Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Vehicles – A Framework to Consider Influencing Factors

The environmental impacts of electric vehicles (EVs) partially depend on the parameters of their site of operation. Variations of average driving patterns in different geographic locations and the use of heating and cooling due to local climate conditions have an impact on the energy consumption of EVs. In combination with the regional electricity mix these factors influence the environmental impact of EVs. Hence, these influencing factors must be included in an ecological assessment. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method is used for the quantitative ecological assessment. An LCA can e.g. serve as a decisions support tool in vehicle engineering. This paper proposes a framework to consider influencing factors for the ecological assessment of EVs. A case study is used to demonstrate the capability of the framework.