Fflife cycle assessment as a decision-support tool for determining environmental impacts: A passenger car use-case

This study applies life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) operated under different national electricity mixes, using Slovenia and selected European countries as case studies. The analysis utilizes the Ecoinvent database and the Environmental Footprint 3.1 (EF 3.1) impact assessment method, implemented in SimaPro, with a functional unit of 100 km of passenger car transport. Results show that BEV life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are highly sensitive to national grid carbon intensity, with coal-intensive mixes yielding BEV climate change impacts that are close to or higher than those of ICEVs. In contrast, low-carbon, renewable-based mixes substantially improve BEV performance in the climate change category. The highest life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of BEV per 100 km of transport among the analyzed countries were in the case of Serbia, which mainly produces electricity from thermal power plants (20.9 kg CO2-eq), compared to Norway with 0.44 kg CO2-eq. Increasing the share of photovoltaics in Slovenia's electricity mix reduces the life cycle climate impacts of BEV use but slightly increases mineral and metal resource use, indicating a burden-shifting trade-off between decarbonization and material demand. The findings demonstrate that country-specific electricity mixes, when assessing environmental performance, need to be taken into account. Support policies that combine grid decarbonization, smart charging aligned with low-carbon hours, and improved battery and PV material circularity should be adopted to maximize the sustainability benefits of BEVs.