Regional Heterogeneity in the Emissions Benefits of Electrified and Lightweighted Light-Duty Vehicles
Name
acs.est.9b00648.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.07 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aeccbc63f8a265bf23101f1ab4eb9e09
Author(s)
Wu, Di
Guo, Fengdi
Field III, Frank R
De Kleine, Robert D.
Kim, Hyung Chul
Wallington, Timothy J.
Kirchain Jr, Randolph E
Date Issued
July 2019
Journal
Environmental Science & Technology
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Di, Wu et al. "Regional Heterogeneity in the Emissions Benefits of Electrified and Lightweighted Light-Duty Vehicles." Environmental Science & Technology 53, 18 (July 2019): 10560-10570 © 2019 American Chemical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Electrification and lightweighting technologies are important components of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategies for light-duty vehicles. Assessments of GHG emissions from light-duty vehicles should take a cradle-to-grave life cycle perspective and capture important regional effects. We report the first regionally explicit (county-level) life cycle assessment of the use of lightweighting and electrification for light-duty vehicles in the U.S. Regional differences in climate, electric grid burdens, and driving patterns compound to produce significant regional heterogeneity in the GHG benefits of electrification. We show that lightweighting further accentuates these regional differences. In fact, for the midsized cars considered in our analysis, model results suggest that aluminum lightweight vehicles with a combustion engine would have similar emissions to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in about 25% of the counties in the US and lower than battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in 20% of counties. The results highlight the need for a portfolio of fuel efficient offerings to recognize the heterogeneity of regional climate, electric grid burdens, and driving patterns.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Materials Systems Laboratory
MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b00648
