Environmental Implication of Electric Vehicles in China

Today, electric vehicles (EVs) are being proposed in China as one of the potential options to address the dramatically increasing energy demand from on-road transport. However, the mass use of EVs could involve multiple environmental issues, because EVs use electricity that is generated primarily from coal in China. We examined the fuel-cycle CO2, SO2, and NOx emissions of EVs in China in both current (2008) and future (2030) periods and compared them with those of conventional gasoline vehicles and gasoline hybrids. EVs do not promise much benefit in reducing CO2 emissions currently, but greater CO2 reduction could be expected in future if coal combustion technologies improve and the share of nonfossil electricity increases significantly. EVs could increase SO2 emissions by 3-10 times and also double NOx emissions compared to gasoline vehicles if charged using the current electricity grid. In the future, EVs would be able to reach the NOx emission level of gasoline vehicles with advanced emission control devices equipped in thermal power plants but still increase SO2. EVs do represent an effective solution to issues in China such as oil shortage, but critical policy support is urgently needed to address the environmental issues caused by the use of EVs to make EVs competitive with other vehicle alternatives.