TITLE:
Benefits of Reducing Air Emissions: Replacing Conventional with Electric Passenger Vehicles
AUTHORS:
Ofira Ayalon, Bernanda Flicstein, Amos Shtibelman
KEYWORDS:
Air Emissions; Electric Vehicles; Passenger Car Externalities; Power Generation Externalities; Battery-Switch EASYBAT EU FP7
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.4 No.10,
September
30,
2013
ABSTRACT: The study estimated the cost of local and global air emissions, and to
compare the differences between electric passenger vehicles (EV) and conventional,
internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. The air emissions were estimated for
the year 2020, for Denmark, France and Israel, because of their significantly different fuel
mixes to produce electricity—a high percentage of renewable energy, mainly
nuclear energy and high fossil fuels, respectively. Air emissions from
electricity production and conventional traffic were calculated for each
country and then multiplied by the specific country’s cost of emissions.
Subtracting the
total cost of electricity production from the total cost of conventional
transportation yields the total benefit for each of the economies studied. The
environmental benefit, depending on EV penetration rates, was found to be in the range of 7.8 to
133 MEUR/year for Denmark, 94 to1948 MEUR/year for France and only 4 to 82
MEUR/year for Israel, whose energy mix is the most polluting. Our analysis also shows higher potential benefits when replacing passenger car fleets
comprising a high percentage of diesel cars with EVs, as well as in highly
populated areas. In addition, we quantified the
differences between EVs with fixed batteries and the new switch able battery concept (EASYBAT), as
part of the EU 7th Framework Program me. The additional electricity demands
for the EASYBAT concept are negligible, and therefore, do not change the
overall conclusion that the cleaner the electricity energy mix and the higher
the penetration of EVs, the higher the environmental benefits achieved.