On the Lifetime Emissions of Conventional, Hybrid and Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) are believed to be a good alternative to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to eliminate tailpipe CO2 emissions. However, they usually have considerably higher initial manufacturing pollution than IC engine vehicles, which will lead to a significant increase in their lifetime CO2 emissions. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are traditionally considered to have CO2 emissions between EVs and ICEVs. Previous research on emission comparisons among these vehicle types were confined to individual countries or regions. This paper makes worldwide evaluations of lifetime CO2 emissions of the 2020 Chevrolet Bolt EV, an example commercially available EV, and compares it globally with an ICEV and two types of HEVs. All the vehicles have at least the same vehicle performance as the Chevrolet Bolt EV. The results show that HEVs with dynamic programming optimization can have less worldwide lifetime emissions than both comparable EVs and IC engine vehicles without the sacrifice of vehicle performance.