Fuel Selections for Electrified Vehicles: A Well-to-Wheel Analysis

Abstract

Electrified vehicles (xEV), especially the battery electric vehicle (BEV), are burgeoning and growing fast in China, aimed at building a sustainable, carbon-neutral future. This work presents an overview and quantitative comparison of the carbon-neutral vehicles fuel options based on the well-to-wheel (WTW) analysis. A more intuitionistic figure demonstrates the fuel options for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and describes the sustainability. Electricity and hydrogen shift the tailpipe emissions to the upstream process, forming larger WTW emissions from a fuel cycle view. The electricity WTW GHG emission reaches as much as twice that of gasoline. However, the high efficiency of the electric drive system improves the WTW emission performance from a vehicle view, making the lowest WTW emission of BEV. The fuel options’ technical and environmental perspectives are presented. Finally, long-term carbon-neutral vehicle development is discussed.