Assessment of life cycle environmental impacts of materials, driving pattern, and climatic conditions on battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in a cold region

Abstract

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) can play an important role in addressing climate change by diminishing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the worldwide road transportation sector. There is limited research on the implications of the use of lightweight materials, driving pattern, and climatic impact on the life cycle GHG emissions in a cold region. To address this limitation, we developed a framework to assess eighteen BEV and four HFCV scenarios for a cold region that consider aforementioned parameters through a combination of driving patterns (in rural, city, and highway driving) and climatic conditions (i.e., summer, mild winter, and severe winter) for both conventional and carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CRFP)-based BEVs. A case study was conducted for Canada, considering its cold regions, using available data for HFCVs. We assessed city driving in summer and highway driving in severe winter conditions for conventional and CFRP-based HFCVs. The results show that the lowest GHG emissions are in cities in summer, with life cycle GHG emissions values of 68.7 g CO₂ eq/km for CFRP-based BEVs. The highest life cycle GHG emissions are 364.4 g CO₂ eq/km with conventional HFCVs on the highway in severe winter conditions' scenario. The operation phase emerges as the primary contributor to life cycle GHG emissions, closely trailed by the production phase. The analysis shows that the most sensitive parameters for CFRP-based BEVs in the city in summer scenario are vehicle lifetime and for conventional HFCVs in the highway in severe winter scenario, fuel cell efficiency. The analysis also shows the range of life cycle GHG emissions for a cold region, with conventional HFCVs on highways in severe winter conditions exhibiting the highest emissions (331.0 g CO₂ eq/km) and CFRP-based HFCVs in the city in summer scenario the lowest (51.0 g CO₂ eq/km).