ON THE ROAD IN 2020 - A LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS OF NEW AUTOMOBILE TECHNOLOGIES

TLDR

The report focuses on the role of passenger cars in global CO₂ emissions, noting that transportation accounts for about 30 % of OECD CO₂ and 20 % worldwide, and that policy or market constraints on GHGs could target this sector. The study evaluates emerging automobile technologies that could be commercialized by 2020, aiming to identify options that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Abstract

This report is a description of work done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the past two years to assess technologies for new passenger cars that could be developed and commercialized by the year 2020. The report does not make predictions about which technologies will be developed nor judgments about which technologies should be developed-issues for the marketplace and for public policy that are not examined here. The primary motivation for this study was the desire to assess new automobile technologies which have the potential to function with lower emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) widely believed to contribute to global warming. The GHG of most concern here is carbon dioxide (CO2), but methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) can also be important. If public policy or market forces result in constraints on GHG emissions, automobiles and other light duty vehicles-a key part of the transportation sector-will be candidates for those constraints since the transportation sector accounts for about 30% of all CO2 emissions in OECD countries, and about 20% worldwide.