Environmental and economic effects of widespread introduction of electric vehicles in Greece

PurposeThe scope of this paper is to present the results of the Project HyTech, which aimed, amongst other objectives, to quantify the environmental and economic effects of generalized introduction and use of electric vehicles in Greece.MethodThe expected energy consumption and life cycle economic and environmental cost of electric vehicles for the present and immediate future is estimated after a relevant literature review. The future evolution of the Greek vehicle fleet relative to the Gross Domestic Product per capita is approximated by use of a Gompertz curve. The number of new vehicles registered every year, the age composition of the vehicle fleet, the resulting Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and energy use costs are calculated depending on a set of parameters. Choosing different sets of assumptions and calculating the resulting vehicle fleet statistics through year 2030, we investigated a number of scenarios.ResultsThe effect of market penetration by electric and hybrid vehicles and the resulting benefit on energy use cost and GHG emissions, compared to conventional vehicles is presented for each scenario. Fuel consumption and mileage of the vehicle fleet is a major factor that determines energy use cost and GHG emissions, regardless of fleet composition. In the case of an optimistic scenario that assumes a high renewal rate for the vehicle fleet, significant EV and HEV market penetration and use of renewable energy sources for battery recharging, a reduction of 668 kT CO2 in GHG emissions and 362 million € in energy costs per year in 2030 could be achieved.