UTTRI faculty associates Professors Heather MacLean, I. Daniel Posen, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Alexandre Milovanoff share their research on life cycle GHG emissions from electric vehicles (EVs) versus traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
EVs are being embraced by some Canadians, but there are barriers to widespread adoption of EVs, notably the need for higher capacity electrical grids and the provision of charging infrastructure.
The purchase cost of an electric vehicle is also higher than a traditional ICE vehicle. According to the article, this is mostly due to battery cost, which is gradually coming down.
Dr. Milovanoff says that government funding is needed to make EVs affordable and practical for most Canadians. He describes it as a “‘chicken-and-egg’ problem facing EV adoption in Canada.”
“If you don’t have the EVs on the road, does it really make sense to invest that much in infrastructure? But if you don’t have the infrastructure, does it make sense to buy an EV?”
“The only way to solve this chicken-and-egg problem,” Milovanoff says, “is for the government to say ‘we invest in (electric vehicles).’”
The three researchers have completed Life Cycle Assessment for EVs that considers “the production of the batteries, as well as ‘upstream’ emissions from the electricity generation required to feed all those batteries.”
Life Cycle Assessment focuses on investigating the overall environmental impact, such as total embodied GHG emission, of a product through its life.
The researchers calculate that after two or three years of use, electric vehicle emissions “will outpace a conventional car engine.”
“After you’ve owned that vehicle for a couple of years … and you’re driving it a reasonable amount, you’re going to have essentially a break-even with an internal combustion engine vehicle at years two or three,” MacLean says.
Watch the video and read “‘It’s not going to happen by accident’: The push for an EV revolution in Canada,” Global News, May 15, 2021.