A comprehensive LCA CO2 emission inventory for passenger car fleet in Europe and future trends

Europe, countries worldwide and several organizations account systematically the emissions from road transport in various applications ranging from official sectorial targets setting to territorial inventories and monitoring statistics. However, this paper argues that the ongoing shift to electrification challenges the adequacy of these activities in revealing true climatic impacts of road transport. The current focus on Tank-to-Wheel (TTW) emissions that narrows the accounting boundaries to on-road operation would benefit from additional elements that would take into consideration upstream and end-of-life emissions of vehicles and fuels, similar to the approaches adopted in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). To support efforts for more holistic emission inventorying in Europe, this paper compiles a comprehensive lifecycle CO 2 inventory for the passenger-car fleet of EU-27 countries using a fleet-based method. The inventory is “comprehensive” in the sense that it represents the entire fleet at an increased level of detail, covering all fuel types and vehicle size classes, instead of emphasizing individual vehicle performance. It is also based on actual data for fleet composition, vehicle characteristics and activity patterns. Up-to-date emission factors are used to account for the fleet emission performance across all lifecycle stages. Projections for the future are made in all elements, considering a realistic fleet electrification pathway in response to official EU CO 2 targets. In addition, to ensure consistency and comparison with TTW regulated emissions reporting practices, the inventory builds upon COPERT, which is widely used for TTW inventorying in Europe, and enriches it with lifecycle system boundaries. Results achieved with this extended inventory have practical meaning as they answer questions on how much the total greenhouse emissions of the fleet are, and how far the global picture from the TTW is, given that targets for road transport are set on TTW basis in EU. Results show that electrification can bring true net-zero CO 2 results, which can only be assessed with an LCA-equivalent method.