Regional environmental comparison of electrification and ethanol blends in light vehicles

This study compares the decarbonization of five light-vehicle types with life cycle assessment from vehicle production up to 200,000 km of use (driving impact for urban and highway cycles). The comparison to reduce fuel carbon intensity was between fleet electrification and conventional internal combustion vehicles running on more biofuel. Furthermore, the scope is to evaluate ethanol as a transitional fuel for decarbonization for future arrangements in modal transportation. The analyses were conducted in four countries with policies of vehicle decarbonization: China, the United States of America and the European Union, and Brazil. These multiple variables-based analyses help to understand specific technological transitions and to instruct optimized regional decarbonizing solutions. Considering the regional carbon intensity of electricity generation and gasoline-ethanol fuel blend, these innovative evaluations estimate the ethanol content to be added to each region's fuel to achieve the same carbon emission mitigation of vehicle electrification with conventional non-electrified vehicles. The CO₂e mitigation of the analyzed hybrid electric vehicle is attainable by adding from 9 to 76 % ethanol v/v to the fuel. The battery electric vehicle C_O2e mitigation could demand lower fuel intensity than ethanol for conventional smaller vehicles, confirming the most probable electrification in these categories, with less challenging CO₂e mitigation with biofuels for larger vehicles. The innovative cost estimation of avoided CO₂e when replacing a conventional with a battery electric vehicle in Brazil resulted in penalties from 334 to 6539 US$ per avoided ton of CO2e, with the higher costs for higher vehicles, values between 16 and 307 times more expensive than decarbonization through carbon credits from sustainable activities in Brazil (CBIOS). The replacement of a conventional by a hybrid vehicle in urban use is the only option analyzed that resulted in cost saving of 63 US$ per mitigated ton of CO₂e.