ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF ELECTRIC HYBRID VEHICLE

As modern culture and technology continue to develop, the growing presence of global warming and irreversible
climate change draws increasing amounts of concern from the world’s population.

Countries around the world are working to drastically reduce CO2 emissions as well as other harmful
environmental pollutants. Amongst the most notable producers of these pollutants are automobiles, which are almost
exclusively powered by internal combustion engines and spew out unhealthy emissions.

According to various reports, cars and trucks are responsible for almost 25% of CO 2 emission and other major
transportation methods account for another 12%. With immense quantities of cars on the road today, pure combustion
engines are quickly becoming a target of global warming blame. One potential alternative to the world’s dependence on
standard combustion engine vehicles are hybrid cars. Cost-effectiveness is also an important factor contributing to the
development of an environment friendly transportation sector.

Hybrid Vehicle

A hybrid vehicle combines any type of two power (energy) sources. Possible combinations include diesel/electric,
gasoline/fly wheel, and fuel cell (FC)/battery. Typically, one energy source is storage, and the other is conversion of a fuel
to energy. In the majority of modern hybrids, cars are powered by a combination of traditional gasoline power and the
addition of an electric motor. However, hybrid still use the petroleum based engine while driving so they are not
completely clean, just cleaner than petroleum only cars. This enables hybrid cars to have the potential to segue into new
technologies that rely strictly on alternate fuel sources.

The design of such vehicles requires, among other developments, improvements in power train systems, fuel processing,
and power conversion technologies. Opportunities for utilizing various fuels for vehicle propulsion, with an emphasis on
synthetic fuels (e.g., hydrogen, biodiesel, bioethanol, dimethyl ether, ammonia, etc.) as well as electricity via electrical
batteries, have been analyzed over the last decade.

A Case Study

This case treated the following aspects: economic criteria, environmental criteria, and a combined impact criterion.
The latter is a normalized indicator that takes into account the effects on both environmental and economic performance
of the options considered.

Case compared four kinds of fuel-propulsion vehicle alternatives. Two additional kinds of vehicles, both of which are zero
polluting at fuel utilization stage (during vehicle operation) were also included in analysis. The vehicles analyzed were as
follows:

1. Conventional gasoline vehicle (gasoline fuel and ICE),

2. Hybrid vehicle (gasoline fuel, electrical drive, and large rechargeable battery),

3. Electric vehicle (high-capacity electrical battery and electrical drive/generator),

4. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (high-pressure hydrogen fuel tank, fuel cell, electrical drive),

5. Hydrogen internal combustion vehicle (high-pressure hydrogen fuel tank and ICE),
 6. Ammonia-fueled vehicle (liquid ammonia fuel tank, ammonia thermo-catalytic decomposition and separation
unit to generate pure hydrogen, hydrogen-fueled ICE).

For environmental impact analysis, all stages of the life cycle were considered, starting from

a) The extraction of natural resources to produce materials and

b) Ending with conversion of the energy stored onboard the vehicle into mechanical energy for vehicle
displacement and

c) Other purposes (heating, cooling, lighting, etc.).

In addition, vehicle production stages and end-of-life disposal contribute substantially when quantifying the life cycle
environmental impact of fuel-propulsion alternatives. The analysis were conducted on six vehicles, each was
representative of one of the above discussed categories. The specific vehicles were:

1) Toyota Corolla (conventional vehicle),

2) Toyota Prius (hybrid vehicle),

3) Toyota RAV4EV (electric vehicle),

4) Honda FCX (hydrogen fuel cell vehicle),

5) Ford Focus H2-ICE (hydrogen ICE vehicle),

6) Ford Focus H2-ICE adapted to use ammonia as source of hydrogen (ammonia-fueled ICE vehicle).

Economic Analysis

A number of key economic parameters that characterize vehicles were:

A. Vehicle price,

B. Fuel cost,

C. Driving range.

This case neglected maintenance costs; however, for the hybrid and electric vehicles, the cost of battery replacement
during the lifetime was accounted for. The driving range determines the frequency (number and separation distance) of
fueling stations for each vehicle type. The total fuel cost and the total number of kilometers driven were related to the
vehicle life (see Table 1).

For the Honda FCX the listed initial price for a prototype leased in 2002 was USk$2,000, which is estimated to
drop below USk$100 in regular production. Currently, a Honda FCX can be leased for 3 years with a total price of
USk$21.6. In order to render the comparative study reasonable, the initial price of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is assumed
here to be USk$100. For electric vehicle, the specific cost was estimated to be US$569/kWh with nickel metal hydride
(NiMeH) batteries which are typically used in hybrid and electric cars. Historical prices of typical fuels were used to
calculate annual average price.
 Table1: Technical and economical values for selected vehicle types

Environmental Analysis

Analysis for the first five options was based on published data from manufacturers. The results for the sixth case, i.e. the
ammonia-fueled vehicle, were calculated from data published by Ford on the performance of its hydrogen-fueled Ford
Focus vehicle. Two environmental impact elements were accounted for in the:

a) Air pollution (AP) emissions

b) Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The main GHGs were CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride), which have GHG impact weighting coefficients
relative to CO2 of 1, 21, 310, and 24,900, respectively. For Air Pollution, the airborne pollutants CO, NOx, SOx, and VOCs
are assigned the following weighting coefficients: 0.017, 1, 1.3, and 0.64, respectively. The vehicle production stage
contributes to the total life cycle environmental impact through the pollution associated with

a) The extraction and processing of material resources,

b) Manufacturing and

c) The vehicle disposal stage.

Additional sources of GHG and Air Pollution emissions were associated with the fuel production and utilization stages.
The environmental impacts of these stages have been evaluated in numerous life cycle assessments of fuel cycles.
Regarding electricity production for the electric car case, three case scenarios were considered here:

1. when electricity is produced from renewable energy sources and nuclear energy;

2. when 50% of the electricity is produced from renewable energy sources and 50% from natural gas at an
efficiency of 40%;

3. when electricity is produced from natural gas at an efficiency of 40%.

Air Pollution emissions were calculated assuming that GHG emissions for plant manufacturing correspond entirely to
natural gas combustion. GHG and Air Pollution emissions embedded in manufacturing a natural gas power generation
plant were negligible compared to the direct emissions during its utilization. Taking those factors into account, GHG and
Air Pollution emissions for the three scenarios of electricity generation were presented in Table 2.
Table2: GHG and air pollution emissions per MJ of electricity produced

Hydrogen charging of fuel tanks on vehicles requires compression. Therefore, presented case considered the
energy for hydrogen compression to be provided by electricity. GHG and Air Pollution emissions were reported for
hydrogen vehicles for the three electricity-generation scenarios considered (see table 3), accounting for the environmental
effects of hydrogen compression.
Table 3: GHG and air pollution emissions per MJ fuel of Hydrogen from natural gas produced

The environmental impact of the fuel utilization stage, as well as the overall life cycle is presented in Table 4. The
H2-ICE vehicle results were based on the assumption that the only GHG emissions during the utilization stage were
associated with the compression work, needed to fill the fuel tank of the vehicle. The GHG effect of water vapor emissions
was neglected in this analysis due its little value. For the ammonia fuel vehicle, a very small amount of pump work was
needed therefore, ammonia fuel was considered to emit no GHGs during fuel utilization.
Table 4. Environmental impact associated with vehicle Overall Life cycle and Fuel Utilization State
Results of technical–economical–environmental Analysis:

In present situation this case study provides a general approach for assessing the combined technical–economical–
environmental benefits of transportation options. This analysis showed that the hybrid and electric cars have advantages
over the others. The economics and environmental impact associated with use of an electric car depends significantly on
the source of the electricity:

a. If electricity is generated from renewable energy sources, the electric car is advantageous to the hybrid vehicle.

b. If the electricity is generated from fossil fuels, the electric car remains competitive only if the electricity is
generated onboard.

c. If the electricity is generated with an efficiency of 50–60% by a gas turbine engine connected to a high-capacity
battery and electric motor, the electric car is superior in many respects.

d. For electricity-generation scenarios 2 and 3, using ammonia as a means to store hydrogen onboard a vehicle is
the best option among those analyzed.

The electric car with capability for onboard electricity generation represents a beneficial option and is worthy of further
investigation, as part of efforts to develop energy efficient and ecologically benign vehicles. The main limitations of this
study were as follows:

(i) the use of data which may be of limited accuracy in some instances;

(ii) the subjectivity of the indicators chosen; and

(iii) the simplicity of the procedure used for developing the general indicator without using unique weighting
coefficients.

Despite these limitations, the study reflects relatively accurately and realistically the present situation and provides a
general approach for assessing the combined technical–economical–environmental benefits of transportation options.