Comparative life cycle assessment of hydrogen-fuelled passenger cars

In order to achieve gradual but timely decarbonisation of the transport sector, it is essential to evaluate which types of vehicles provide a suitable environmental performance while allowing the use of hydrogen as a fuel. This work compares the environmental life-cycle performance of three different passenger cars fuelled by hydrogen: a fuel cell electric vehicle, an internal combustion engine car, and a hybrid electric vehicle. Besides, two vehicles that use hydrogen in a mixture with natural gas or gasoline were considered. In all cases, hydrogen produced by wind power electrolysis was assumed. The resultant life cycle profiles were benchmarked against those of a compressed natural gas car and a hybrid electric vehicle fed with natural gas. Vehicle infrastructure was identified as the main source of environmental burdens. Nevertheless, the three pure hydrogen vehicles were all found to be excellent decarbonisation solutions, whereas vehicles that use hydrogen mixed with natural gas or gasoline represent good opportunities to encourage the use of hydrogen in the short term while reducing emissions compared to ordinary vehicles. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study compares the environmental life-cycle performance of different passenger cars fueled by hydrogen, showing that pure hydrogen vehicles are excellent decarbonization solutions, while vehicles using hydrogen mixed with natural gas or gasoline are good opportunities to reduce emissions in the short term.