Influence of the uptake of electric vehicles on the impact on climate change of an entire future vehicle fleet, a 2020 Brussels perspective

Electric vehicles have a clear benefit over conventional vehicles when it comes to the impact on climate change. Underlying paper describes how fast (or slow) the uptake of electric vehicles can change the overall performance of an entire fleet on climate change. The benefit of a large share of electric vehicles in a fleet is compared to a future fleet with energy efficient conventional vehicles (petrol and diesel). The study area is the car fleet of Brussels, Belgium. The time horizon is 2020. It is investigated how big the climate benefits can be of a potential uptake of electric vehicles in a fleet. Two different vehicle fleets of the Brussels Capital Region (BCR) are compared with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), consisting of a ‘business as usual’ and an ‘EV uptake’ set of vehicles. Future electricity mixes, with more renewable energy, are taken into account. It is concluded that a moderate uptake of electric vehicles (as described in the paper) leads to a yearly emission reduction of 10 kton CO₂ in 2020 for the Brussels Fleet compared to a reference scenario. This means that in 2020 it is possible to have a fleet in Brussels consisting of 1,8% BEV’s 1,6% PHEV’s that reduces 1,9% (or 10 kton CO₂) of the yearly CO₂ emissions when compared to a ‘Business as usual’ scenario.