Personal Vehicles Evaluated against Climate Change Mitigation Targets
Name
acs.est.6b00177.pdf
Size
2.88 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e4e54d1f0efabf2b29a9ed6bb188992c
Author(s)
Trancik, Jessika E.
Miotti, Marco Alexander
Supran, Geoffrey J
Kim, Ella J
Date Issued
September 2016
Journal
Environmental Science & Technology
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Miotti, Marco et al. “Personal Vehicles Evaluated Against Climate Change Mitigation Targets.” Environmental Science & Technology 50, 20 (September 2016): 10795–10804 © 2016 American Chemical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Meeting global climate change mitigation goals will likely require that transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions begin to decline within the next two decades and then continue to fall. A variety of vehicle technologies and fuels are commercially available to consumers today that can reduce the emissions of the transportation sector. Yet what are the best options, and do any suffice to meet climate policy targets? Here, we examine the costs and carbon intensities of 125 light-duty vehicle models on the U.S. market today and evaluate these models against U.S. emission-reduction targets for 2030, 2040, and 2050 that are compatible with the goal of limiting mean global temperature rise to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Our results show that consumers are not required to pay more for a low-carbon-emitting vehicle. Across the diverse set of vehicle models and powertrain technologies examined, a clean vehicle is usually a low-cost vehicle. Although the average carbon intensity of vehicles sold in 2014 exceeds the climate target for 2030 by more than 50%, we find that most hybrid and battery electric vehicles available today meet this target. By 2050, only electric vehicles supplied with almost completely carbon-free electric power are expected to meet climate-policy targets.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.EST.6B00177
