The remaining CO2 budget: a comparison of the CO2 emissions of diesel and BEV drivetrain technology

Abstract

This paper describes the CO₂ emissions of the additional electricity generation needed in Germany for battery electric vehicles. Different scenarios drawn up by the transmission system operators in past and for future years for expansion of the energy sources of electricity generation in Germany are considered. From these expansion scenarios, hourly resolved real-time simulations of the different years are created. Based on the calculations, it can be shown that even in 2035, the carbon footprint of a battery electric vehicle at a consumption of 22.5 kWh/100 km including losses and provision will be around 100 g CO₂/km. Furthermore, it is shown why the often-mentioned German energy mix is not suitable for calculating the emissions of a battery electric vehicle fleet. Since the carbon footprint of a BEV improves significantly over the years due to the progressive expansion of renewable-energy sources, a comparison is drawn at the end of this work between a BEV (29.8 tons of CO₂), a conventional diesel vehicle (34.4 tons of CO₂), and a diesel vehicle with R33 fuel (25.8 tons of CO₂) over the entire useful life.