Transport – Electrification🔗

Increase purchases of new electric cars, trucks, buses, trains, and possibly even ships and airplanes. Using electric motors for transport helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution if the electricity is from low-carbon sources like solar and wind.

Examples🔗

• Investments into electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
• Research and development into the technologies for vehicles, batteries, and charging.
• Corporate commitments to sales of electric vehicles.
• Programs to offer rebates and incentives to electric car purchases.

Big Messages🔗

• If the world is dependent on coal and natural gas for electric power, the net effect of electrification is only a slight change in emissions and temperature.

• Switching to electric modes of transport makes the biggest impact for the climate when electrical energy sources are low-carbon.

Key Dynamics🔗

• Overall efficiency is greater for electrified transport than for internal combustion engines–in general, less fuel is used to power transport with electricity than oil.

• Oil, in the “Global Sources of Primary Energy” graph, goes down as we electrify transport. At the same time, primary energy demand for coal, renewables, and to a more limited extent, natural gas, all increase to power the rise in electric demand.

Potential Co-Benefits of Encouraging Electrification🔗

• Improved air quality from fewer internal combustion engines increases healthcare savings and worker productivity.
• Jobs are created in the manufacturing and sales of electric batteries and engines.

Equity Considerations🔗

• Although costs are coming down, electric vehicles may not be affordable or available to everyone.
• Mining of lithium and copper, two necessary ingredients for the batteries used in electric vehicles, can be damaging to precious ecosystems and threaten the well-being of communities near mining sites.¹
• Electric charging station locations may not be accessible or the electric battery range may be insufficient for some situations.

Videos🔗

Electrification

Slider Settings🔗

The main Transport Electrification slider adds a policy mandating the minimum percentage of new road and rail transport (cars, trucks, buses, and trains) that must be powered by electricity rather than fuels.

Note that the slider’s electrification target is the minimum for the scenario. The Baseline scenario assumptions and other actions can lead to higher levels of electrification than this minimum.

With the “Electrification of new transport – air and water” slider in the advanced settings, you can set the percentage of new electric airplanes, ships, boats, etc. that use air or water to get around. Currently, electric airplanes and long-range electric ships are only available as prototypes and face significant technological challenges due to the limitations of energy storage, so the default assumption is that they do not scale up. If the slider is moved, then the electrification action would begin in 2030 and take 70 years to reach the specified percentage.

Model Structure🔗

This input directly forces growth of electrification up to a minimum percentage, unlike the inputs for energy sources, which change the financial attractiveness to drive future behavior.

FAQs🔗

• How do I simulate innovation in energy storage?

• How do I simulate hydrogen use?

Please visit support.climateinteractive.org for additional inquiries and support.

Footnotes

[1]: Lombrana, L. M. (2019, June 11). Saving the Planet With Electric Cars Means Strangling This Desert. Bloomberg Green.