Comparison of advanced fuels—Which technology can win from the life cycle perspective?

Abstract Alternative drivetrains and advanced fuels are considered as promising methods for providing sustainable mobility. To understand the overall environmental impact of passenger vehicles on global warming potential (GWP) and primary energy demand (PED), a life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted for currently popular sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and compared with that for compact cars. This LCA considered vehicle production as well as the use phase and fuel production; it is a well-to-wheel approach. To carry out this approach, different production processes of alternative vehicle types—plug-in hybrid (PHEV), hybrid (HEV), electric (EV), and fuel cell (FCEV) vehicles—were analyzed and compared with conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV). Furthermore, the emissions and PED due to the production and use of different advanced fuels, such as cellulosic bioethanol, biomass-to-liquid fuel, synthetic gases (methane and hydrogen) via power-to-X, and electricity from wind power, were compared with those of conventional gasoline, natural gas, steam-reforming hydrogen, and EU-28 electricity mix. It was found that alternative drivetrains, especially those for FCEV and EV, show a higher GWP during production of up to 50%. However, EVs have a 45% and FCEVs a 35% lower GWP than that of ICEVs, based on a lifetime of 200,000 pkm if operated with traditional fuels. Furthermore, the LCA shows that PHEVs, operated by electricity from wind and cellulosic bioethanol, exhibited the lowest GWP (33 gCO2, eq per pkm) of all analyzed SUV types. However, compact cars presented a different conclusion. For compact cars, EVs had the lowest GWP with 28 gCO2, eq per pkm. In terms of PED, a similar behavior to that of GWP was found.