Electrical Vehicles: To What Extent are Environmentally Friendly and Cost Effective? – Comparative Study by European Countries

Abstract

Energy and environmental issue are among the most relevant challenges to be solved in the near future. Electrical vehicles (EV) will play a key role in the solution by positively contributing to these two issues. Further, they represent an important contribution to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases emissions. To achieve that it is still needed to increase their autonomy through improved lithium-ion batteries.The EV market grew in last years in more than 2 million vehicles worldwide, with vehicles with an autonomy between 200 km and 500 km. Base on this growing market and in comparison with the internal combustion vehicles (ICE), a relevant questions arise: to what extent are EVs eco-friendly and cost effective in comparison with ICE vehicles?This work presents a comparative study of EV from different European countries, with special focus on the economic and ecological impact.It is shown that in the European Countries, the economical payback time is achieved in an average of 10 years, ranging from 1 (France) to 24 years (Germany). The environmental benefit is reached in relatively low time (~3-4 years), being more evenly distributed when compared to the economical payback.It is concluded that it is necessary to reduce the price of the electric vehicles to make them more competitive in the automotive market. Further, it is important to combine both economic and environmental benefits by adopting policies within the European Union to reach a more uniform reality among the different countries, with more levelled prices and revenues (incentives, fees and taxes).