Battery electric vehicles show the lowest carbon footprints among passenger cars across 1.5–3.0 °C energy decarbonisation pathways

Joris Simaitis; Rick Lupton; Christopher Vagg; Isabela  Butnar; Romain Sacchi; Stephen Allen

doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02447-2

Battery electric vehicles show the lowest carbon footprints among passenger cars across 1.5–3.0 °C energy decarbonisation pathways

Joris Simaitis
, Rick Lupton
, Christopher Vagg
, Isabela Butnar
, Romain Sacchi
, Stephen Allen

University College London
Paul Scherrer Institute

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

35 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Passenger car carbon footprints are highly sensitive to future energy systems, a factor often overlooked in life cycle assessment. We use a time-dependent prospective life cycle assessment to enhance carbon footprints under four 1.5–3.0 °C decarbonisation pathways for electricity, fuel, and hydrogen from an energy-based integrated assessment model. Across 5000 comparative cases, battery electric vehicles consistently have the lowest carbon footprints compared to hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles. For example, battery electric vehicles show an average 32 to 47% lower footprint than hybrid combustion in 3.0 °C and 1.5 °C climate-compatible futures, respectively. This is driven by greater projected decarbonisation of electricity compared to fossil-dominated fuels and hydrogen. Battery electric vehicles meaningfully retain their advantage for mileages over 100,000 km, even in regions with carbon-intensive electricity since these are anticipated to decarbonise the most. Although our study supports battery electric vehicles as the most reliable climate-mitigation option for passenger cars, reducing their high manufacturing footprint remains important.

Original language	English
Article number	476
Journal	Communications Earth & Environment
Volume	6
Issue number	1
Early online date	18 Jun 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02447-2
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2025

Data Availability Statement

The authors declare that all underlying data are available within the article and Supplementary Data 1.

Funding

J.S. reports financial support was provided by EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems, Grant Number: EP/S023364/1. Joris Simaitis and Stephen Allen report financial support from the UK Energy Research Centre Phase 4 research programme (EPSRC), Grant Number: EP/S029575/1. Isabela Butnar received funding through UK Research and Innovation funded CO2RE Hub, grant number NE/V013106/1. Romain Sacchi received funding through the PRISMA project from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and from the European Union\u2019s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101081604.

Funders	Funder number
Spine Education and Research Institute
Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council	EP/S029575/1, EP/S023364/1
UK Research & Innovation	NE/V013106/1
European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme	101081604

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG 13 Climate Action

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Environmental Science
General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Access to Document

10.1038/s43247-025-02447-2Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Passenger car carbon footprints are highly sensitive to future energy systems, a factor often overlooked in life cycle assessment. We use a time-dependent prospective life cycle assessment to enhance carbon footprints under four 1.5{\textendash}3.0 °C decarbonisation pathways for electricity, fuel, and hydrogen from an energy-based integrated assessment model. Across 5000 comparative cases, battery electric vehicles consistently have the lowest carbon footprints compared to hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles. For example, battery electric vehicles show an average 32 to 47\% lower footprint than hybrid combustion in 3.0 °C and 1.5 °C climate-compatible futures, respectively. This is driven by greater projected decarbonisation of electricity compared to fossil-dominated fuels and hydrogen. Battery electric vehicles meaningfully retain their advantage for mileages over 100,000 km, even in regions with carbon-intensive electricity since these are anticipated to decarbonise the most. Although our study supports battery electric vehicles as the most reliable climate-mitigation option for passenger cars, reducing their high manufacturing footprint remains important.",

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