Validation of the well-to-wheel approach in the ecoscore methodology with life cycle assessment for passenger cars

Abstract

Two methodologies are often used for assessing the environmental impact of a specific car, namely the Ecoscore methodology, a well-to-wheel environmental rating tool for vehicles, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The environmental impact of a selection of petrol and diesel cars of different ages, as well as alternatively fuelled vehicles (LPG, CNG, HEV, BEV), has been assessed using both methodologies. The influence of neglecting the impact of the vehicle production, maintenance and end-of-life (EoL) phases has shown to be very small, especially for conventional vehicle technologies (petrol, diesel, LPG). For hybrid (HEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV), the manufacturing and EoL of the battery also play an important role, which is mainly displayed in the impact on human health and ecosystems. However, since the impact on global warming counts for 50% in the final Ecoscore, these differences will play a smaller role and - more importantly - still lead to the same ranking of the vehicle technologies as in the LCA results for greenhouse effect. These results have shown that the Ecoscore methodology is an efficient environmental rating tool and hence that a well-to-wheel approach can be considered as a good approximation of a full LCA, in these cases where only the homologated emission and fuel consumption data are available. LCA can however provide a more profound assessment, in case sufficient data are available, since more impact categories and pollutants can be taken into account. © 2012 WIT Press.