BY KADRI AYGÜN
March 23, 2021
Let’s remind ourselves again: The Paris Agreement is pursuing efforts to limit the global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The EU has committed through the “Green Deal” to become climate neutral by 2050. After some understandable inertia most European car manufacturers have decided that the way to go is electric. There are still some differences in the speed of transformation, but VW and Volvo are leading the way with some clear objectives as a fast follower of Tesla. Volvo said that it will be 100% electric already by 2030. BMW announced it will sell 50% fully electric cars by 2030. Mercedes is reviewing whether becoming 100% electric is achievable 5 – 8 years earlier than the previously announced target date of 2039. We can be certain to see more changes to these objectives in the coming months and years further accelerating electrification.
In my last blog (Fully electric by 2030?) I had explained why I believe that from 2030 onwards no more ICEs should be produced to come close to climate neutrality by 2050.
With regards to production and availability of clean energy the EU and companies with manufacturing within the EU will be in control of the speed of change in grid and charging infrastructure and the CO2-neutrality of production. Europe wants to play an exemplary role but since supply chains are global there will be components imported from oversees.
Over the past years there has been intense debate whether BEVs from cradle to grave emit less CO2 than a gasoline or diesel and if in future climate neutrality actually is possible. I tried to come up with a comparison that could help understand the short-term benefits and long-term potential of BEVs compared ICEs with regards to GHG.
It makes sense to break down the sources of emission of a mid-size passenger car into the following stages:
- Manufacturing of the vehicle (without the battery): ~30g/km using 200.000km as the average lifetime and the current energy mix. With the shift to renewable energy sources this value could decrease to ~5g/km.
- Driving emissions for an electric car: ~35g/km using the current energy mix and at 0,18kWh/km. A significant decrease to ~6g/km could be achieved in future with renewables covering most of electricity supply.
- Mining and refining of battery materials: ~60g/km. Most of the mining of the main metals such as the cathode materials nickel, cobalt, manganese is done outside the EU. Hence the use of renewables is much more unpredictable for this part of the value chain.
- Battery-cell and module manufacturing: ~45g/km with a potential to go down to 8g/km in a renewable future.
(Sources used for the emission values of the different manufacturing steps are listed below)
Using these values let’s consider four scenarios to understand the impact of BEVs:
- 70kWh battery with today’s energy mix with no additional renewables used for cell-, pack-, and module production
- 70kWh battery with mostly renewable energy mix used for cell- and battery production
- 130kWh battery with today’s energy mix with no additional renewables used for cell-, pack-, and module production
- 130kWh battery with mostly renewable energy mix used for cell- and battery production
The following table shows the per km CO2 emission for each scenario with increasing battery life (Plug-in-hybrids are not taken into account):
In comparison CO2-emission for mid-size cars powered by an ICE based on WLTP plus manufacturing emissions and adding emissions for fuel production are conservatively in the range of 170 – 180 g/km.
Based on today’s energy mix a 70kWh battery car breaks even environmentally around 70.000km (Sc#1). The future renewable energy mix should decrease the breakeven point to around 30.000km (Sc#2). A battery size of 100kWh beats an ICE only at 100.000km (Sc#3) but in a renewable future this can happen at a mileage of under 45.000km (Sc#4).
Car batteries – unlike gasoline and diesel – have not undergone over 100 years of research and evolution. Technologically we are still at early stages. We have learned from Tesla’s “Battery Day” last year and VW’s recent “Power Day” that both are working on cathode and anode material combinations which will reduce the use of resources, reduce weight, increase energy density and longevity. Battery recycling will further reduce the zero-mile emission. VW says that the “endgame” is the solid-state battery. Once solid-state technology is ready for large volume production it will reduce time to recharge, increase reach by decreasing weight and offer more charging cycles prolonging battery life further improving the environmental balance of BEVs.
Full climate neutrality might be a noble objective but in conclusion we see already today that BEVs decrease the overall CO2-bill compared to ICEs. Large batteries break-even point on emissions is still quite high compared to ICEs but there is large potential through advances in battery technology and the real game changer will be the move to more renewable energy at big scale.
Car companies are investing and moving forward with electrification. Now politics has to make sure they can keep up with the speed in transforming supply to mostly green energy.
Sources:
[1] Emilsson E., Dahllöf L., 2019. Lithium-Ion Vehicle Battery Production. Status 2019 on Energy Use, CO2 Emissions, Use of Metals, Products Environmental Footprint, and Recycling. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.
[2] Hoekstra, A. (2019). The underestimated potential of battery electric vehicles to reduce emissions. Joule, 3(6), 1412-1414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.06.002
[3] European Parliament. CO2 emissions from cars: facts and figures. Retrieved from URL https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics
[4] European Envrionment Agency. 2018. Electric vehicles from life cycle and circular economy perspectives TERM 2018: Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (TERM) report. Retrieved from URL https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/electric-vehicles-from-life-cycle
[5] European Envrionment Agency. 2020. Greenhouse gas emission intensity of electricity generation.
[6] Ricardo – AEA. 2014. Improvements to the definition of lifetime mileage of light dutry vehicles. Retrieved from URL https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/transport/vehicles/docs/ldv_mileage_improvement_en.pdf
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