Consequential Life Cycle Assessment And Economic Benefits Analysis Of Electric Vehicles

People pay more attention on low-carbon economy with the rise of international oil price and the increase of environmental pollution. New energy vehicles become an important direction of the automobile industry restructuring for its high efficiency and low pollution features. “12th Five Year” national strategic emerging industry development plan clearly pointed out that China will establish a strategy to make sure the main development direction of electric vehicles and the increase emphasis on the development of hybrid vehicles. Development of electric vehicles has been put on the agenda and will become the main force of the automotives’ future market. Under the Chinese context, whether electric vehicles can replace conventional gasoline vehicles and achieve the purpose of energy conservation has become the focus of government, businesses and the public interest.The paper established a model for the selection of consequential life cycle assessment and attributional life cycle assessment methods based on the object decision-making and impacts of decision-makers interest. The paper assessed four vehicle models’ environmental impact by consequential life cycle assessment, namely the combine of attributional life cycle assessment and life cycle cost. The four vehicle models include battery electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug hybrid vehicles and conventional gasoline vehicles. The assessment model of electric vehicles environmental impact has been established and the function unit was an electric vehicle driven 1km. The assessment tool in this paper was GREET2012. The paper’ purpose was to analyze the energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and conventional gas emissions of four vehicle models’ well-to-wheel cycle. The paper established the life cycle cost model for electric vehicles and analyzed the economic cost of four vehicle models. Finally, the paper assessed both environmental and benefits by considering scale effect and learning effect, and provided a scientific basis for sustainable development and decision-making of Chinese electric vehicles industry.The conclusions are as follows:1. Under the Chinese context, compared with conventional gasoline vehicles’ total energy consumption, battery electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and plug hybrid vehicles were reduced by 14.4%, 27.9% and 28.0%. Battery electric vehicles’ oil consumption was the minimum.2. The environmental benefits of electric vehicles were not obvious when electricity generally get from burning coal. Compared with conventional gasoline vehicles, battery electric vehicles’ emission of PM10, PM2.5 and SO2 was higher than conventional gasoline vehicles.3. The electric vehicles’ energy-saving and emission-reduction effect would increase with the development of power train electrification when expanded the use of clean energy power generation.4. Compared with conventional gasoline vehicles, electric vehicles’ life cycle cost advantage is not obvious for the high battery cost. However, the cost of battery electric vehicles and plug hybrid vehicles would gradually reduce and the economic benefits would increase with the strengthening of technological learning effect and scale effect.