The Electric Vehicle in the Climate Change Race. Tortoise, Hare or Both?

Europe is seeking ways to decrease the growing negative impact of passenger cars on climate, currently responsible for up to 12% of total EU CO2 emissions. After biofuels in the nineties and hydrogen in 2000, the new answer to climate change appears to be electric. But contrary to many marketing messages, electric cars are not zero emissions cars. They will not necessarily contribute to actual CO2 emission reductions before 2020 and even then, not in every country. In EU Member States where the power sector is based on coal, they could actually make things worse. In others, bad management of the charging function could increase peak load requirements and cause investments in fossil-fuel-fired power plants. Finally, electric vehicles and related costs are very high. Not only does this cast doubts on the extent and timing of their eventual market breakthrough, but it may also mean that their CO2 tone abatement cost is high. Nonetheless, for the longer term, CO2 emissions from conventional vehicles can only be reduced to a certain extent whereas the potential for electric vehicles plugged into a de-carbonised electricity grid approaches zero. If electric cars are to help to reduce CO2 emissions significantly in the future, Europe needs to start now to develop this promising mitigation tool. There is in theory almost no constraint on the electric vehicle becoming a 'zero emission vehicle', while conventional car will always have to burn fuel. This paper finds that drawing firm conclusions on the real CO2 savings potential of electric vehicles belongs to the myth of Sisyphus. We roll the heavy ball of electric vehicle technology work up the hill, only to have lack of progress in power generation, infrastructures, batteries, prices all or individually send it rolling back down: the number of variables bearing on the CO2 abatement outcome is impressive, statistics often incomplete, methodologies for assessing net CO2 emissions unclear, and circumstances vary greatly from place to place. This paper also demonstrates that results of CO2 savings studies cannot either be generalized to the entire European Union. Based on market forecasts for the state-of-the-art in power production, it appears that the electric vehicle is not a substantive way of reducing CO2 as compared to other car technologies, and surely not a cost effective one. Even in some countries, such as France where the electric car could be a medium term solution, several challenges have first to be addressed. This paper concludes that CO2 abatement is not currently the main driver behind the push for electric vehicles, at least at the European Level or in particular in such countries as Germany or Poland. The support for electric vehicles can be seen for now to be as much or more an industrial rather than a climate change policy. Introduced in an sustainable system, the electric car could nevertheless be a critical long term, solution. This paper finds that green credits were too easily granted to the electric vehicle