveness is strongly dependent on the upstream stages, making climate change not only an automotive challenge, but a systemic one.