Development and application of life-cycle energy consumption and carbon footprint analysis model for passenger vehicles in China

China has become the global largest electric vehicle (EV) market, making the energy and climate issues of EV industry in terms of life cycle attract widespread attention. Based on the self-designed life-cycle analysis tool and up-to-date database, this study analyzes energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a typical passenger internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), and battery EV (BEV) and plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV) installed with different lithium-ion battery types, covering both fuel cycle and vehicle cycle. Owing to the battery installation, which shares nearly 30% of the GHG emissions in EV's vehicle cycle, the BEV and PHEV emit 13533-15445 kgCO2,eq/vehicle and 11572-12186 kgCO2,eq/vehicle, 65.6%-89.0% and 41.6%-49.1% higher than that of the ICEV, respectively. EV's fuel-cycle low emissions offset its surplus emissions in vehicle cycle. The EV generates 219.8-230.9 gCO2,eq/km in life cycle, achieving 18.3%-22.6% of reduction compared to the ICEV. Development of non-fossil power will highlight the advantages of EVs in energy conservation and GHG emission reduction, e.g. if the proportion of coal power decreased to 10%, BEV's life-cycle GHG emissions will reduce about 70% than current level. Policies should focus on both EVs development acceleration and the low-carbon automotive and battery industry creation.

Automated summary

China has become the largest electric vehicle market globally, resulting in increased attention towards the energy and climate issues of the EV industry throughout its life cycle. This study utilized a self-designed life-cycle analysis tool and up-to-date database to analyze the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of various types of electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles. The findings show that due to battery installation, EVs emit significantly more GHG emissions in the vehicle cycle compared to ICEVs. However, the low emissions in the fuel cycle offset the surplus emissions in the vehicle cycle, resulting in a 18.3%-22.6% reduction in life cycle GHG emissions compared to ICEVs. The development of non-fossil power sources can further reduce GHG emissions of EVs.