The Comparing Study between Electric Scooter and Gasoline-Fueled Scooter by Life Cycle Assessment
Abstract
To improve the air quality in urban area, Environmental Protection Administration has established and actively promoted a program of “The development of Electric Scooter” since 1998. However, people still doubted about whether electric scooter is really more environmental friendly than gasoline-fueled scooter. Therefore in this study, an objective and effective analysis of “life cycle assessment” was performed to compare electric scooter and gasoline-fueled scooter to obtain a comprehensive evaluation and suggestion.
The main study subjects were an electric scooter named “Dancing in the Air”and a tetra-stroke and gasoline-fueled scooter named “Easy 50”, both were produced by Kymco Company. The reasons to choose these 2 subjects were as follow. First of all, the tetra-stroke scooter will be the main stream in the future market. Secondly, the designs, including frame and cases, of electric scooter “Dancing in the Air” was slightly modified from a model of 50 c.c. with identical parts except battery and motor. Furthermore, the body of a 50 c.c. scooter was also adopted by the electric scooter to be the main body. In this study, the aspects including energy utilization efficiency, resources consumption, air pollution, costs for purchase and usage, and policy for energy price, were analyzedand compared followed by an actual disjointingand inventory. A software for life cycle assessment, SimaPro 5.0 was then used to analyze the impacts of these 2 types of scooters on the environment
The discovery from results:
For pollutions including noise, granular pollutants, CO release, HC+NOx release, and CO2 release, electric scooter indeed cause less problems and is more environmental friendly than the traditional gasoline-fueled scooter and is better for theimprovement of air quality in urban area. In a same mileage, electric scooters could save the energy for 44.32% more than that of gasoline-fueled scooter. Furthermore, the energy resources for electric scooters are more diversified, which is beneficial for the energy resources sustainability.
With subsidization, the cost for purchasing an electric scooter was just as the same as a gasoline-fueled scooter, however, the price of a electric scooter with no subsidization was 21,000 higher than a gasoline-fueled scooter. Under an ideal usage (that is a mileage of 60,000 km and a battery with a normal life), thetotal cost for gasoline-fueled scooter was 16,500 higher with subsidization but 4,500 lower without subsidization, than that of electric scooter. As for the energy cost, a gasoline-fueled scooter have to pay 10,245 more for the commodity tax since gasoline is double taxed (with commodity tax and 5% of business tax, but only 5% business tax for electricity). After the deduction of commodity tax and subsidization, thetotal cost for gasoline-fueled scooter was 14,745 less than that of electric scooter.
In the analysis with a life cycle assessment software, SimaPro5, it was found that at the product stage, the environment impact unit of electric scooter was 37.5Pt, which is higher than 10.8Pt of gasoline-fueled scooter. This different impact was mainly caused by Lead-Acid battery. At the usage stage, with a same mileage of 60,000 km, the total environment impact was 361 pt for gasoline-fueled scooter and 167 Pt for electric scooter. The environment impact of gasoline-fueled scooter was 194 Pt much higher than that of electric scooter. As for gasoline-fueled scooter, it was mainly cause by using gasoline, which was 344 Pt. As for electric scooter, it was caused by electricity and Lead-Acid battery, which was 88.9Pt and 78.08Pt, respectively. At the stage of disposal, with a complete recycling, the environment impact was -4.69 Pt for electric scooter and -6.54 Pt for gasoline-fueled scooter, which was slightly higher. As for the whole life cycle, the total environment impact was 199.81Pt for electric scooter and 365.26 for gasoline-fueled scooter. The gasoline-fueled scooter had a total environment impact higher than that of electric scooter for as many as 165.45Pt. That is, electric scooter was more environmental friendly than gasoline-fueled scooter. As for the 3 major impact aspects to the environment during the whole life cycle, the biggest difference between these 2 types of scooters was in the aspect of resources since that of gasoline-fueled scooter was 186.56 Pt higher than that of electric scooter. The second was in the aspect of human health, electric scooter was 19.4 Pt higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter. As for 11 characterized results, electric scooter was 1883.2 MJ surplus higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter in the aspect of minerals requirement. It was thus evident that electric scooter has consumed more materials . In the aspect of fossil fuels requirement, gasoline-fueled scooter was 7058.3 MJ surplus than that of electric scooter. This was due to that the fossil fuel used by electric scooter was less. In the aspect of land, electric scooter was 43.74 PDF＊m2yr higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter. However, in the aspect of ecotoxicity, gasoline-fueled scooter was 182.402 PAF＊m2yr higher than that of electric scooter.
With a life less than expected, the cost for electric scooter would be greatly increased. While the life was reduced to 30,000 km and 20,000 km, the cost for every kilometer would be 1.74 and 2.23 with subsidization and 2.44 and 3.28 without subsidization. These were all higher than 1.43 of gasoline-fueled scooter, no matter if with subsidization. In addition, while electric scooter could last for 60,000 kilometer as expected, the battery life was greatly affected by the riding habit and manner. If the usage of a set of battery was less than 4,616 km, the total environment impact during the whole life cycle would be higher than that of gasoline-fueled scooter.
Keywords: life cycle assessment, electric scooter, gasoline-fueled scooter, SimaPro, resources, energy