How clean are electric cars?

We also see that electric cars bought in 2030 will reduce CO₂ emissions four-fold thanks to an EU grid relying more and more on renewables.
Despite their green credentials, HEVs’ and PHEVs’ lifecycle emissions are much closer to polluting conventional petrol cars than to BEVs. The results show that HEVs only achieve a 21% reduction in LCA emissions compared to an equivalent petrol car while PHEV improvements are limited to 26%.
For cars bought in 2030, a hybrid electric vehicle powered by a blend of e-fuels and petrol – according to the fuel industry forecasts – would reduce its lifecycle emissions by just 5% compared to powering the same vehicle with petrol. If the hybrid vehicle runs on pure renewable e-fuel – a hypothetical scenario, unlikely to be achieved – it could emits 82% less. Even then, the cleanest battery electric vehicle would still be 27% cleaner than the pure e-fuel hybrid, mainly due to the low efficiency of the e-fuel production process.
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