Lifecycle Analysis to Improve the Sustainability of the United States Army’s Non-Tactical Vehicle Fleet

Abstract

In recent years, the United States Army has increasingly pushed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions across all installations and operations. This push is part of a broader effort to increase the sustainability and resilience of critical defense assets, by allowing them to operate for longer periods of time, with lower environmental impacts, lower costs, and increased mission readiness. One proposed solution to help reduce the emissions of Army installations is to replace conventional internal combustion engine vehicles with fully electrified vehicles. In particular, the non-tactical vehicle fleet is of primary interest to be rapidly converted to electrified drivetrains. The primary purpose of this work is to assess whether fully electrified vehicles have the lowest life-cycle emissions when considering the specific mission requirements and infrastructure present at Army installations. This work uses lifecycle analysis methods to compare the carbon emissions for vehicles with different drivetrains, located in different electric grid regions across the United States, while driving different distances to achieve the necessary missions of their operators. These variations in how the vehicles are designed, charged, and used showcases that, while electric vehicles are the best for many scenarios, they are not always the correct choice to maximize the total reduction in carbon emissions associated with transportation services at Army installations.