Are electric vehicles eco-friendly products? A review from life cycle and sustainability perspective

Abstract

Industry, especially the automotive industry is permanently changing and adapting to the external and internal factors. The appearance of the new types of vehicles – electric vehicles, is a big and important step not only regarding the evolution of the product, but also regarding the advantages of reducing environmental impact. It is promoted the idea that an electric vehicle generates less direct emissions in use phase compared with a conventional one. If we limit to this, we could say that we are dealing with an eco-friendly type of vehicle. The question is, can we extend this idea to the other stages of the life cycle? What about the sustainability of the industry? This article highlights the methods of environmental impact assessment used by researchers for electric vehicles in terms of life cycle and sustainability. The findings of this systematic review demonstrate that even if are a large number of articles addressing electric vehicles, only a small number of them evaluate the electric vehicle from life cycle and sustainability point of view.